Purchasing an Audio Receiver

As nice as having a large screen for your home theater is, your audio receiver is just as important. Perhaps it is even more important. We all have seen the gag in movies and on TV where the big muscle-building guy has the voice of a 12 year old girl. As hilarious as that is in the movies, do you really want your friends to get that impression of you when they come over? How do you achieve that "big sound" that will make you the envy of the neighborhood? Don't worry, just read on…

First we have to understand, in rough terms, what an audio receiver does for you. The job of the audio receiver is to amplify sound to your speakers. The 5.1 home theaters have become the average these days. Now before your eyes glaze-over, let me explain what the "5.1" means. The first number (5) represents how many of the small speakers you have. Then second number (.1) is how many subwoofers you have. Like the name sounds, woofers are the ones that make the deep, resonating sounds for you. Mid-range speakers handle sounds in the range of the average human, as far as tone. High frequency: highs are, oddly enough, the higher range of noises. Good examples of that would be a whistle or something shrill, like the average mother-in-law. The second job of the receiver is to separate the channels. Channel separation is why you hear the guy on the left of your screen talking on the left side of your living room. Savvy?

Let's talk speaker wattage now. The tendency is to look at the big red numbers on the box and go bigger. Bigger is always better-right? That's not always the case. Sorry man, you have to actually read the box a little. Do the 500 watts refer to the speakers or the receiver? Speakers have no wattage themselves, but instead have a watt rating (how many watts they can handle). So you could have speakers rated at 1500 Watts, but if you buy a receiver with only 200 watts per channel, it's really like putting a lawnmower engine in a Jaguar. Why would you do such a thing?

We've established that speakers have no power of their own and hopefully you've figured out without having to be told that the power comes from your audio receiver. So what wattage is right for you? Without having to do too much math, let's assume you have speakers with a rating of 200 watts. You don't have to buy a 200 WPC (watt per channel) receiver. Instead look at the RMS or average power of your audio receiver. That should realistically be at about 3/4 of your speakers' rating. Why? Because if your speaker is rated at 200 watts, you have some room for "peak performance" from your receiver. Realistically, if you overpower your speakers too much, then the loud explosions will sound distorted and you'll have to cancel your living room dance party because when you crank the polka music, it will be too distorted to dance to.

Another concern is decidedly less high tech: the environment you will be using as your home theater. Acoustics play a role as well. Acoustics refers to how sound travels in a given room or environment. You have the room for your theater, you have sounds, so you will need a fundamental understanding of acoustics. How does sound move through your room? Again, we have some hard and fast rules for this. Read on intrepid do-it-yourselfer!

"Warm" rooms are generally just that: warm. Think about a movie theater. Have you ever noticed the extra padding and/or heavy curtains on the wall? That's to absorb sound. So basically, a sound at say, 70 dB (decibels) is born and dies right away making room for the next sound to take its place. This is the ideal environment for your home theater. Realistically, it's not going to go down that way. The exact opposite would be the "cold" room. Go into a public restroom, or if you have the time drive to the Grand Canyon. Sound echoes there. That's bad, and though it's not really that discernable to the untrained ear in say…your apartment, it is a factor in noise.

Fixing a cold room is easy. Throw down some rugs, hang some pictures or tapestries, and possibly move some furniture against the wall. Fixing a warm room is harder. Usually, the biggest problem is muffled bass. Try raising you subwoofer off the floor a little; that might give the sound a little more room to permeate the area. Recording studios spend thousands of dollars to have someone "tune" their rooms. So if you don't have a perfect acoustic setting, don't feel bad if it takes you several tries with speaker placement and room acoustics.

There is a sense of accomplishment that comes with installing your audio receiver. However if you get stuck, don't be afraid to pick up the phone and call for help. A knowledgeable and trusted friend is a good idea for that phone call. The cable company is a bad idea. Cable companies generally will not help you beyond the cable plugged into their own boxes, but the guys at the local electronics shop are usually a fountain of information. You all share that same common bond: the quest to achieve that nice theater where the popcorn is way cheaper!

Zeeman Haus enjoys writing articles online on a variety of subjects. You can check out his latest website on HDMI Review which discusses how you can get low prices on HDMI Cables, Splitters, Extenders, Boxes, and Adaptors.