5.1 Channel Speakers Reviews
In a minimum home theater speaker system setup, there will be six speakers:
• two front speakers
• two rear speakers
• a center speaker
• a subwoofer
The subwoofer part is optional and is required only if the other speakers are not capable of reproducing the lowers frequencies.
You can get such a system in two ways: either purchasing each speaker separately, or buying a home theater speaker set.
Home Theater Speaker Sets
If your budget is on the low side, consider this option. Remember though not to spare on speakers, since they are a very important part for your home theater system. You’ll find many cheap sets on the internet, so be careful about the trap of buying one of these, since they are likely of poor quality. On the other hand, home theater speaker sets produced by renowned brands, such as Klipsch or JBL for example, will yield a decent sound. This will save you a lot over buying the speakers individually, while giving you quite a good sound quality. Consider our top picks below for some of the best choices in this category.
Buying each speaker individually
If you are passionate about sound quality and take seriously your future home theater, you’ll consider spending a bit more money and buying separate speakers for each channel. This will buy you the best quality you can have. Also, if you don’t have the money to spend for the entire set, you can puy it in batches. For example, buy first the front satellites, then the rear ones and lastly the center piece.
The front speakers are the strongest pieces in the home theater setup. For a smaller room, it’s best to pick bookshelf speakers. For larger rooms you’ll need larger speakers, such as tower speakers, which are generally more powerful.
It’s often said that it’s best to buy the same speakers for rear and front. It may be true, but it’s not very practical: the sounds you hear in the movie don’t use the rear speakers as much as the front ones. So, you can are able to use less-powerful units for your surround speakers, since it won’t be a big differences.
Pay good attention when choosing the center channel speaker. It’s a special design, with a special frequency response. It’s best if it’s the same brand as the other speakers, but make sure it’s designed especially for the center channel. This is a very important until, since this speaker is used for voices and talking in the sound mix.
The subwoofer is the final piece in the surround setup. It’s used to reproduce the lower frequencies. For discrete speakers setup, it’s usually optional: the front speakers can be powerful enough and able to reproduce the lower frequencies, so an additional subwoofer is not necessary. In larger rooms though, as well as with smaller speakers, it’s required. Subwoofers draw lots of power, so almost every time they will have their own power socket (and hence, they are called “active subwoofers”).
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