by Sam Williams

In a typical home theater setup, there should be six home theater speakers, two front speakers, two surround speakers, a center speaker and a subwoofer for the lowest frequency ranges. There are two ways to obtain all these speakers, buying each of them separately, or buying a home theater speaker set.

Home Theater speaker Sets:

If you're low on budget, you should think about one of these. But remember: don't spare on speakers, they're very important. There are lots of cheap home theater speaker sets on the market, but you shouldn't buy one of them, because these are of poor quality. Usually, sets manufactured by well-known brands (Klipsch, Bose, for example) produce a decent sound. This way you'll still not spend as much as you would on separate speakers.

If you're thinking about buying one of these sets, read our article on home theaters in a box.

Going One By One:

So, you're serious about your future home theater, and want to spend a little more on the speakers? Buying speakers separately has many advantages: it's the best quality you can have, and another, often overlooked advantage is that you can don't have to buy the whole set at a time, so if you haven't got the money, you can still have high quality speakers in your setup.

Your front speakers should be the strongest members in your home theater speaker setup. If you have a small room, choose bookshelf speakers. Larger rooms will require larger speakers; in this case, powerful floor-standing speakers are the choice to go with.

I often hear that it is advisable to have the exact same speakers for surround and front. This is true, but it's not very practical: movie sounds mixes don't use surround speakers as much as they use the front speakers. So, you can choose smaller and less-powerful speakers for your surround setup, it won't make significant differences anywhere accept your wallet.

The surround and front units were good, old-fashioned hi-fi speakers used for a home theater setup. The case is different with our center speaker. It's a special speaker with unique frequency response. If it's possible, have the center speaker from the same brand as the surround and front speakers. This unit is also often overlooked, but it's very important, because this speaker is used for voices and talking in a sound mix.

The subwoofer is used to reproduce the lower frequencies. Sometimes, it's optional: the front speakers can be powerful enough to rock the house, and an additional subwoofer is not needed. However, in larger rooms, it's inevitable. Subwoofers require lots of power, and in most cases, they require their own power input (these are called "active subwoofers").

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The Yamaha NS-SP1800BL 5.1-channel home theater speaker package is a low cost, convenient way to enjoy the full benefits of 5.1-channel home theater sound. The NS-SP1800BL features advanced Yamaha Active Servo Technology (Advanced YST), which is a unique system in which the speaker and amplifier work together to cancel out impedance so the speaker unit has a perfectly linear motion. Advanced YST helps to ensure the highest levels of sound pressure and overall performance.

Enjoy your favorite music in any room of the house with quality sound from the SS-B1000 performance bookshelf speakers. With 120 watts of power and an advanced woofer and tweeter design, they deliver high-resolution audio so you hear the music just as it was recorded.

Onkyo has built a reputation for making advanced features and performance more affordable for budget-conscious fans of home entertainment. Take, as a prime example, the HT-S5300 receiver and speaker package. At the heart of this 7.1-channel system, you have an A/V receiver sporting four of the latest HDMI 1.4 inputs—enough for all your high-def sources. HDMI 1.4 brings compatibility with 3D video—coming soon—and an Audio Return Channel. With the HT-S5300, you can also adjust settings on the fly with a handy overlaid on-screen display. The receiver offers a broad range of connectivity options, such as a front input for portable devices and a Universal Port for one-cable connection of the included Dock for iPhone/iPod. High-quality Burr-Brown DACs ensure pristine analog conversion of all digital audio sources, including HD audio formats from Dolby and DTS. And Dolby® Pro Logic® IIz gives you the option of a new height-channel set-up with the included 7.1-channel speaker package.

Impress yourself with the earth-shakingly realistic bass pumped out by this 230W subwoofer. A lot is packed into LFEs (Low Frequency Emissions), which you can find in more and more movies and music these days. Rest assured, you won't miss a thing with the SKW-204. Features like crossover control and a phase invert switch let you fine-tune the bass output from this subwoofer to match the wide variety of speakers on the market.

Small speakers—big sound: the SS-B3000 performance bookshelf speakers may not be large, but they pack a high resolution audio punch. With their highly-advanced 8-Inch woofer and stellar reproduction qualities, these durably-constructed speakers will refresh your appreciation for your music collection.

The GigaWorks T40 series II 2.0 Speaker System will fill your room with magnificent audio and booming bass while you game or watch movies. The 3-driver design with BasXPortdelivers fuller and warmer listening experience without a subwoofer. Plus the dual woven glass fiber drivers promote clear, rich midrange sound and the cloth dome tweeter delivers crisp, detailed highs. Total speaker power of 32 watts RMS and 50Hz~20Hz frequency response. The T40 series II is easy to use with front access to volume, bass, treble and auxillary and headphone jacks. Package Contents: GigaWorks T40 series II Left and Right Speakers, Stereo-to-stereo audio cable, Dual RCA-to-stereo adapter, Power supply adapter, Quick start guide.

With 1000W and 5.1 channels, the Panasonic SC-BT230 Blu-Ray Home Theater System delivers cinema quality sound to each seat in your home. By using a combination of real speakers and virtual speakers, a more natural and smoother sound can be enjoyed. You'll notice the difference, epecially in an action scene - you'll feel like you're sitting in the center of a theater. With the new bamboo cone speakers, the sound becomes much more responsive. Vocals are more pure and cleaner, and the dialog is crisper and easier to understand.

SANUS SYSTEMS BF-31B Wood Speaker Stands features like ABS plastic spikes, a concealed wire path and neoprene speaker isolation pads, and a sound foundation for speakers.

Enjoy an immersive cinema experience at home with the affordable Coby CSP96 5.1-channel home theater speaker system, which includes a floor-rattling subwoofer and five 3-inch satellite speakers that fill a room with 300 watts of surround sound. The integrated amplifier and switch allows you to easily change between two source connections, and it also features independent volume/treble/bass control and magnetic shielding that allow for speaker placement in close proximity to your TV without interfering with the picture quality.

Logitech surround sound speakers z506—for when you want to be moved by big, 5.1 surround sound from your music, movies, and games.

A Complete 5.1 Package with Powered Sub-woofer Today's best value in a perfectly matched professional quality compact home theater system: four high performance RM7 Speakers, the RM7 Center Channel Speaker plus our specially engineered, compact 50-Watt Powered Sub-woofer, packaged together. Unpack it, set it up, connect it to your receiver, and you've got the excitement of dynamic, thrilling surround sound with deep bass for movies, games and TV. This system consists of 3 basic components. Four identical Satellite speakers, one center channel and one sub-woofer. Here are the dimensions for these models: Satellite : 6.125” H x 3.8” W x 3.75” D, Center : 3.8” H x 9.5” W x 3.75” D, Sub-woofer : 13.875” H x 12.5” W x 12.5” D

The Polk Audio RC85i 2-way In-wall Speaker delivers incredible sound to any room in your home without using any floor or shelf space. The RC85i is easy to install, requiring only that you cut a hole, feed the wires through, and simply drop the speaker in where it is held in place by rotating cams that safely secure the speaker with no extra assembly or mess. Once installed, the paintable grille and flange allows this in-wall speaker to virtually disappear in the room. The Polk RC85i utilizes an eight-inch dynamic-balance, mineral filled polymer-composite cone with a rubber surround that outlasts cheaper foam surrounds, as well as a one-inch dynamic-balance, metalized soft dome tweeter with a swivel mount. The swivel-mounted tweeter is aimable for direct high frequency control that ensures spacious imaging with amazing clarity, and well-balanced sound in any listening position, even off-axis listening positions, rather than in just a small sweet spot. Constructed of durable, moisture resistant materials, the RC85i is safe for use in bathrooms, kitchens, saunas, or even under outdoor eaves, and features a wide-dispersion design for even sound-coverage throughout even large rooms. The RC85i also features infinite baffle tuning which uses the virtual enclosure of in-wall space for superior bass response, and is timbre-matched to the Polk Audio Monitor Series for seamless, enveloping imaging when used in a home theater system. What's in the Box - RC85i speakers (pair), 2 grilles, cardboard template, owner's manual, and registration card.

Add the cinematic thrill of surround sound to your TV viewing experience with this 5.1-channel BRAVIA theater system. Fusing style with performance, this 5.1-channel surround sound system features a built-in DVD player and 1000 watts of home theater power. You can also connect your iPod or other digital music player via the front USB port. In addition to Digital Cinema Auto Calibration which optimizes speaker placement in just 30 seconds, you can use the HDMI interface to upscale your DVD media to near-1080p quality.

This feature-packed receiver sports four of the latest HDMI 1.4a inputs to handle your Blu-ray player and other high-definition devices. Non-HD video sources, meanwhile, can be upscaled to spectacular widescreen 1080p via HDMI and Faroudja DCDi Cinema. The special Onkyo HT-S6300 package with complete 7.1-channel surround sound speaker set and iPod/iPhone dock. This special HT-S6300 package also includes a 7.1-channel surround sound speaker set, which includes one subwoofer, one center channel speaker, and six satellite speakers. It also includes a Dock for iPhone/iPod. HDMI 1.4a is compatible with upcoming 3D video content and enables a handy Audio Return Channel from your display's tuner back to the receiver. Audio processing on the HT-S6300 includes the "in the studio" realism of DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD; Dolby Pro Logic IIz for ambient height channels, Audyssey room-correction and equalization technologies and four proprietary DSP modes to match your gaming content.