Loud & Clear

Here's a 10-point checklist to great home theater audio.

There's something powerful about good music and good audio. Whether you're watching an epic like The Lord of the Rings or a historical documentary on Lewis and Clark, it's the music and sound that make the experience truly transformative. The epic score takes us out of our living rooms and transplants us in the fictional world of Middle Earth, right there with Frodo and Sam. And traditional fiddle music provides the adventure of floating down the Missouri en route to discovering a continent with Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery.

Also consider the power of great audio in dramas, tearjerkers, your favorite action flicks and thrillers. Imagine the famous shower scene in Psycho without the frightening score or Jaws without its orchestrated beats of terror and anticipation.

We're not just talking about music, either. You want to hear every sound as the filmmakers intended, whether it's bullets flying in The Matrix or Arnold flying a Harrier jet in True Lies. And you'll want to hear the soft and muffled conversations in 21 Grams. You'll want to hear the crickets in the night, the Beatles in concert, the ants in A Bug's Life.

We think you get the general surround-sound drift. Now here's a checklist to keep in mind when the audio topic comes up -- hopefully, loud and clear.

Know your budget. Figure on spending about half of your equipment costs on the audio. It's always tempting to lay out a bundle on the bigger-than-budgeted-for TV screen and then scrimp on the audio, but the result may be that you won't use your home theater as often as you thought, because you have pretty pictures but muddy sound.

A receiver's okay. For most family rooms, recreation rooms and other smaller home theaters, using a surround-sound receiver with a built-in amplifier is just fine. A separate surround-sound controller and power amplifier are generally used in higher-end rooms and audiophile-grade systems.

Look for Dolby Digital and DTS Digital. At a minimum, get a receiver that can decode soundtracks in Dolby Digital and DTS. Most surround-sound receivers come with this feature. Basically, it will allow you enjoy at least five full channels of surround sound, plus a subwoofer (a setup called 5.1). But don't settle for something that just says "5.1." Look for the brands Dolby Digital and DTS Digital on the front of the unit.

Definitely don't scrimp on speakers. Some people think they should spend most of their money on the electronics and that it does not matter what speakers you buy, because they're all the same. They soon learn different. You need good speakers to have good sound, period. And today, you can get a good set of surround-sound speakers to fit most budgets. This is not the place to become cheap.

Get full range, all around. Today's surround-sound formats like Dolby Digital and DTS Digital allow for full channels in all five or more speakers in your surround-sound setup. And your speakers should take advantage of that. This means each speaker should play audio from the 30-Hz to the 20-kHz range. In English, this means it should be able to reproduce virtually any sound we can hear except the low, low bass stuff (16 Hz to 30 Hz). Those low tones are usually handled by a subwoofer. Some home-theater-in-a-box and packaged surround-sound systems will feature center and surround-sound channels that don't quite deliver the full range. You probably won't notice this, as the center-channel speaker specializes in dialogue, while the surround-sound speakers offer more ambient sounds. But if you can, shoot for having all full-range speakers, and you'll get more out of your surround-sound system.

Match the speakers. Ideally, not only would all your speakers play the full range of sounds, but they would also be identical -- meaning of the same brand, model and size. The advantage of this is that it creates a uniform and smooth sound; different brands and models of speakers can sound radically different. But because of space requirements and other practical concerns, the center-channel and surround speakers must often be smaller than the left and right front speakers. That doesn't mean they can't match each other in sound. This is where the term "timbre (pronounced tam-ber) matching" comes in. Speakers with matched timbres have the same tonal quality. In other words, their sound matches or complements the other speakers being used. When you can't use all identical speakers, timbre matching can be accomplished by using different model speakers from the same speaker brand, as the models in a manufacturer's line of speakers are usually built to achieve a certain signature sound.

And don't scrimp on the center channel! The center channel may be one of the smaller speakers in your home theater setup. It may also be the goofiest looking, as it's often oriented horizontally. And because of that, it's often the most overlooked and downsized speaker. Now, here's the startling truth about it: It's the single most important speaker in your surround-sound system. It reproduces a great majority of all the sounds in a soundtrack, including all of the dialogue. And if you don't think dialogue is important, wait until you rewind about a dozen times to hear a plot-turning murmur and you still aren't able to make it out.

Match the power. Check the power ratings of your speakers to your amplifier (even in a receiver) to be sure they match or fall within the same basic range. Most speakers will have a minimum and maximum amount of power they can accept from an amplifier. Contrary to popular belief, most speakers don't "blow" because they are overpowered; they can be damaged because they don't receive enough power from the amplifier, causing the amp to overwork and "clip," or produce spikes of power that can cause the speakers to fail. (You may impress your friends with this knowledge at a later date.) It's also important to match impedance: a measurement of electrical resistance usually measured at 4, 6 or 8 Ohms.

Don't be infatuated with power. In other words, you probably don't need 100 watts per channel of power in the family room surround-sound system. Thirty to 50 watts per channel may do just fine. A better indicator of great sound is sensitivity, which basically indicates how efficiently the speaker handles power and responds. It is expressed in most speaker ratings as being between 87 dB (decibels) and 93 dB -- the higher the better. Now here's the real kicker for watt's-his-name next door who can't believe you settled for a system that delivers less than a screaming 100 watts per channel: A difference of just 3 dB in sensitivity is equal to about twice as much power. That means your 91 dB speakers at 50 watts probably sounds just as good -- we bet better -- than his 88 dB bleeders at 100 watts. You may instruct him to eat your surround-sound dust.

Get good speaker cables. We love to tease high-end audio guys who can debate the merits of one cable over another into the wee hours. But they have one good point: Crappy speaker cables produce crappy sound. And crappy speaker cables are usually what you get with home-theater-in-a-box and packaged speaker systems. Here's a quick step-by-step guide to conquering this little problem. First, immediately throw those cables out. Second, go to a specialty audio store and ask for 14-gauge audio cables. (The lower the gauge, the better, so don't get talked into 18-gauge.) If you need the wire to stretch great distances, you may even want 12-gauge.

Bonus Tip! The most important barometers of a good sound system are your own ears. Try out some systems, and go with the sound you like best. You'll be the one living with it.

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