Home Theater Audio Recommendations
I have not yet built a home theater system, but the below is what I currently plan to buy and what I would recommend to others looking into it. It should run around $1,400–$1,500 all together. It's meant to be a high-quality, nice setup without going crazy on the price.
- Receiver
- A receiver takes all the inputs from different devices, selects the one you want, converts it to an analog signal, amplifies it, and then sends it to your TV and speakers. This avoids your TV from being able to mess up the signal, and it is much easier to set up than a discrete DAC and amplifier.
- Denon AVR-S740H
- Buy at:
- Denon AVR-X1400H
- Basically the exact same thing as the X1400H, but this is slightly more powerful for the same price. It just sells out often. Get either one.
- Buy at:
- Subwoofer
- A subwoofer gives you dat bass. It's going to be the most expensive part of a home theater system, but you don't want to skimp out here.
- Monoprice Monolith 10" Ported
- This is a very good overall subwoofer for the money.
- Buy at:
- Monoprice Monolith 10" Sealed
- This is the same thing but sealed. A bit better you listen to music more than you watch movies and want more accurate sound over just more bass.
- Buy at:
- SVS PB-1000
- This is also a very good, basically equivalent subwoofer. It's an older brand, so it probably resells easier, and SVS has a better customer service experience.
- Buy at:
- Center Speaker
- The center speaker produces a decent amount of sound right in front of you, so you want it to be reasonably high-quality.
- HTD Level Two Center
- This is a classic, good center speaker.
- Buy at:
- Front Speakers
- The two front speakers produce the most sound and are therefore the most important part of the system. They're also directional. You want them head-level about 30° each way of the screen.
- HTD Level Two Bookshelf
- These are classic, good front speakers.
- Buy at:
- Surround Speakers
- Somewhat ironically, the specific surround speakers aren't all that important to a surround sound system. Really any bookshelf speaker would work here. Maybe a dipole speaker if you wanna get kind of fancy.
- Rear Speakers
- Although this is what makes this a 7.1 system instead of a 5.1, a lot of things don't use rear speakers a lot and the sound quality isn't that important. Just get some cheap bookshelf speakers.
- Stands
- You want your speakers at head-level. This is often hard to do with your natural furniture unless you just have a ton of conveniently-placed bookshelves. In comes stands. You can set your speakers on one of these bad boys and hold things off the ground without any further bulky furniture—basically defying gravity!
- AKUSTIK Universal Speaker Stand
- These are a pretty economical, very study way to hold your speakers in the air.
- Buy at:
- ZENY Studio Monitor Stand
- If your speaker doesn't have a hole in the bottom, you can just set it it on this. It should hold most speakers pretty well and isn't crazy expensive. Like, it's just an object you set something on though. You could literally use a large block of wood.
- Buy at:
- Cables
- You also need cables to hook all this up. I'm assuming several long banana cables, but I'm not positive what everything uses.