How to Install a Home Theater - Speaker Placement
Hi, it’s Keith Harmon with Smart Wired Home and we’re back to talk about surround sound and how do you place your speakers to get the most out of your surround sound. So, we got three different kinds of surround sound in general that we’re talking about here, 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1. What does that mean? You got 5 speakers, 5, 6, or 7 sets of speakers that are placed around the room and you have the dot 1 which means the subwoofer which is usually an amplified or a passive or unamplified module that produces all the low sounds. So we look at where do we wanna place those in a room? Well, at generally the front row we got the center channel, that’s where most of your dialogue. You’ll be surprised at how much really comes out of that center channel because most of it is that most of the TV and the shows that you watch, a lot of it is dialogue when people talking back and forth and as long as they’re both on the screen, that’s where the majority of the signals gonna come from. The speakers on the right and the left, of course they’re gonna go on the right and left of the screen. So that’s your front 3 speakers and that’s where the majority of the sounds gonna come from. Now we start to look at the rear of the room, we have the surround or special effects. You got a cellphone that somebody calls off the screen, a jet plane that goes over head, or the storm troopers are chasing you from behind or whatever that special effect is, those are gonna be coming from the rear speakers. So in a 5.1 situation, you’re gonna be placing them either on either side of the room, on the side wall or on the two back walls. Either one of those is an acceptable location. It’s gets to be what works with your décor. The 6.1 would take those two sides and add one in the center. And then the 7.1 would say you have both the side and the rear on either side with nothing in the center in the back. Here’s the catch though, even though you look at all this things, you know you say like, oh, I obviously have to have 7.1. In 2007, there are virtually no signals that are coming from any DVDs or TVs that are coming out in 7.1. Almost everything is 5.1. You just do not find that. It really is not, it’s a subtle difference between with the sound that’s coming from right behind you or little behind you. So there’s really not that much with it, now when we see that happen in the future, I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball. But all I can tell you is that right now, you can get away with having 5.1 and not worry about spending the money on the 2 more speakers. If you have your, if you have open environment where you can put wires behind the walls, probably worthwhile to wire up the 7 speakers but maybe not purchase them yet. Have the wires on the wall so that you be hook them up, be able to hook them up some day when that 7.1 signals become more ubiquitous and available.