Building a 5.1 Setup

We’ll start here, it’s one of the most simplistic setups but it can yield a really immersive and enjoyable listening experience for both movies and music. First, you’ll need to consider your budget, the amount of money one can sink into a home theater can skyrocket into six figures, assuming you have the means. Let’s go ahead and consider that it’s incredibly unlikely to be the case, I think it’s safe to say that if you’ve made it this far you already have the TV or projector covered for your theater. However, if not there are a number of great options in HD and 4k UHD, we’ll get to those later on in another post. After deciding on a budget then you need to consider your space and intended use before selecting equipment to match those needs. Even a modest 5.1 system is such a dramatic difference in clarity, volume of sound and resonance of frequency that your neighbors might not always appreciate it in the same manner that you might. I’d strongly advise against adding a 5.1 setup in an apartment for these reasons, a house or a condo without shared walls tend to be a more ideal setting due to the subwoofer component of the setup. After a budget is determined then your space needs to be considered, how much room do you have? How tall are your ceilings? Do you have carpet or hard floors? What is the shape of your room? Where is the listening position? All of these things factor into how you might place your system and the sound that you can expect once everything is in place. Ultimately you would want to have a perfectly square room that is devoid of outside light and noise (like a movie theater) but that simply isn’t the case for the overwhelming majority of people so compromises must be made. Fortunately, most living rooms are oriented so that a listening space can be defined and tuned with the help of a computerized room correction tool that is often part of your home theater receiver which might help alleviate some of the imperfections that might be inherent in your room. For the most part people usually sit square to the viewing area so the front stage (the most important part consisting of the front left/right and center channel speakers) of your setup will be perfectly facing the listening area with the center being dead on and both the left and right speakers in towards the listening position at roughly 26 degrees. The rear speakers are where things can become tricky because rooms aren’t always uniform behind you, I, like a lot of people have a front stage that is in a corner or not against a 90 degree wall. What should you do? Well, try your best but if you can give yourself some extra wiggle room that’s the goal, if you can place your speakers behind you a few feet further back, say 7 ft as opposed to maybe 4 you can work with the angles that suit you. Your rear surrounds should face the listening position at approximately 140 degrees +/- 10 degrees and to understand this imagine drawing a straight line from the center channel and assuming that to be 0 degrees and directly to the opposite end to be 180 degrees like a protractor dissecting your room. Now, as for the subwoofer the easiest way to find out where to place it is to work backwards so to speak, essentially place the subwoofer in your listening position then crawl around the floor at the level the sub would be until you find a spot that is both sonically pleasing but also not in the way. Now, there are some caveats to this method, you will need to be sure that any ports aren’t blocked and that the HPF (high pass filter) is turned up to it’s highest setting then I would suggest playing music because it will give you a better interpretation of bass notes for the purposes of tuning as you do this method. So, now that we’ve dispensed with the basics of how one might adapt to a room now we should determine equipment and use, I use mine for both movies and music but to what degree you use each is a factor. Personally, I have always been a fan of front towers as opposed to satellites which would generally accompany a Home Theater In a Box (HTIB) due to better sound for music as I use it for this purpose quite often. On the other end of the spectrum if your use resides mostly for movies then you could easily suffice with satellites but the middle ground for those that fall into the 60/40 category either way I’d recommend bookshelf speakers for your front left/right. Now, all of these things circle back to budget and any one of these combinations can be had for under $1,000 or much more than $10,000 and a HTIB will probably go for around $500 in a 5.1 system these days. Now, if you are planning to build something from scratch piece by piece then the cost goes up considerably but you would most certainly have a system that may suit your needs for quite a while longer. So, if you want to upgrade your sound then a 5.1 surround sound is an exceptional starting point that can serve you for years to come if careful consideration to cost, space and functionality are taken into consideration.

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