Featured Reviews & Articles

I admit it. There's a kind of precision about audio/video components, home theater and sound reproduction that's downright addictive, similar to the appeal of other technical hobbies like cameras, cars, boats and aviation. They all have their own vocabulary and jargon, of course, and it's easy to get bogged down or enraged by it (when I start dreaming about pixel counts and aspect ratios, do I need help?).

There are a variety of philosophies and theories. Oddly enough, while the methods vary greatly, most of the results are very similar. However, we will examine one variation of theories that lead to very different results.

Instructions on getting good bass from a subwoofer in any given room usually begin by suggesting corner placement of the subwoofer. And it's true: placing the subwoofer in a corner will equally energize all the room's resonances and maximize the subwoofer's output. However...

You researched and went out shopping on the internet and/or retail stores to assemble the ultimate home theater system. You spent hours auditioning all the competing brands, assuring yourself you bought the best system for your hard-earned money. You anxiously run home to connect your newfound system, drooling in anticipation like Pavlov's dog for you're first listening experience.

I can't tell you how many times I have been to department stores and walked by their electronics section to find salesmen luring customers into buying cubed speakers.

Adjusting the delay between the front and rear speakers is important when calibrating your system. Setting the delay too long may result in an echoed, unnatural surround field, or cause imaging shifts in the soundfield. However, adjusting the delay too short may result in a flat 2-dimensional sound field between the front and rear speakers.

I have been asked repeatedly by members of this forum about recommendations for putting subwoofers into custom or pre-made cabinetry so here are my opinions and recommendations.

We received numerous emails from fellow Audioholics who recently upgraded their home theater systems to find that the sonic improvements were less than expected. This is a topic that comes up more often than you think when the DIY Home Theater enthusiast upgrades his or her equipment. There are a few factors you need to consider to solve this issue. First you need to get used to the new receiver sounding different. The older receivers and processors did not have the same processing power as the new receivers. Even the high end receivers of just a few years ago funneled off sound from the Left and Right speakers to the center channel. They just were not as discrete as the processors in even the lower end receivers today. It may sound as though your center is not working as hard or your center is not "filling the room up" but this is how it is supposed to be thus you will be treated to a much better center dialog, smoother pans and better Foley and sound effects. In order to take advantage of a more discrete sounding processor, set up and calibration become more critical.

Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in placing your speaker system whether it is a 2 channel or multichannel surround system is finding the best location for your subwoofer.