By David Gibbons
Revised April 2007
In doing overall planning for a home theater, the RULE OF THIRDS must be kept in mind.
The rule is simple: One-third of your money and/or effort should be spent on equipment. One-third of your money and/or effort should be spent on the room. The last third of your money and/or effort should be spent on correctly locating, configuring (setting up) and adjusting the equipment.
Very expensive equipment poorly set up will not deliver value.
No matter how carefully you set up the equipment, if the room is noisy, full of echoes, or plagued with lots of ambient light, good results will not be forthcoming.
Cheap equipment of poor quality will just fall short, even if you work hard to set it up the best you can in a good room.
The last item deserves a little more comment. When I say cheap equipment, this does not mean that you have to go out and spend a thousand dollars on each speaker, $3,000 on the amplifier, and $20,000 on the display. Cheap is when the entire surround speaker system costs well under $400. Cheap is when the DVD player costs $40. No-name brands sold at super discounts are not bargains. Name-brand electronics (such as Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung, Polk, Cambridge Soundworks, etc.) deliver very good value for their mid-range prices.(To be fair, some folks reading this essay may not be able to afford even mid-range prices - look for the better home-theater-in-a-box deals, you can still get a good value for your more limited funds.)
Advertising will lead you to believe that all of your home theater performance problems will be taken care of by just buying very expensive equipment.
More thoughtful writers will mention the importance of making sure the room is appropriate for home theater service.
You will see mention in home theater book and magazine articles about setting your equipment up, but there is a lot to be done to make sure that each piece of equipment is configured correctly for your system, that each piece of equipment is adjusted for its best performance in your theater, and that the arrangement of each of the pieces of your system results in the best total results. (Shameless plug - this is one of the things that I specialize in doing.)
When you are studying up on home theater, make sure that you don't just study the equipment specs. Also work to gain an understanding of how to:
1) Prevent noise and acoustic problems in the room. (One has to do with keeping external sounds out, the other has to do with how sound travels around within the room.)
2) Locate and interconnect all of your pieces of equipment to get their best performance.
3) Adjust your pieces of equipment to get the best performance.
The essay on Balanced Home Theater can also be read to help you to apply the Rule Of Thirds to your home theater.
Good viewing,
David Gibbons
Home theater Tune-Up
