This is actually really easy. When buying a set-up to go into a rental you just need to remember that it has to be flexible and not physically fastened to the walls. With such an enormous range of products available, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have great sound!

Firstly you should look at the style of speakers you could use. Are you looking for a full 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound experience? In this case, a great choice are floor standing speakers for your front left and right speakers, or if these are too large you can get a nice satellite speaker pack and mount them on some discrete stands.

Somewhere in between floor and satellite speakers would be some bookshelf speakers, named for their ability to be placed subtly on a shelf, up off the floor. No bookshelf? No worries! We even have nice looking speaker stands for these as well.

If you are living in an apartment complex where your neighbours are close and your walls are thin, think about keeping the sub-woofer to a smaller size to cut down on noise complaints!

The hardest thing when setting up in a rental is the issue of hiding the speaker wires. Because you can’t run them through the walls and use wallplates we need to be a little creative. If you have thick carpet you can often run one pair of wires down along the edge of the carpet up against the skirting board without anyone noticing it. Using a fly-screen roller tool (found at a hardware shop) can help disguise it even further into the pile. 3M removable sticky hooks are quite handy as well to keep cables in their places, with dozens of styles and colours to suit your application. And of course, a good old rug can hide any wires if you need to run them across a walkway.

Consider connecting your speaker wire to banana plugs on both ends, for easy set up and pack up. (View instructions) The speaker wire will then easily connect between the terminals of your speakers and your receiver. Make sure you connect the speaker wire correctly, or you may find your speakers out of phase.

Another issue if you don’t have a dedicated room is excess sound bouncing all over the place. You may notice this most if you have floor boards. The options are pretty easy. Change the curtains over to thick, blockout floor length style and these will absorb a huge amount of reflected sound. These will be an investment that can come with you whenever you move. Collecting a great range of thick shag pile carpets to carpet the floorboards will help to minimise excess noise also. Any soft furnishings will help improve audio quality such as an oversized lounge and some armchairs. Your lounge room may end up looking like a late 70’s smoking den but you can be sure it’ll sound amazing!

Really, living in a rental doesn’t mean you have to miss out on an awesome AV/Home Theatre, it just means we have to be a bit more creative!

If you would like some more help deciding what you need, feel free to give our Selby Techs a call on 1800 69 2225.