If someone presumed what you wanted in your speaker set up, it would be a sure way to make you unhappy. The best way to know what is right for you, is by turning the question around and ask yourself what you want from your speakers. Then you can build the set up around YOUR needs. There is no point buying a hulking great set of speakers which take up your entire room, when all you want them for is to play some background music during dinner parties.
For example if your speakers are playing music most of the time, with a little bit of TV and movies, then you may like to use some big front speakers, with a matching centre speaker for vocals (including TV & movies) without a subwoofer. If you select decent big front speakers, your deeper bass notes should be comfortably handled by them. You may still like to add a subwoofer however, especially if you like electronic music which is often bass loaded.
Alternatively your home may have a large living area with children and pets rushing around, which may make large speakers an impractical option for you. In this situation 6 in-ceiling speakers together with a centre speaker installed in the wall may be an ideal solution. If you plan on watching movies with this set up, a subwoofer placed discreetly next to or behind the seating area will still give you the full impact of bass tones during those action scenes of your favourite films.
In contrast to both these scenarios is a customer we helped in our Hallam showroom who wanted a home theatre set up in his rental. He doesn’t have a lot of space and obviously he is unable to permanently fix anything to the property. He ended up going with the Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1 Surround Speaker System. Together with some discreet speaker stands, he was wrapped!
So there we have three different situations, three different solutions and three households absolutely in love with their speaker setups. There is no “one size fit’s all” solution to this question and only a “What size fits your world” solution. Have a look around, rule out what you don’t want and then go listen to everything in your price range. You’ll soon find the one that sounds good to you. If you're still in doubt, feel free to call our Selby Techs on 1800 69 2225 to discuss your own needs.
Read our Blog on Speaker Types to see what might suit you.
