So you’ve finally broken down and purchased that new HD TV and surround sound system. Soon you’ll be the envy of the neighborhood. Think of the great times you will have hosting Super Bowl parties and movie nights. There is one small problem, however. You don’t know how to set everything up.

The best way to get your home theater set up properly is to hire a professional. These professionals will come out with all their fancy equipment and make sure that your color and contrast ratios are just perfect. They will make sure that your speakers are calibrated properly for the size of the room and distance to the listening position. What’s that you say? You just spent all your money on all that new home theater equipment? This article will help you learn how to setup your home theater properly.

The first thing that needs to be considered is placement of the TV or projector screen. The screen should be directly across from the viewing position, and at eye level for the most comfortable and enjoyable experience. You don’t want to place the TV too high off the floor, as this will cause your neck to become very sore after a 2 hour movie.

Once you’ve determined the best place for the TV, you need to decide where to place the speakers.  Ideally, the distance between the listening position, and all speakers should be equal. So if the main speakers are set at a distance of 10 feet, then all other speakers (excluding the subwoofer) should also be set 10 feet away. Most home theater setups today will be a 5.1 system. This means that there will be 5 separate speakers, plus a subwoofer. The “.1” is used to refer to the bass signals, since it does not produce a full range of sound like the other channels do. There are also 6.1, 7.1, and so on systems, but we’ll stick with 5.1, since most audio tracks are recorded this way.

With your 7.1 surround sound system, you will have one center channel speaker, left front (LF), right front (RF), left rear (LR), and right rear (RR). All speaker positions are assumed the listener is facing toward the screen.

The center channel speaker should be placed as close the screen as possible. This speaker is responsible for producing most of the dialog spoken in the movie and pretty much any sound that comes from the screen. Next are the front left and front right speakers. These need to be placed on either side of the screen. It is important to keep the distance between the center channel and these two speakers the same. Next are the rear speakers. These should be placed behind the listener, but inline with the front two speakers. Also keep the distance between these two speakers the same as that between the two front speakers. Ideally, all these speakers should be at the same height. The tweeter and midrange should be at ear level. Last but not least is the subwoofer. The placement of this speaker is not as important as the others, but it will sound best on the floor in a corner. This way, the bass frequencies will bounce off both walls and fill the room a little better.

Now that you have everything in it’s proper place, it is time to invite everyone over, right? Not yet. You should first make sure that you have all the wiring going to where it needs to go. For example, it is not uncommon to accidentally cross the wires for the two front speakers. Most home theater receivers will have a sound test option, to verify that the speakers are all placed properly. Next, you should go into the receiver’s menu and setup the speakers there. Most receivers will have you specify the distance to each speaker (just in case you couldn’t space them all equally) and also how large your speakers are. You will also need to turn the subwoofer feature on, so that the receiver knows to send all the bass frequencies to the woofer.

Many DVDs come with a useful tool called the THX optimizer. This is a handy little tool that can be used to help setup your home theater as well. It is a simplified version of one of the tools that the pros use. This will have a grayscale pattern, used for setting the proper brightness of the screen. This will make sure that you don’t have your TV too bright, or not bright enough. It will also have a variety of other tools to make sure you can get the most out of your home theater.

Once you have mastered setting up your home theater, you are then ready to invite all the neighbors over for that big game, or for movie night. If you’ve done it right, you will be the envy of the neighborhood and people will ask you for advice, because you are now an expert. Way to go you audio/videophile!

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