Home Audio Speaker Buying Guide

The Basics: Home Audio Speakers

Seemingly overnight, your stereo system became obsolete. How did it happen? Simple--DVD technology took over the VHS home movie kingdom, and suddenly, stereo was "out" as surround sound became an easily attainable home theater option.

You could easily purchase all the speakers you would need to achieve what has become the minimum requirements for home theater: front left and right speakers, a center-channel speaker, a pair of surrounds, and a subwoofer. You can match up individual pieces to create yourown system. Just make sure the piecies: work well together; are timbre matched; and that you have enough cable to hook them up. Or, you can simply purchase a complete system, with all those concerns already taken care of.

At the same time, there is still a place for stereo speakers. A vast majority of music purchased today is stereo (two-channel) in nature, and robust stereo speakers will provide much better audio reproduction than the front left and right speakers of a home theater system. In addition, a pair of stereo towers can serve admirably in a multichannel home theater system. They might not be a perfect tonal match with the other speakers in the setup, but the difference will not be audible to most listeners.

If there's one technology that has remained fairly unchanged for many years, it would have to be speaker design. Basically, a magnetic voice coil moves a diaphragm to generate audible frequencies--that's all there is to a speaker. What has changed is the precision with which they're built, the choice of materials used and the shape of the cabinets that house them.

For years, subwoofers were reserved for car audio fanatics and a few audiophiles. With the recent explosion of home theaters, subwoofers are taking their rightful place...hidden on the floor in the corner of the room. The ".1" in 5.1 refers to the LFE (low-frequency effects or low-frequency extension) track that allows sound mixers to put an incredible amount of bass into a movie soundtrack--both musically and with sound effects. Most speakers don't have the frequency response to handle these extremely low frequencies, so a separate subwoofer, specifically designed to reproduce these sounds, makes sense.

The human ear has a hard time localizing low bass frequencies, particularly sounds that are less than 120Hz. The phenomena allows placement of subwoofers wherever they might sound and look best; fortunately, the corner of a room usually satisfies both criteria.

These days, most subwoofers are powered, or "active," meaning they come with a built-in amplifier that needs to be plugged in, so plan accordingly when figuring out where you'll place it. The size and power can range from a small 8-inch driver with a modest 50-watt amplifier to dual 15-inch speakers with over 1,000 watts of power. You can get as much bass as your home's foundation can handle.





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