In the world of home entertainment, one of the biggest challenges facing consumers and system designers is figuring out where to start.

The choices and options in the market often seem overwhelming and offer no clear direction for consumers and installers alike.

But the simple truth is that entertainment system design is no different to choosing a new car. It is basically a matter of identifying the application for the product and not being misled by marketing and features.

When buying a new car the choices we have are obvious – sports car, 4WD, people mover, sedan or convertible. But it’s no use discussing the virtues of a two-seater sports car if you need a vehicle to move six people.

Ultimately, you are buying an application-specific product. The options then narrow, based on other external factors.

To ensure it installs the best solution, Genelec has produced two system set-up guides – one for audio and one for home theatre. The audio specification guide weighs frequency response and listening distance as the critical variables in speakers for acoustically valid rooms.
 

Colour, brand loyalty, service and price tag all tug at you emotionally. However, in the car example, it is much easier to remain focused on the people mover because no matter how beautiful the sports car is, you know that it is nothing more than a fantasy.

With home entertainment systems it is much harder for consumers to differentiate between products because they don’t know what questions to ask.

From an audio perspective, for example, we want listeners to sit closer to their speakers than to the walls. This increases the ratio of direct to reflected sound, which simply means they are listening more to the speakers and less to the room.

The room is the most powerful processor in the system – you need to be aware of its influence.

As the Australian distributor of Genelec Professional Monitors, when we are consulting on a recording studio or home theatre we refer to the documents Genelec supplies for studio and home theatre design.

These documents specify listening distances and room volume for all models and allow us to define what products are required (see accompanying table).

Once a prime seating position has been established, we can start to define equipment locations and screen size.

Notice that price has not entered the equation yet. Once you understand the importance of defining the requirements of the equipment the choices will narrow dramatically and decisions will become much easier.

For a long time, consumers have been educated to look only at the technology. With projectors, for example, everyone is told a resolution of 1920 x 1080 is needed. But, even though this is important, it is only one aspect of a quality image.

It’s amazing that very little is said about video scaling or the lens.

If we look at digital SLR cameras, the lens is the critical element. Professionals often choose camera bodies based on the lenses available. But in AV technology, virtually nobody talks about optics on projectors costing less than $20,000.

From a video perspective big screens are great, but a big screen does not necessarily mean a great image. Actually, it can mean the opposite – unless you have the budget to do it properly.

The closer you can get the prime seat to the screen, the larger the perceived image size becomes. Once the appropriate screen size has been determined, you can then consider what projector is suitable for the job.

It doesn’t matter what some reviewer or friend thought about Brand A, Model X, you need to look at the capabilities of the projector to confirm that it can create a quality image.

This is where you need to consider input capabilities, video scaling, resolution, light output and the optical properties of the lens.

Consumers need to start focusing on quality and value and less on technology and price.

When designing a dedicated theatre or media room, the critical information required is physical – the size of the room, the listening distance and the viewing distance.

These simple dimensions give us a starting point to help define what the system should be and how the room should be laid out.

There are many internationally published specifications for room design, such as those from the International Telecommunication Union and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

Ultimately these documents are for professional rooms, in which performance is paramount. However, the basic design premise applies to all rooms. Physics is physics – it doesn’t change.

Just remember to keep things simple, focus on the key decisions, and don’t get distracted.

For people on a limited budget, it is all about making intelligent, rational decisions.

A system that was designed and installed five years ago, potentially for hundreds of thousands of dollars, is as valid today as it was when it was installed. The fact that technology has moved on doesn’t diminish the performance and quality of that system.

The worst thing you can do to the performance of your system is place all the equipment at one end of the room with the chairs at the other end of the room. This is madness, but walk into most shops or homes and this is what you see.

First, the audio performance will be poor due to room interaction. There will be boundary gain (an increase in bass levels) that will muddy the sound; you will be sitting in the reverberant field, which means you will experience very few spatial cues with poor surround sound performance; and your speakers will have to work a lot harder to play at the required level, which leads to more distortion.

If you can’t set surround speakers up correctly, consider not buying them and invest your money in better front speakers and subwoofer. Spend your money where it will be most efficient.

Video decisions are no different. If you think about field of view rather than the image size, things make much more sense.

For example, if you sit 2m away from a 42” plasma or LCD it will look the same size as sitting 6m away from a 123” projection screen.

Just move closer to the screen, you will save a lot of money and get better audio and video performance.

The hardest thing we all have to deal with – consumers, retail sales people and consultants alike – is weighing priorities appropriately. Every room, every client and every piece of equipment is different.

Once you learn to define the needs of a system, the design will be much easier and the result much better.

Quality is not a function of how much or how little you spend, it is a function of how well the room has been designed and how well it has been installed and calibrated.

If the picture and sound are poor, it is a reflection on the design, set-up and calibration. If the system captivates you, the people who did the work are to be congratulated.

I encourage everyone to visit their local AV specialist, not some bulk store. These people are passionate about what they do for a living, trained, and simply enjoy what they do.

Just go in for a look around – you may be pleasantly surprised by what you find.