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Hi-Fi Corner Home Cinema FAQ
Home cinema or home theatre - HiFi Corner is Scotland's award winning quality home cinema retailer.
Hi-Fi Corner are the oldest established audio specialist in Scotland, with stores in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Falkirk.
All Hifi Corner's FAQs are non technical and represent questions often asked by our customers. There are more technical sites elsewhere which cater for those requiring in-depth knowledge.
Our FAQs are geared towards our UK customers (no references to home theatre or even home theater) and will be adding to this over the coming months to make it the lay person's reference guide to home cinema.
Why shouldn't I buy a television with a home cinema built in?
You should buy what suits you, but you will not achieve the same results from a built in television home cinema system as there is a compromise between cost, quality and vision.
Many customers we speak to wish they had bought a separate home cinema system from the outset. A number of factors are involved in achieving the fidelity of sound required for home cinema, these include power output, quality of the components, design and speakers. With televisions you only get the basics.
What do I need for a home cinema system?
You require a stereo source component, either a stereo video, dvd player or stereo tv with output sockets. An output from the source is fed into a home cinema amplifier or one with a radio combined, a 'tuner amplifier', sometimes called a 'receiver'. With home cinema people tend to play films louder and there can be many explosions and other effects which require a powerful amplifier. Most speaker damage is caused by amplifiers having too little power, not the speakers being fed too much. Make sure you have adequate power output for the size of room, for the efficiency of the speakers, and the intended volumes you wish to play. If you intend to keep the neighbours up all night and they live in the next farm you will need a powerful system. Remember, power does not equate to quality.
In a normal set-up you will require a centre speaker, mainly for voice localisation, stereo speakers, for music and effects, and rear speakers, for movement, reverberation and effects. The centre and stereo speakers if close to the television will need to be shielded. If you have a stereo tv already and a hifi you can by a decoder/amplifier which will give you outputs for the centre and rear speakers. This fits into the tape circuits of your present hifi system. Speak directly to a member of the Hi-Fi Corner staff and discuss your best option.
What is AC3?
Most home cinema systems sold in the UK are Dolby pro-logic. In Dolby pro-logic systems the rear speakers are mono. AC3 offers the ability for stereo rear speakers and results in improved effects and sound quality of the system. To achieve AC3 you require a home cinema amplifier fitted with an AC3 decoder. You also require a source which has the AC3 signals encoded onto it. This is normally a DVD player. Hi-Fi Corner would recommend AC3 to anyone considering buying a home cinema system.
Do I need a sub-woofer?
Separate home cinema amplifiers normally come with a 'sub out' socket. These are designed for sub-woofers, which give extended low bass. In the UK where modern houses tend not have large rooms and people go for discrete small speakers then it could be an advantage to consider a sub-woofer. The problem with sub-woofers is that unless they are of sufficiently good quality the bass tends to be a one note lumpy sound interfering with the music.
They come in two types 'passive' (ie using the home cinemas amplifier to drive them) or 'active' (ie have their own power amplifier built in). The best results are normally with high quality 'active' types. Hifi Corner would warn you that cheap sub-woofers are fine if you only like explosives and are not interested in music. You should never really know that a great sub-woofer is there, until it's switched off. There are few of those available.
In very large homes abroad two sub-woofers are more common although rare in the UK. The advice- buy quality; or not at all.
Should the speakers match?
In an ideal world yes. Especially the front speakers where the majority of the information is projected. The centre speaker is particularly important as it contains much complex voice information. Although voice frequencies themselves are not extreme, the combination of left, right and centre can sound confusing without a very high quality centre. There is a school of thought that it is better to have two high quality stereo (left and right) speakers without using the centre (phantom mode) rather than using a poor quality centre speaker. If possible make sure the centre speaker is the same quality as the stereo speakers. The quality of rear speaker is less dependent but one with matching sound characteristics to the other is advised. The higher the quality of the overall system then the more dependent the quality of the rear speakers. It was a saying in the sixties that it was better to have a high quality mono system than a poor quality stereo system, the same now applies to stereo and surround sound.
What is speaker shielding and why is it important?
Conventional loudspeakers have large magnets at the rear of the drive units (the parts which actually produce the sound). If these are sited too close to a television the stray magnetic fields will make the electron beam change direction. You will find an unwanted rainbow on the television which left for sometime will eventually not go away even after moving the offending speaker. This will require a service to the tv set. It is therefore important to keep speakers away from televisions (speakers also can affect video tapes as well) unless they are magnetically shielded. Not all speakers are magnetically shielded and some cheap ones which claim to be so, are with varying quality.
If you are intending to site speakers close to a television or tape cabinet make sure the specifications state 'magnetically shielded'.
What is the Hi-Fi Corner comparator?
Hi-Fi Corner recognised that with the amount of speakers we stock, it was difficult to compare home cinema systems easily. We have specially imported a state of the art comparator from the southern hemisphere at a cost of tens of thousands which allows us to change the systems at the touch of a button. This comparator has received many rave reviews in hifi magazines and we use high quality interconnects to minimise any sound interference. It allows you to compare differences simply and without fuss. If you've not yet experienced this first hand please call into the branches listed and tell them you've read about the comparator on the internet and can they give you a guided tour.
Available at:What brands of home cinema does Hifi Corner stock?
Hi-Fi Corner stocks Sony, Denon, Arcam, Cyrus, Bose, Technics, Yamaha, Philips (DVD), Pioneer, REL, B&W, Tannoy, Mission, and many more. You are advised to phone before travelling.
Hi-Fi Corner have customers not only throughout Scotland but in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our reputation extends throughout the UK.