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Setting Up An Anime Home Theater

Adding surround sound to a TV can transform the viewing and listening experience even more than buying a bigger set, and can transform your Anime viewing experience! Most TV sound can be improved by adding external speakers--a pair of self-powered speakers is a simple, easy way to do that. But for a real Anime home-theater experience, you need a big TV, a video source (hi-fi stereo VCR or DVD player), a surround-decoding receiver/amplifier, and five speakers plus a subwoofer. Here's an overview of the whole system:

Surround Sound Explained

Surround sound adds additional channels to familiar two-channel stereophonic sound for stronger movie-theater realism, allowing additional speakers to carry the multichannel sound found on movies.

What you&l hear depends on three things: the format used for the source (a TV show or DVD, for instance), the software decoder (on the receiver or DVD player) used to decipher the format, and the number of speakers you have. If your gear lacks the latest decoder, it can still handle the TV broadcast or DVD, but it will do so with fewer audio channels and less dramatic effect. Conversely, most current hardware can play older material only because new decoders are generally backward-compatible with early formats. Again, you&l hear fewer channels.

Here's a rundown on the major formats:

Dolby Surround, an early version of surround sound, is an analog encoding scheme used mostly for VHS movies and TV shows. It combines four channels into stereo soundtracks. With no decoder--say, on a TV--you&l hear stereo.

With a Dolby Pro Logic decoder, you&l hear four channels: left, right, center, and one limited-range surround channel. A newer version, Pro Logic II, has the same left, right, and center channels, but also has two discrete, full-range surround channels for a total of five channels. Most new receivers can decode Pro Logic II; older models may do only the original Pro Logic. You&l need four or five speakers for optimal sound.

The next step up is Dolby Digital, a digital encoding scheme that's also called Dolby Digital 5.1. Like Pro Logic II, it has full-range left and right channels in front and rear plus a center channel; it adds a subwoofer channel for deep bass (called ".1" because it's limited to low-frequency effects). Dolby Digital is used on digital media such as DVDs, digital cable, digital broadcast TV, and satellite transmissions. It can also decode material that uses Dolby Surround. Virtually all new receivers and some DVD players have Dolby Digital decoders. You&l need five full-range speakers and a subwoofer for optimal sound.

DTS (Digital Theater Systems) is a rival to Dolby Digital, also with six channels. It's offered on most new receivers and on some DVD players. It calls for the same speaker setup as Dolby Digital.

Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES are "extended surround" formats that add either a center-rear surround channel or an extra pair of rear-surround speakers that go behind the listener. With Dolby Digital EX, the two flavors are referred to, respectively, as Dolby Digital 6.1 (with three surround speakers) and 7.1 (with four surround speakers). Both formats are still relatively new and not widely used on either equipment or programming. At this stage, they are mostly for video enthusiasts. You&l need seven or eight speakers for the full effect.

THX is a certification by Lucasfilm (owner of the standard). It indicates that a multichannel audio product has passed certain performance and ergonomic tests and can process sound to simulate movie-theater acoustics.

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Connecting The Components

Video connections. The way you connect your audio and video equipment can affect the quality of the sound and images you receive. Here's a primer on the various kinds of connections you&l find on your equipment and what you can expect from each:

Even the best TV set won't live up to its potential without a high-quality video source and a high-quality connection. Most TVs 25 inches and larger have four types of inputs that offer varying levels of quality:

The antenna/cable (RF) input, often labeled "VHF/UHF," is the most basic connection. It's the easiest to use because it's the only one that carries both sound and picture on one cable--in this case, the familiar coaxial cable. (The other video inputs carry only the picture, requiring the use of a separate pair of audio inputs to carry the sound.) The antenna/cable input can be used with almost any video source. It's the only way to connect an antenna or cable (without a box), and it may be the only choice for an older VCR or TV.

The composite-video input (usually labeled "video") offers a small step up in quality. It uses one yellow RCA jack with a single hole to pass video signals. Two separate inputs (red and white) are used to pass the stereo audio signals. Most video sources have a composite-video connection, including cable boxes, VCRs, and DVD players.

The S-video input, a round jack with four holes, accepts even better-quality signals. This input separates the signal into two signals--color and brightness--which improves the image quality. This can be used to connect your TV to DVD players, satellite receivers, and digital-cable boxes, along with digital, S-VHS, or Hi-8 camcorders.

The component-video input, which has three RCA jacks (usually labeled "Y," "PB," and "PR") that are green, blue, and red, carries potentially the best-quality signals. It separates the video signal into three signals, two color and one brightness. This input is used primarily with DVD players. On HD-ready sets, this input is specially designed to handle signals from HDTV tuners and progressive-scan DVD players.

Most TVs have more than one S-video, composite-video, or component-video input so that you can connect several devices. On many sets, a composite-video or S-video input is on the front of the set for easy connection to camcorders and game devices.

Audio connections. The picture is only half the story, for you also need to hook up your sound equipment. To obtain the audio from devices such as a VCR, DVD player, cable or satellite receiver, or camcorder, you generally connect one or a pair of audio inputs to your receiver, which routes sound to the speakers. Stereo analog audio inputs are labeled L and R for left and right. Newer multichannel receivers will also have coaxial or optical digital-audio inputs for relaying surround sound; some have both. These allow you to use one cable instead of six analog cables to pass on the digital audio from a DVD player and some digital-cable and satellite receivers to a digital audio receiver. Make sure the receiver's input matches the output of any device you want to connect--in other words, to use an optical output on the DVD player, you need to have an optical input on the receiver.

To output the sound, every digital receiver will have at least six speaker terminals so it can accommodate a surround-sound system with six speakers. You don't have to use all six terminals; for example, you can use only two of these for a stereo setup. Most receivers also have a subwoofer pre-amp out, an output that carries unamplified low-frequency signals to an active (powered) subwoofer or a separate amplifier.

Some receivers have 5.1 inputs, six RCA jacks that accept multichannel analog audio signals that another device--such as a DVD player that has a built-in Dolby Digital or DTS decoder or that plays DVD-Audio or SACD discs--has already decoded through a process that splits a signal into six or more audio channels. The inputs are typically marked Front L and R, Rear (or Surround) L and R, Center, and Subwoofer (which also may be labeled LFE, for low-frequency effects).

User manuals should take you through much of the setup process. Hang on to them. Give yourself easy access to the back of the receiver and other components. You&l need good lighting to read the labeling on the back panels, so have a flashlight ready. Connect audio devices first. To connect speakers, you typically strip off enough insulation from the ends of the wires to connect them, without shorting, to adjacent wires. Observe proper polarity; like a battery, a speaker has "+" and "?quot; terminals. (The insulation of one wire in each pair should have a distinguishing feature, such as color or striping.) Reversing polarity can cause a loss of bass.

You can plug almost all of your components into a two-prong AC power strip--preferably a unit with surge suppression. The exceptions are the three high-powered devices: the TV, receiver, and powered subwoofer. Plug those into the wall or into a three-prong AC power strip. Or you can plug all of your components into a power control center, which controls the entire system and can include surge suppression.

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Arranging the Equipment

Make sure your room has enough distance between you and the TV for comfortable viewing. The ideal for viewing a conventional, 25- to 36-inch set: 8 to 11 feet. That gives your eyes enough distance to visually knit the scan lines into a unified picture. A high-definition TV screen has less-visible scan lines, so you can sit closer. For sets larger than 40 inches--flat-panel or projection sets--figure on sitting more than 10 feet away. Another way of looking at it: The bigger the room, the bigger the TV can be.

Receivers generate more heat than other audio and video components, so they need to go on the top of the stack or on their own shelf, with at least a couple of inches of head space and a path for the heat to escape. If a receiver's surface becomes hot to the touch, try one of the following: turn down the volume; provide more cooling, perhaps with a small fan; use speakers with a higher impedance; or (if the speaker is wired to two sets of speakers) play only one set at a time.

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Matching the Speakers & Receiver

Speakers and the receiver must match in two ways: power and impedance.

Power: Generally, the more power (measured in watts) a receiver delivers, the louder you can play music with less distortion. Each doubling of loudness uses about 10 times as much power. Most models these days provide plenty of power, at least 60 watts per channel.

Here's a quick guide to power requirements for various room sizes: 80 to 100 watts per channel for a large living room (15x25 feet or more with an 8-foot ceiling); 40 to 80 for an average living room (12x20 feet); 20 to 40 for a bedroom (12x14 feet). A "live" (echoey) room will need less power than a "dead" (muffled-sounding) room.

Impedance: Materials that conduct electrical current also resist the current's travel to varying degrees. This resistance, or impedance, is measured in ohms. Standard speaker impedance is 8 ohms, which all receivers can handle. Many speakers have an impedance as low as 4 ohms, according to Consumer Reports tests. All else being equal, 4-ohm speakers demand more current than 8-ohm speakers. The use of the former generally doesn't pose a problem at normal listening levels but may eventually cause a receiver to overheat or trip its internal overload switch when music is played very loud. Before buying 4-ohm speakers to regularly play loud music, check the manual or back panel of your receiver to confirm that the unit is compatible.

Placement: Some speakers overemphasize various frequencies when placed against the wall or tucked in a bookshelf.
Manufacturers?recommendations can help you decide on optimal placement.

The best position for the main front speakers is an equilateral triangle whose points are the left speaker, the right speaker, and you, the listener. Try to place them at about the same height as your ears. The center speaker should be atop or below the TV and aligned with, or only slightly behind, the main speakers. (You need to use a shielded speaker to avoid interference with your video.) The left and right surround speakers can be placed alongside the seating, facing each other or the back wall. The subwoofer can go anywhere convenient--under a table, behind the sofa. Watch out for corners, though. They accentuate the bass, often making it unacceptably boomy.

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The Fine-Tuning

You can optimize the system by properly setting audio levels and taking advantage of some of your components?features. Audio DVD settings. A DVD player can output each disc's audio signal in a number of ways. The raw "bitstream" signal is undecoded; use this setting if your receiver decodes Dolby Digital and DTS audio. If you have only a digital-ready (or DVD-ready) receiver and your DVD player has a built-in Dolby Digital or DTS decoder, use the "analog 6-channel output" setting, which outputs decoded audio to the receiver. And if you have only a stereo receiver or TV (or just stereo speakers), set the DVD player for "analog 2-channel"; this downmixes the multiple channels into two.

Subwoofer adjustments. Most powered subwoofers have two controls: cut-off frequency and volume level. The former is the frequency above which the subwoofer won't reproduce sound. If your main speakers are regular, full-range types, set the subwoofer to the lowest setting, typically 80 hertz. If they're satellites with no woofers, see the manual regarding how to set up the satellite and subwoofer combination. Adjust the subwoofer's volume so its contribution is noticeable but subtle.

Receiver settings. Using your receiver's user manual as a guide, adjust the receiver, speaker by speaker, according to each speaker's size, distance from the listener, and sound level relative to the other speakers. With most audio systems, you should be able to sit where you will be listening and make the proper adjustments by using the receiver's remote control.

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