7.1 home theater packages

[Spiegelo]

Hey, so I'm new here and totally out of my element. I currently have some 7.1 Onkyo home theater package that was practically given to me. It's my first system and I thoroughly enjoyed it for about a couple of months, but I'm starting to slowly realize all the little problems like how crappy the center channel is, how the sub overpowers all other speakers, and I'm also feeling like it's not true surround sound (it was described to me that if a car drives across the TV screen, I will actually hear it from right to left on my speakers which is not the case). I was wondering how you guys all became the audio nerds (experts) that you are, and what I should look into to become one as well as it's starting to become an interest of mine. What name brands/stats should I be looking at to tell what's what? Thanks in advance for any help guys, hope I'm not posting this in the wrong section.

 

[zhimbo]

I would start with optimizing what you have. That system should most definitely be giving you surround sound, at the very least, so you should make sure you have it set up correctly. It may also be possible to improve dialog clarity and get the subwoofer in balance.

Could you give the actual model, especially of the reciever?

The speaker positioning should be close to what is described at this link:
THX Surround Sound Setup

P.S. : Don't get me wrong, you should definitely consider getting a better setup...but that will take a while to figure out, and proper setup is also crucial to getting good sound.

 

[Spiegelo]

Hey thanks for replying. My model is the HTS-5400, the receiver and speakers all came in the same bundle. And I have it set up correct as far as the inputs correlating to where I have the speakers set up. I definitely have to turn the sub way down because it completely drowns out the other speakers.

PS: Wow I can't even quote your reply yet until I have 5 posts total. Talk about starting from scratch.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Correct speaker placement, Levels and EQ calibration - manual with spl meter or automatic with Audessey if you have it and subwoofer placement (crawling for subwoofer) will go a long way improving your experience.

http://www.audyssey.com/audio-technology/multeq/how-to
http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/speaker-setup-guidelines/crawling-for-bass-subwoofer-placement

 

[zhimbo]

I was wondering how you guys all became the audio nerds (experts) that you are, and what I should look into to become one as well as it's starting to become an interest of mine. What name brands/stats should I be looking at to tell what's what?

I read a lot, much of it utterly baffling and confusing at the time. I remember it took me forever to make heads or tails of what aspects of a receiver I should care about.

The truth is, it's hard to get a good, solid "beginner's course" in this stuff, and I don't know why. The articles in the archive here at Audioholics are pretty great, but many of them are WAY beyond a beginner, and they aren't organized in any particular way. Available books tend to be either for relative experts or are full of nonsense. This was a frustration for me when I was a newbie, and it frustrates me now that I can't just point beginners to a single convenient source to get started.

General rule: avoid any source of information that thinks that spending a lot of money on very expensive speaker cables will improve sound quality, or think that speaker cables need to "break in". Ditto for power cables.