Your home should be a place where you can lounge around, stream your favourite entertainment, blast music on your speakers, and order in. There’s nothing like a great home theatre setup to make staying home more fun, and speakers are an essential part of the party. Best Buy’s home audio section has you covered for variety, now it’s up to you to figure out what will fit your living room best.
How to choose speakers for your home theatre
With so many choices, getting ready to choose speakers can feel gruelling. The trick is to start with the big questions and go from there.
1. Choose speakers based on budget
Your first consideration when choosing speakers might be your budget. The beauty of technology is that as it progresses, it becomes more affordable. You can find a great sound bar or set of new entry-level speakers at a reasonable price, or you can splurge on the latest and greatest and choose some luxury speakers at a higher price. Either way, you have a lot of options at every price point.
2. Choose speakers based on size and type
Your next consideration will likely be the type of speakers you’re looking for. What will best fit your home and the things you already own?
Sound bars
If you have minimal space but want optimal sound, sound bars should be your go–to. Sound bars are designed to be sleek and aerodynamic.
The biggest benefit to having a sound bar is that it will amplify the audio from your TV. Their thin design will nicely fit anywhere, including mounted onto the wall under your television. Sound bars are available with a sub woofer or just as an individual speaker. You can choose different types of sound bars and some include several additional speakers you can add to your living room. You can read more about sound bars in the sound bar buying guide.
Receivers
If you have more square footage and want to fit more than just a sound bar in your home theatre, there are other speaker options. If you don’t have a sound bar, you’ll need to add a receiver to your TV to use different speakers. You can take a look at the receiver buying guide for more on how receivers work and which types you can choose.
Bookshelf speakers
Once you’re ready to choose extra speakers, you’ll find bookshelf speakers are a great option. If you choose book shelf speakers that are from the same brand as your sound bar, you can pair them together for bigger sound. Bookshelf speakers are small so they can fit onto your own shelves. If you have space you can put them on stands and place them near your TV or couch. If placed on a higher stand, they can have a similar effect to tower speakers.
Tower speakers
Tower speakers are a great addition to a home theatre because they are tall and thin and take up relatively little floor space. They add a definite touch of style to your setup, and tower speakers can add a kick of bass to your set up. Even if you have a subwoofer included with your sound bar, a set of tower speakers can enhance everything you watch.
Ceiling speakers
There are also ceiling speakers. You can add ceiling speakers for that full surround sound feeling. They are small and easy to mount on the wall or ceiling near your TV, and they add a feeling of overhead sound that makes every movie more immersive.
3. Choose Dolby Atmos surround sound
Next up, how do you want yourself surrounded? Surround sound technology has come a long way, and it’s now within reach at completely affordable prices. A couple options to choose from are Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. Take a look at this post on how Dolby Atmos can transform your home theatre.
Dolby Atmos has been updated over the past few years and it can now create a spatial sound experience in your home. Using object based surround sound technology, different sound objects are assigned to different speakers. If you’re watching an action movie with helicopters overhead and tanks below, Dolby Atmos will place the helicopter sounds above you by utilizing the ceiling speakers and the tanks in front of you by utilizing your left, right, and centre speakers. With this type of surround sound setup, you can mix ceiling speakers, floor speakers, and sound bars to create the most immersive audio experience possible.
Dolby Atmos recreates the same 3D audio environment found in certified theatres, so you’ll want to be hyper–aware when watching something scary—you wouldn’t want to throw popcorn everywhere. You can find out more about how Dolby Atmos can amplify your home theatre by reading this post about it on the Best Buy Blog.
4. Choose wireless speakers
The beauty of wireless speakers is that you can put your speakers in more than one space. Multi–room speakers give you the option to connect speakers to each other and stream music to every room in your home. You can choose which speakers you play, how loudly, and are able to switch it up at anytime through an app on your phone.
Wireless speakers can also be compatible with other home theatre components like receivers and sound bars. Take a look at this post on wireless speakers to see how you can pair them together in your home theatre.
5. Choose a set of smart speakers
Now that you’ve narrowed down what type of speakers you need, you can think about how you want to use them. Many speaker systems come with built-in Google Assistant or work with Amazon Alexa, so if you’re all about voice commands or streaming from your favourite app, you have a number of options available in smart speakers that require little to no extra setup.
You can use your smart speaker to control your home theatre devices, but you can also use them for multi-room audio when you pair them together or sync them with your home theatre devices.
6.Stands or mounts for your speakers
Since your home is your sanctuary, the feng shui needs to be just right. There are a wide variety of different stands and mounts available to make the setup in your living room seamless, sleek, and comfortable. Your speakers can easily be a positive addition to the interior decorating scheme you have going, and you just need to find the right products to fit with the rest of your furniture.
Take the time to choose speakers
Sometimes, it’s a lot more fun to stay in than go out. Your home theatre can be everything you dreamed of, rivalling the best movie theatre, and all you have to do is find the right speaker setup to add to your TV. Take a look at all of the speakers you can choose at Best Buy and get ready to set up your new home theatre today.
