Bah, I had this whole thread typed out and Chrome crashed! Curse the world. Ok, try #2. . .
My living room has rather high ceilings that slope and while my glorious $400 Proscan TV does a splendid job projecting moving images, its audio really seems to get lost in this room. It’s not just my deaf self either, as friends regularly ask me to turn the TV up— which usually ends up with the TV turned as high as it will go. Someone suggested I get surround sound, so here I am, looking for advice.
Some points:
[ul]
[li]I don’t need movie theater level surround sound- I just need an improvement on what I’ve got now.[/li][li]I would rather not have to run wires in my walls. I’m pretty good at installing stuff myself, but running cables really isn’t something I want to do. I also would rather not have to pay someone to come out and set it up for me.[/li][li]I’d prefer if the speakers weren’t Teri Hatcher without makeup hideous, but I’m willing to disguise them if need be. :)[/li][/ul]
Because I think the problem is a combo of cheap tv + odd room design, I’ve included some pictures so you can hopefully help me figure out the ideal place to stick some speakers. The pictures start facing the tv and basically go around the room, clockwise. The only difference between the pictures and now is that I’ve got a big trunk coffee table now.
As far as what is hooked to my tv- I don’t have the HD package from my cable company (because I don’t care enough to pay an extra $10 a month), I have a regular ol’ DVD player, and a Wii. That’s it.
Ideally, I’d like to get a set up as cheap as possible without getting total crap. I’m just curious what the options are. Thank you!
What isn’t “total crap” really depends on how picky you are. A basic system has 5 speakers, a subwoofer and a receiver. The usual cheap approach is to get a “Home Theater in a Box” or “HTIB” system that has all of them together. These usually run several hundred dollars. If you buy individual components you’re usually looking at close to a thousand to get good stuff. You could check Amazon to see what HTIBs have good reviews, and maybe search for magazine reviews. I don’t know anything about which ones are better.
The center speaker should be above or below the screen; below is easier usually. The front L and R should be about 30 degrees off to the left and right, or as close to that as you can get. You’ll want stands for them. You might want to move the TV to the left so you can get the right speaker further away from it without putting it where someone will walk into. Although you want to be able to still sit in the center.
The rear speakers are supposed to be 110-120 degrees away from the front, really on the sides and slightly behind you rather than in the back. But that will be the case anyway since your couch is all the way in the back. It’s also best to have the rears slightly above your head. Some systems these days have 6 or 7 speakers, and the extras are supposed to go in the back, but that’s hard to do when the couch is right against the wall.
I’m not sure how you should run the rear wires since there are doors on each side. There are flat speaker wires you can run against the wall, and various things you can cover wires with and whatnot. Is there enough room for you to run wires below that door on the right? I mean, is the doorway raised above the floor? There are also some systems that have wireless transmitters for the rear speakers, but that’s an added expense and then the rears would still have to be plugged in for power.
If you really want an upgrade from the TV speakers with minimal cost and fuss, there are “soundbars” that sit in front of the TV and have better quality speakers. They often come with a subwoofer. They usually have some simulation of surround sound, like the “surround mode” on most TVs these days. You could check Amazon reviews for those. Yamaha makes soundbars that actually form multiple beams of sound that bounce off the walls for real surround sound, but I’m fairly sure those wouldn’t work in your room with the side walls so far away and all.
I love my surround sound setup, but I wouldn’t say extra volume is a strong reason to go surround. You could just add a low end receiver and decent speakers in the front and forget about the rears, if the main goal is to make it louder. You could even skip the subwoofer if you don’t need deep bass and the front speakers you choose can go low enough.
For example, this receiver is pretty inexpensive and could support 5.1 (surround with rear channels) if you decide you want them later.
Do you have an unfinished basement? If so, running the wires is not that difficult.
I have a Yamaha HTiB that works wonderfully well, that I bought for $499. It’s a receiver, a pair of front speakers with stands to bring them to ear height, a center speaker that I’ve mounted under the TV, a pair of rear speakers that I put on the back wall and a powered subwoofer. The most important feature was the built-in audio alignment system, where I set the included microphone at the listening position and it sends out a series of sounds and automatically adjusts the speaker levels and delays. That totally snapped the sound into focus.
I find surround sound borders on the retarded for TV sound tracks and it has limited use for most movies. Before anybody gets their panties all bunched up let me explain my position.
The lower bass notes in a surround sound system are all transmitted through a sub-woofer. This is because the lower frequency is somewhat non-directional. Only the higher frequencies make it to the rear speakers. In addition, most of the sound in a movie comes from the front because that is where the image is. A movie is presented like a play with all the action forward of the viewer. To immerse the viewer in the scene sounds are projected left and right of the viewer. this is done by staggering the sound between the front speakers. A great deal of sound “depth” is created this way. You do not need a surround sound system to experience this. A regular stereo amplifier will provide the imaging encoded in a movie. What a stereo system lacks is a center channel which helps to locate voices to the screen.
So, if you already have a stereo system try hooking it up and use the TV’s speakers as the center channel. If the stereo speakers are linear (all drivers facing forward) then angle them inward to improve imaging.
If you don’t have a stereo then look for a modestly priced system with angled satellite speakers. As for the sub-woofer, bigger is better because of the resonate frequency of the cone. All speakers have a resonate frequency. When that frequency is played through the speaker it produces an unnatural sound. When that becomes annoying is when that occurs in the range of the human voice. As a general rule, the larger the speaker, the lower the resonate frequency.
You may want to consider a sound bar. Most models are self amplified so you don’t need a seperate receiver/amplifier to run them. They also don’t require a lot of wiring.
From your pictures, I really don’t know where you’d put the Surround Right speaker. I’d go with either a sound bar or, more simply, some speakers up front (you can go with either a Left and a Right, or you can go Left, Right and Center - I’d also add a subwoofer if it’s in your budget).
I’d recommend against a Home Theater in a Box, especially the ones that include a DVD or bluray player. They’re (usually) pretty low end, and are especially hard to upgrade or include other components into (like your cable box).
I use a set of computer speakers (with a little sub woofer) for my bedroom TV because the speakers with the flat screen were horrible. I could not believe the sound I got out of them. What made it even better was the electronic equalizer that the TV software has. I was able to tune out the resonate frequency using the “custom” setting. I highly recommend this for people with modern flat screens in their bedroom. Just plug the computer speakers into the headphone jack.
Granted it’s not like my good stereo system but WOW, what a difference it made.
