Factors That Make The Best Home Theater System
Posted under ELECTRONICS & GADGETS, Home Theater on Oct 13, 2007
To some degree, gone are the days when people would drive to the nearest movie theater, to enjoy a movie experience.
Instead, we see people these days driving to the nearest home entertainment specialist shop, beefing up their old TV rooms into quality home theater systems, with premise of enjoying a movie with theater-like surround sound quality at home.
With the current relative cheapness of home theater equipment, this doesn’t really come as a surprise.
The trend of recreating a movie theater experience in the comfort of one’s own home, has brought about a new range of questions, and among them would be: What are the Factors that define the best home theater system?
Budget-Performance Ratio
As generally the same to items other than home theater systems, it is true that shelling out more money for a home theater system would yield the best home theater system one dreams of, though not necessarily.
A reasonably tight budget could yield a performance-to-budget home theater system, given a thorough understanding of what the best home theater system is for a consumer’s price range.
The best home theater doesn’t necessarily have to be a 7.1 channel surround sound setup when budget-performance ratio is concerned.
A thorough understanding of what a surround sound speaker setup types could result to the best home theater system, at a reasonable price within one’s allocated funds.
Overall Versatility
Overall versatility defines the best home theater system, considering the various audio and video formats there are, not to mention devices and the media they are stored in.
The best home theater system can handle both Dolby Laboratories and Digital Theater Systems sound formats, as these sound formats implement different surround sound speaker output, complimenting home theater systems.
The best home theater system also supports DivX and/or Xvid encoded media, as well as DVD, DVD-R, CD, and CD-R/W media formats.
IPod, and other similar portable audio players, should also be supported by the best home theater system, ideally with compressed audio amplification features.
The best home theater system should also have XM Satellite Radio support, as well as regular AM/FM radio support.
Bottom line, overall versatility defines the best home theater to the status.
Indeed, gone are the days when people would drive to the nearest movie theater, to enjoy a movie experience. Instead, people these days are driving to the nearest home entertainment specialist shop, looking for the best home theater system they could get.
Performance-Price Ratio and versatility. The best bang a consumer could get from his/her buck.
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1 Comment(s)
By Jeff on Mar 1, 2008 | Reply
Let me throw in a couple of tips that may help too when making a purchase. Go with HD equipment - which is pretty much standard now. For flat screens, try looking for DLP units. Bigger screen size is better up to a certain size. Typically about 1/2 the distance away from your seating to your screen is about the size (so, 7′ away would suggest around a 42″ screen).
Most DVD players are progressive scan (provides more of a flicker-free image), but check that your TV has the inputs that can support a progressive scan unit. While on DVD players, try to opt for the Blu-Ray HD player if your budget allows. Since the recent annoucement from Toshiba to drop their version of HD DVD, Blu-Ray is coming out the winner and everyone will start to fully fall inline.
For speakers, around 100 Watts is a good place to land when getting your first system. Also checkinto wireless versions of Home Theater systems - a perfect solution for smaller living rooms, or even apartments that a limited to any more permanent installations.
Hope all of this helps.