Home Theater Hacks

Chapter 1. Buying Gear

Hacks 1–8

Although there are literally thousands of options and dials you can tweak and spin on most home theater components, the components themselves are the most important part of any solid home theater system. All the adjustments in the world won't make up for having the wrong pieces of equipment in your theater.

In fact, before you even start to turn dials and pull up menus, you might want to see what you've got sitting in your cabinet. Sometimes making some small changes in your equipment list can have a huge effect on your theater's audio and video, and even its usability. This is especially true in today's world of combination devices. Merging VCRs, DVDs, TVs, and CD players might make for less wiring to have to hide, but it doesn't necessarily make for a better movie-watching and music-listening experience, and you can forget swapping out or trading up to newer and better technology.

Of course, all of this rides on finding the right equipment, preferably at the best possible price. Buy the right components at the best prices, and you'll stretch your dollar further. You'll end up with a bigger and better system if you do your homework. In this chapter, you'll learn the basic language of the trade, and then explore the common (and not-so-common) places to pick up equipment, oftentimes at way below retail prices.