How to Buy a Home Theater System

So now you've got a CD player, a DVD and digital video recorders (DVR), a plasma-screen TV, and a satellite dish. The perfect way to tie all these media components together is with a state-of-the-art home theater. Everything from low-end theaters-in-a-box to custom systems costing thousands of dollars is available. Here's how to create the ultimate private screening room.

Things You'll Need

• List of current components

Instructions

1. Take stock of your current components. A home theater system connects video sources (DVD, VCR, DVR, and cable or satellite boxes), a TV or monitor, and a set of five or six speakers through a home theater receiver. Many people also plug audio components (CD and MP3 players) into their receiver. It may be that all you need is a receiver and speakers.

2. Look at your space. If you have a dedicated room for the home theater, get a more powerful system (measured in watts per channel). For a bedroom, 40 watts is plenty; 40 to 80 watts is good for an average-sized living room. Get at least an 80-watt receiver if you have a large room with high ceilings.

3. Buy a receiver with at minimum Digital Theater System (DTS) or Dolby Digital. (Dolby Digital and DTS are competing, incompatible formats for home theater sound. Check your DVDs--they're more likely to have Dolby Digital sound.) Avoid receivers with Dolby Surround or Dolby ProLogic unless they also have Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES are the next step up; THX is the top of the line.

4. Check out the universal remote that comes with the receiver. You'll want to operate several components with this remote, so make sure it's easy to use and makes sense.

5. Listen carefully to the speakers when you shop. Six speakers make up the ideal home theater: left and right front-channel speakers, left and right surround speakers, a subwoofer, and a center-channel speaker. The center-channel speaker is probably the most important, since most movie dialogue comes from it. If you're watching the bottom line, forgo the subwoofer.

6. Consider theater-in-a-box systems if your space is average to small or you're technically challenged. Combining receiver, speakers and cables (and often a DVD player), these systems offer easy setup and operation as well as a smaller price tag. Read up on these systems online or in specialty magazines, since their quality ranges from surprisingly good to very bad.

Tips & Warnings

• Got kids? Dolby Digital includes a feature for latenight viewing that plays dialogue and quiet scenes a little louder, and noisy scenes a little quieter.

• Always hook up components by the connectors that provide the highest-quality signal. For video components, they are (in descending order) component-video, S-Video, composite-video, and antenna/cable inputs. For audio components, they are digital optical, coaxial, and RCA connectors.