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Inexpensive Home Theater: Speakers and Subwoofer

July 19th, 2007

The AV Receiver powers your speakers. While speakers and subs can be a huge money pit in a home theater system, I decided to go the inexpensive route and save mucho dinero. I made this choice for several reasons:

1. Speakers are a mature technology
2. I am not an audiophile
3. It takes a lot of money to get audiophile-quality speakers

Speakers
My home theater plans required in-wall speakers. After looking at several makes and models, I decided to go with Dayton Audio 6-1/2″ 2-way in-wall speakers for my front and rear speakers, and was considering a few other options for my center channel and subwoofer. However, my audiophile friend suggested that I use the same speaker in the center as I had in the front and the rear because, “It helps if you can get all your speakers with the same voicing… that way there’s no audible drop offs between speakers.” I don’t really know what that means, but I followed his advice.

Because the speakers are sold in pairs, I ended up getting six of the Dayton Audio in-wall speakers, so I have one extra if I need to replace one or if I want to go to a 6.1 setup instead of my current 5.1 setup.

Subwoofer
The subwoofer I purchased was also from Dayton Audio, a 12″ 150 watt behemoth. When I ordered it online from Parts Express, I didn’t know quite how big it was. The dimensions of the whole subwoofer are about 15″ W x 18″ H x 18″ D. The added size meant we had to adjust our ideas of the placement of the subwoofer. We had planned on sticking it in a corner under a side table, but because of its size we decided to build it into the cabinet.

Speaker Cables
I purchased a 100’ roll of some RCA 14 gauge, heavily shielded speaker wire. It was probably a lot more heavy duty than I needed, which did cause some frustration when running the speaker wire. It was so thick that it was difficult to feed it through holes and turn corners. However, it does run across some other electrical wire, so the extra shielding will probably help avoid some sound distortion from other electrical interference.

I looked into the Monster brand of cables, but after a lot of reading and reviews, I became convinced that the premium price for Monster products doesn’t go to better R&D or better products, just better marketing.

Connecting cables
I found a few online stores to purchase my connecting cables from. I looked at local electronics stores, but the prices for cables were out of control. I ordered my cables from CablesForLess.com and was impressed with the prices and quality of their products. I would highly recommend them to anyone.

Even though great sound is necessary for a great home theater experience, it doesn’t have to represent a great portion of the budget. You can still achieve great sound if you shop around for speakers and a subwoofer that don’t break the bank. Also, all of your cabling needs can quickly add up if you’re not careful, so shop at places like PartsExpress and CablesForLess.com.

However, even once all of the speakers and cables are hooked up, you’ll find many other crucial components are necessary to complete your ultimate inexpensive home theater.

Previous articles:

• Inexpensive Home Theater: Introduction
• Inexpensive Home Theater: Technology Primer
• Inexpensive Home Theater: Planning
• Inexpensive Home Theater: Projectors
• Inexpensive Home Theater: AV Receiver

Next articles:

• Inexpensive Home Theater: Crucial Components

Entry Filed under: Home Theater

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