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Basic Surround Sound??

16 years ago

We are new to big screen TV's and surround sound. We want a nice system but we don't want the most $$$$, We have remodeled our family room and it is studs and insulation with wallboard coming this week. We are going to purchase a 50" LCD or Plasma TV to hang on the wall, have no idea which one. We want to watch movies and TV, no music. What to do now? We go to Best Buy and a bunch of surround sound speakers in box sets. Which to pick? Anything we need to know?

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Comments (2)

davidandkasie
16 years ago
whether you ge the SS now or not, RUN THE CABLES NOW!! get in wall rated speaker wire and run it to where you will put the speakers. i cannot stress this enough, you neeed the wire in before the sheetrock goes up, it will make life so much simpler come time to hook up everythign. while you are at it, run at least 2, preferably 4, RG6 coax and at least 1 CAT5 ethernet/telco line to teh place teh TV will go.
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fandlil
16 years ago
I agree with davidandkasie. you should put the cables in before the sheetrock goes up. to accomplish this you need to decide where the tv & surround sound speakers are to be placed. if you are not sure about this, hire a local contractor who specializes in this. you might find one who will come to your house, size up the situation & give you a free estimate. Another option is to go to this website: crutchfield.com. They have a lot of info on the website about personal theater design. Incidentally, their prices are pretty good, although not the lowest, and ther customer service is terrific. In fact, if you called their 800 customer service #, you will probably get good answers to your questions.
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First I would like to say that you made a good decision to not put the TV above the fireplace. Thank you. You are a great example to everyone else. To answer your question I would do a mix of the two. I would do the in-wall speakers for the LCR and back. If you really desire to have 7.1 or atmos I would put the ceiling speakers in the location of the first picture. As far as the subwoofer goes, it really depends. The best thing to do is test out different locations. If you are in the stages of wiring your home during construction then I would wire it for both locations. Keep in mind that this room was not designed for sound so there will be some less than optimal places to sit while watching a movie. Dolby has some pretty good information on where to place speakers in an ideal situation. Here's a link to that page. Dolby Speaker Setup Guide
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Beagles - I think we had that before as well. TV was smaller though so it fit the length perfectly. I think our TV is also a 70" - the true measurements are 37 1/2" x 65 13/16". Yours looks nicer than I think ours would (being unevenly matched in width) because you have the cabinet to define the boundaries, plus the shadows help. I will have to look around for side speakers like RoseAbbey has - if they match the height, I could definitely accept that. Homepro, thanks for the link. Those would be OK, again, ideally if it's the right length.
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