What's all this about
Home Cinema? ~ Beginners Start Here.
Put in plain English, the concept of Home Cinema is the attempt to recreate the Cinema Sound Experience in the comfort of your own home. But, as you may well have guessed, the Cinema Experience is not all about Sound. It has also got to do with a very, very BIG picture! This is the main drawback for the Home Cinema enthusiast. You may well spend a fortune to recreate the sound experience of a true cinema hall, but unless you live in huge mansion where you can afford to convert a large room and dedicate it for the purpose, it is likely that like myself, you will have to cram all the equipment somewhere in the living room amidst the rest of the furniture and be stuck to the size of your television for the pictures!
Having said that, Home Cinema is still the closest to the real thing when it comes to watching your favourite movies in the comfort of your armchair. Furthermore, in an interview given to Home Entertainment Magazine, Film Director Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games, Sliver, Clear And Present Danger) was asked whether it is possible to recreate the cinema environment faithfully at home? "Oh absolutely. You can get a sound that is even better than most cinemas". He is critical of most cinemas and continues "When it comes to bass reproduction there's only a few cinemas that can get near the sound possible in your own home".
I can't really tell you how true this is. In fact I have been enjoying this 'better than true cinema sound' experience at my own home for months now. My friends think I'm going over the top when I say so, and to add insult to injury most of these people do not even have a home cinema set up of their own. Others say that the reason it sounds so good is that I have a a much smaller room than an actual cinema. Yes it is true, but so is the size of my speakers and amplification and while a cinema hall is acoustically designed for optimum sound reproduction, my room is filled with rattling furniture and other 'sound unfriendly' ornaments. After reading this interview myself, I have confirmed two things. First is that I have been right and it is true that one can attain a level of performance that can equal or even surpass the sound experience of a cinema. Second, never give a thought on what your inexperienced friends have to say, trust your ears, let them be the judge!
So What do I need?
One thing is for sure, you don't get Cinema Sound just by connecting the audio outputs of your TV or Video Recorder to a free input at the back of your amp. That will only give you better stereo imagery and probably a louder sound, depending on the quality of your HiFi system.
The Home Cinema setup is slightly more complicated than that and involves buying additional equipment and speakers. So if your wife already looks at your equipment as an eyesore, please stop reading and shelve the idea.
First of all and most importantly you need a stereo video source. for the best part of this article I am going to assume that the video source is a VHS Video Recorder. It is therefore imperative that your video recorder is a good quality Nicam HiFi Stereo unit. If yours is not, it should be your first item on the shopping list. Your present TV set will be used to deliver the pictures only. It does not matter whether you have a stereo TV or not. In a Home Cinema setup you will listen to the movie's soundtracks on the sound system.
Will my present sound
system do?
This is a tricky question and depends on the equipment you already have. If you consider yourself an audiophile than most probably you have a decent separates system which will do just fine. If on the other hand you have a Midi HiFi system with no spare tape loop at the back, you need to start from scratch which is no bad thing as your dealer will assist you in choosing a system that is right for your budget.
How is Home Cinema
Sound Reproduced?
Before I start to talk about what equipment is best for your needs, I have to explain how Home Cinema Sound is reproduced on a Home System.
In its simplest form, home cinema sound was started by Dolby Laboratories and was called Dolby Surround. This consisted of a special mono track for rear effects. It was specially encoded in the stereo soundtrack of the movie and needed a special decoder chip in the home cinema equipment to be able to extract the encoded signal. Apart from being a mono track, the Surround channel has also a limited bandwidth (approx 100Hz to 7000Hz). Next, the home cinema experience was enhanced by adding Pro Logic to the Surround channel which uses an extra Centre Speaker located between the front main stereo pair and placed above or underneath the picture source. This channel delivers dialogue and to some extent, prime action taking place at the centre of the screen, the same way as in real cinemas. Hence in its simplest form, the term used for referring to home cinema sound and which has to be stamped on all compatible decoders is: "Dolby Surround Pro Logic". There are other more enhanced cinema sound systems available which recreate the true cinema sound experience even more realistically, but delving into more detail at this point is beyond the scope of this introduction and also requires specialised equipment. These sound systems will be explained in more detail in part three of this article.
A basic home cinema setup requires four separate channels, a dedicated decoder and no less than five speakers. As mentioned above, if you are buying a complete new home cinema kit, you need not worry as all that you need will be there. There's equipment out there for any size of budget ranging from a couple of hundred pounds to even four and five figure amounts for exotic stuff. More about choosing kit later.
If on the other hand you already have a decent HiFi separates kit, you have two choices regarding amplification but you still need the three extra speakers for the dedicated channels. You can choose to retain your amplifier if it serves you right and has at least a free tape loop at the back. If it only has one tape loop all is not lost, as most stand alone Dolby Surround Pro Logic decoders replicate the tape loop on the back of their chassis in lieu of the one forfeited on the back of your amp. The add-on decoder not only has the required decoding circuitry but also has amplification for the two additional channels that are not present on your stereo amp; i.e. the centre and surround channels. Although the surround channel is made up of two rear speakers, they are fed from a mono channel.
The other option is to replace the amp with a dedicated Dolby Surround Pro Logic amp which will have all four channels built-in. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
 | In some budget priced DSPL kit, it was found that the straight stereo performance of the amp was inferior when compared with a true stereo amp. So if you value your music reproduction quality more than movies a two box setup retaining your old amp, should be considered. The disadvantage of this is that it is slightly more difficult to get the right sound setup for both music and movies as you are dealing with different types of components, two sets of knobs to fiddle with and more cables through which to pass the signals. |
| On the other hand, a dedicated DSPL amp has matched components thereby providing a more accurate and balanced soundstage through all channels. A single volume knob will control all channels so all you have to do to set it all up, is to find the right level (normally a once only job unless you change the listening position) for the Centre and Surround channels. On the other hand, cramming all this in one box has caused straight stereo performance to suffer through inferior circuitry. Furthermore the physical limitations of the one box kit has produced a range of products with mismatched channels. It is common for the kit to have say 60, 70 or even 80 watts across the front three channels with only 15, 20 or 25 watts each to the rears! As long as you are listening at night with low volume this should be fine, but this difference in power will force the rear channel into premature distortion and clipping at higher volume. |
So which is the best
kit for me?
This is not an easy question to answer as the decision is largely dependent on the size and style of the listening room, your budget and whether you intend to upgrade your present HiFi or start afresh. No matter what your answers to the previous considerations are, the undermentioned recommendations should help you make up your mind and decide on the best possible kit for your room.
If your room is small and already crammed with furniture consider the following:
| Think of buying a complete Midi sized Dolby Surround Pro Logic System complete with its own matching bookshelf sized speakers. Avoid as much as possible the gizmos, flashing lights and aircraft navigation style displays. These add sparkle but usually do nothing good to the sound. My rule is to stick as much as possible to a natural sound. Having a bass enhancer circuit is no bad idea for movies. Invest in a good HiFi stereo video recorder with no less than 6 heads for better picture quality. I like to test the performance of a video recorder by pausing play and look for picture jitter and noise at the top or bottom of the screen. Usually, a perfect still picture means good all round video performance but this is not always the case, so study the picture performance closely. Always ensure that the speakers that will be located very close to the TV are magnetically shielded in order to avoid distortions to the picture at higher volumes. |
| If you already own a separates system and intend to add an external DSPL decoder and extra speakers, make sure that the decoder's power output to the centre and rear channels is as close to your main amp's output as possible. Try to match the centre and rear speakers to the front main pair. Buying these speakers from the same manufacturer will be a good thing. Although we said earlier that the rear channel has a limited bandwidth (inferior frequency range), do not buy inferior quality speakers as you will find that you need to replace them if you decide to upgrade to top notch Home Cinema setup in future. If on the other hand you decide to buy a new DSPL amp or receiver to replace your own, make sure that you select a model with the same wattage across all channels. One final thing but of most importance is future proofing your purchase. Make sure that the DSPL amp or decoder you purchase has a six channel input (i.e. 3 pairs of Main-In phono jacks) at the rear, ready to take external decoders for the higher levels of Cinema Sound which you may decide to upgrade to in the future. |
If you have a bigger room:
| More or less the same applies but more power will be required on all channels especially the rears to fill the bigger space. A midi sized system will have to be ruled out here as will bookshelf speakers. Consider separates instead and floor standing speakers for the front with an equally potent centre channel speaker. If space is not at a premium, top quality dedicated surround speakers should also be considered. These will generally increase in size as well, so if you do not fancy huge hanging boxes attached to the wall you may as well consider slim floor standers instead. |
In the second part of this article we will be concentrating on setting up and correct placement of the equipment, the picture and the viewing position. We will be looking at ways and means to improve the sound with and without adding further equipment.
© 1998-2003 Mario Sammut
Reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission is prohibited.
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