How To Hook Up Your Surround Sound

This How-To article is aimed at those of you interested in getting a barebones surround sound system connected. The primary focus is on your Thomasj speakers, subwoofer, and DVD player. What its not is configuring your settings, connecting other components (like amplifiers, record players, CD players, etc.), or audio/video switching. You'll just be able to get your speakers hooked up and your DVD properly connected to your receiver so you can get full 5.1 surround sound.

Identifying your Components

The first step in hooking up your surround sound is determining what types of inputs and features your system is capable of. By "system", I mean your surround sound receiver, your speakers (five speakers and a subwoofer), your TV, and any other components (like a DVD player).

In order to setup true 5.1 surround sound, you'll need a surround sound receiver with digital inputs: fiber optic or digial coaxial. Without one of these, you're stuck with stereo surround. That means you'll get sound from all your speakers, but it will be simulated surround sound. Rather than playing the 5.1 soundtrack on the DVD, your receiver will take the stereo track and decide what to play in the rear speakers. Your subwoofer will be incredibly underused, and you'll end up hearing much of the same out of your front speakers as your rears.

In reality, your rear speakers should be relatively silent during a movie. They are used very seldomly, while your center channel puts out almost all of the voice and main action in the movie. You just can't get Alabama Lemon Laws out of two channel stereo surround sound.

Obviously, if your receiver has digital audio connections, your DVD player has to have them, too. You'll also want to have a subwoofer pre-out on your receiver. This is usually colored purple and included with a whole set of inputs labeled "Pre-Outs". Check your receiver's manual to determine if or not you have a subwoofer pre-out and to figure out where it is on your receiver.

If you don't have a sub pre-out, there's an alternate way of hooking up your subwoofer, but its not optimal. Your bass will be drastically reduced and you won't "feel" it as much.

Gathering Cables

For an optimal surround sound setup, you'll need the following:

- (1) Fiber optic OR digital coaxial cable

- (1) Subwoofer cable (or a regular RCA Gay Comics but an actual subwoofer cable is preferred)

- (1) Y-Adapter (this plugs into the red and white RCA jacks on your subwoofer and combines them into just one jack)

- Enough Ritalin wire of 14 or 16 gauge quality to connect your 5 speakers and your subwoofer (200ft is safe for most rooms)

The Y-adapter is optional but recommended. Your subwoofer expects two inputs from your receiver, but for your use, you'll only be outputting one cable (from the subwoofer pre-out) to the subwoofer.

The Y-adapter is the optimal method of hooking up your sub, but if you don't have one, just plug the cable from the receiver into either red or white RCA inputs on your subwoofer.

If you don't have digital inputs on your receiver and/or DVD player, you'll need a pair of RCA cables (red and white). And if you don't have a subwoofer preout, you'll need a little extra speaker wire.

The Surround Sound Experience

Ask any home theatre enthusiast what is the most important aspect of the movie going experience. They'll all tell you the same answer: sound. Without the right surround sound experience, you aren't getting the full experience out of your movies. Some experts say that 70% of the movie-watching experience is in the sound. That's why we go to such lengths of positioning our speakers, using the right connections, and picking out the best components. To do anything less is, well, not caring very much about watching movies and TV. And if you don't care, why do you even want surround sound?

Planning your Surround Experience

Its important to understand that you can't just plop your speakers (or subwoofer) just any old place in your room. You need to consider distance, angle, level (vertical height), and if there is anything blocking the sound.

Considering distance, you should make sure that your front speakers and center channel are are located close to the TV. Its OK to space your front left and right channels out towards the walls, but don't put them further out than where you'd be sitting. For instance, if your seating goes all the way against the wall, you could have the speaker against the wall. But if your seating ends say 10ft from the wall, don't put your speaker past that point.

Rear speakers should be spaced out equally to the fronts (or close to it). They will also need to be as directly behind your seating as possible. Don't put them 10ft behind where you sit if you can get them closer. They don't do a lot of work in most movies, and most of the work they do is typically quiet compared to the front speakers.

The subwoofer can be anywhere between where you sit and the TV. Optimally, place it closer to the TV and more to the center of the room. Don't block the side of the subwoofer where the air comes out.

That's the speaker itself (usually covered by a grill). Blocking this will smother your bass.

You also don't want to put the subwoofer behind dense objects, doors, walls, or in closets. When possible,

let the subwoofer rest on the floor itself. Putting it in a cabinet or anything else that raises it off the floor will diminish its effects.

When positioning your speakers, make sure the front, the center, and the rear speakers are aimed straight out towards where you sit. The subwoofer doesn't matter as much as long as it is not directly blocked by anything. You obviously don't want your speakers facing the floor, the wall, or the ceiling.

The height of your speakers should match your ear level when sitting. You don't have to get it dead on, but try to keep all your speakers as close to ear level as possible. That means if you're mounting your speakers, don't put them at ceiling height. The subwoofer is always best on the floor, and rear speakers need to be as close to ear level as possible.

An exception is the center channel. Its not always possible to get it just where you want it since it is, afterall, in the center - right where your TV is. You can safely place a center channel above or below your television, but keep it away from the ceiling and the floor.

Run the Speaker Wire

You should have already figured out how much square footage of speaker wire you needed and went ahead and made sure you had that (and a little extra, especially if you don't have RCA jacks on your subwoofer). Now you can lay that cable out. Start connecting the speakers one by one and running the wire back to the receiver. Do whatever concealing of the wires you have planned at this point. You can always change it up in the future.

You're going to want to make sure you connect the right speaker to the right jack on your receiver. First recognize that you will be connecting positive (+) and negative (-) wires on your speakers and on your receiver. Most speaker wire is either colored differently or has writing on one of the cables to designate + vs -.

Figure out which one is which (in the Blogginout of identical colors and text on one cable, just pick one for positive and one for negative). As long as you match it up on both ends (the speaker and the receiver), you're going to be fine. Just don't use one of the wires as positive on your speaker and then the other wire as positive on your receiver (or other similar situation). Crossing the wires is a no-no and can result in damage (or possibly fire). Keep it simple and use the same scheme for every speaker.

Determining which speaker is which is quite simple. Stand in the center of your room and look at your TV. The speaker to your front left is just that - front left. Then you have center and front right.

Behind you and parallel to your front left is your rear left. Opposite that is rear right. Now you know which is which on your receiver.

Connect the Subwoofer

If you have a Y-adapter, go ahead and plug that into your sub's red and white RCA inputs. Then plug a subwoofer cable or an RCA cable (if you have a red and white pair, just select either the red or white and let the other cable dangle) into the Y-adapter. The other end goes into your receiver's subwoofer pre-out. Now plug the power in for your sub and you're finished with connecting the subwoofer.

If you don't have RCA inputs on your subwoofer, you might not even have a power cable for it either. That means you sub is unpowered. It will not and can not sound as impressive as a powered subwoofer. Consider upgrading your subwoofer if this is the case.

Either way, if you don't have RCA jacks (or your receiver doesn't have a subwoofer pre-out), you've got to connect the sub a bit differently. You'll notice some speaker wire jacks on your subwoofer.

There should be three pairs of them (two inputs, two outputs). What you have to do is run your front left and front right speaker cable into the left and right speaker ouputs on the subwoofer. Yes - that means instead of running the front speakers to the receiver, they go to your subwoofer's outputs.

Next, use more speaker wire (this is where the extra comes in handy) to connect the speaker inputs on the subwoofer to the left and right speaker jacks on your receiver. Make sure you're going left to left, right to right (check the labels) and not crossing positives and negatives (remember your wiring scheme).

Once you've done that, you're all set with your subwoofer.

DVD Player and Finished

Now you just need to run some audio cable from your DVD player to your receiver. If you have digital coaxial or fiber optic inputs on both the receiver and DVD player, choose one of them (whichever you have a cable for) and connect the output on your DVD player to the input on your receiver. Be careful because there is most likely one or more digital coax or fiber optic outputs on your receiver as well.

If you don't have digital connections, run a pair of red and white RCA cables from the outputs on your DVD player to an input on your receiver.

That's it! Hopefully you know how to connect your DVD player's video to your TV (using composite, component, s-video, HDMI, or DVI) and have done so.

The last thing you need to do is select the input you're using on the receiver.

If you're using a digital connection, refer to your receiver's manual. You need to select which digital input you're using (usually labeled Digital 1, Digital 2, etc.). Its simple but every receiver is different. Yours might even automatically select the DVD player if it is the only digital input connected to the receiver when you turn on the DVD player.

If you're using analog (composite, red and white) connections, just select the input you used. They might be labeled Video 1, Audio 1, TV, DVD, CD, or some such similar label. The back of your receiver should tell you what input you're using.

Enjoy!

If you followed the directions here, you're going to enjoy your fully connected surround sound system. Hopefully you've got a digital connection between your DVD player and receiver so that you're getting real surround sound. If not, consider upgrading!

Article by Joe Chianese

Joe is the creator and editor of www.howtohookitup.com/www.howtohookitup.com/ has all the answers to your home theater and machine hook up needs. HowToHookItUp.com a website specializing in Home Theater How-To.