Guide in Buying A Home Theater System

When it comes to listening to your favorite music at home or watching movies, your basic speaker set can’t exactly give you the experience you are looking for. Most of us might consider soundbars for our entertainment rooms. They are convenient and an improvement over the built-in TV speakers. Still, the sound experience still is not close to that of a cinema hall.

A much better solution to get a good cinematic experience is to invest in a quality home theatre system. Home theatre systems are setups that come bundled a subwoofer, audio amplifier-receiver, and satellite speakers.

There are a lot of brands that sell home theatre systems and the price of these packages varies based on the features they offer. They are part of one kit so they are easy to buy and setup. They are affordable as well, as compared to buying speakers, subwoofers, and receiver-amplifiers separately.

If you’re planning to buy a home theatre system for your home, here are some guidelines that you need to initially consider.

Budget and space

Your needs and budget are what will help you choose among home theatre options. In a lot of cases, people spend a lot on setting up the room, interiors, as well as on the television set. But, the speakers and amplifiers are neglected by many. The size of the room, free space and speaker placement are some of the other things to be considered. If you have a small room, you can go for a home theatre package that uses bookshelf-sized speakers. If you have a slightly bigger room, you can choose a 7.1 setup with a package that comes with either bookshelf-sized or floor standing speakers.

Speakers

The speakers also play an important role in delivering a great audio performance. Some home theatre packages come with bookshelf speakers and some of them come bundled with floor standing speakers. Generally, home theatre systems come with either 7.1 channel or 5.1 channel speakers.

A/V Receivers – what to look for?

The A/V receiver is the heart of your home theatre setup, so you need to choose wisely with that the package you choose. Today’s A/V receivers are packed with cool features, all thanks to advanced technology. While it is a good thing, first time buyers may get overwhelmed in choosing the right one. To get the right home theatre package, here are some important points to look for before you narrow down on a home theatre package.

What connectivity options to look for?

HDMI

The connectivity ports and the number of choices available on an A/V receiver is a deciding factor. While older A/V receivers come with HDMI 1.3 ports, the latest models may come with HDMI. The new releases offer support for Audio Return Channel (ARC), 3D video and Ethernet over HDMI. The ARC on HDMI 1.4 sends audio from the TV to A/V receivers, home-theatre-in-box (HTIB), or sound bars. HDMI ARC not only reduces the need of having a separate S/PDIF for audio connection, but likewise offers flexibility to upstream the audio data. If possible, look for an AV/ receiver that has at least three HDMI input ports so that you can connect multiple devices, such as a Blu-ray / DVD player, laptop, gaming console, etc.

Video conversion and 4K upscaling

While it was once deemed as a premium feature in A/V receivers, the latest releases are capable of video conversion and upscaling. Video conversion allows you to connect different component and composite video signals and then get them converted into digital signal. So, you can connect your older audio / video devices and transmit output to the TV using a single HDMI cable. If you are planning to buy the latest 4K resolution TV or already purchased one, this feature can be very advantageous. The process upscales the lower resolution signals to higher resolution so that it looks better on your HDTV / UHD TV. Although the upscaled signal is not high-definition, it is noticeably better.

Ethernet

Having Ethernet connectivity in the A/V receiver offers a ton of benefits, such as easy update of the receiver’s firmware and online music streaming. With DLNA, you also have access to content on your home network and stream music from your gadgets.