Equipment Needed for Home Theater System Setup

Home theater systems are all the rage these days. Our expert will help you decide whether you should buy a ready-to-go theater system or build your own with separate components. He'll also help you create the best surround sound environment by choosing the best speakers, sub woofers, and amplifiers. He also answers questions about how to connect all your theater components and whether you can have too much connected to one system - such as how video game systems can affect the rest of your equipment. Read on for lots of audio and electrical tips to help you create a theater quality entertainment system for your home.

Learn all about home theater systems from an expert in this informative interview. Just some of the topics covered include surround sound, speakers, amplifiers, where and how to place speakers, VCRs and DVD players along with many other important facets that you should know if you're setting up your own home entertainment center.

"Hello everyone! My name is Tony Ramirez and I am here to teach you the basics of setting up your own theater system, so enjoy. Our first step is to get all of the equipment and tools that we will need. In this example, we will be setting up a 5.1 surround sounds system. Just in case you ever wondered, the 1 in 5.1 is the subwoofer and the 5 or the 5 satellite speakers. Here we will have 5 basic book style speakers. One speaker will be used for the center speaker, another for the left channel, right channel, rear left and rear right. As for the 1, we are using a powered or active 8 inch Sub wolfer. In addition to the speakers, we will need an audio receiver capable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound. This unit here decodes both. Next we will acquire a DVD player with either optical or digital coax cable outputs. These outputs carry the Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound signal to your receiver. Finally, make sure you have speaker wire long enough to place the speakers where you would like them and also a Digital Coax Cable or optical cable."