How do you get balanced sound on a surround sound system?

Answer 1

Ususally every receiver comes with a mic that you hook up to the receiver right after you hook up all the speakers and the sub. If your receiver doesnt already sense that the jack is in you may have to go to the menu manually. put the mic where you will usually be sitting the the area and at about head height. now your speakers and sub will make different sounds, the receiver calculates these sounds and even measures your room by sound. now your surround system is set to go. remember you can always manually tweak you sound. hope this helps

Answer 2

This is clearly a question of what do you have, or what do you want to have. If you WANT the absolute best surround sound, you can spend years looking. I settled for buying a great audio video receiver. Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, and others make great products. In today's new age blu-ray technology, you need to have a 1080p HDTV. Now it is even important to consider 3D full HD. The receiver should be the same technology. Then you need to get a blu-ray player that is capable of this technology. While 3D is not sound related, it would be silly to invest in a Home Theater that doesn't have this tech considering the amount of money it will take to invest. The next thing to do is to pick the right speaker for what you want. If you are willing to spend a lot of money go to Magnolia division of Best Buy, or a well regarded home theater store near you. The best audio out there is an uncompressed (original recording size) Dolby Digital HD, or DTS-HD. There are numerous audio formats for HD, but DTS-HD is regarded as one of the best. You need to make sure that all of your components are connected via HDMI, and can decode the audio you want. My Denon avr-2808ci can decode all HD audio formats so it can produce the best sound. You also will need high gauge speaker wire, 12 is fine. Don't be fooled by all in one box sets that Sony and Samsung sell. They are good products, and can appeal to "easy" factor of setting all of this up, but separate components are the way to go. You also need to consider the space you have in the room you want to show movies, and if you want 5.1 (FR,C,RL,SR,SL&sub) or 7.1 which adds a surround back left and right, or even some newer 7.2 or 9.2 set-ups, which add another subwoofer and side speakers. This decision is made by which receiver you choose. All in all it is an arduous process marked with second guessing, sweat, and frustration. When you set it up right, however, and you make your friends jump when an explosion goes off that seems to be in the room, it is worth it.

My set up:

Denon AVR-2808ci receiver (7.1 HD decoding)

Bowers and Wilkins 684 front R and front L

MartinLogan Motion8 Center speaker

Yamaha AP4400S surr. L+R, surr back L+R

Polk Audio 10'' 200 watt powered subwoofer

Sony Bravia KDL46S4100 (46'' 1080p HD LCD)

Xbox 360s

Panasonic DMP-BDT300 (1080p 3D, wireless networked Blu-Ray Player)

Dish Network HD DVR