Buying speakers can be a lot of fun. As you unpack your next piece of audio gear keep good care of the boxes, especially for big towers. Original speaker boxes are the absolute best protection to store, travel, and move your speakers in the future. Nothing’s worse when moving to a new dwelling than having a speaker or two ruined, cut, gouged, or scraped in the process.

Also, if you’re one to upgrade speakers every few years, the original speaker boxes usually make great shipping boxes if you choose to sell your used speakers.

Keep in mind a great set of speakers can last a truly long time… upwards of 20 years or more. Tie that to the general trend that people tend to move every 5-8 years, and those original speaker boxes may come in handy more than once.

It’s understandable why may consumers would be gun shy about home theater. There’s a ton of misinformation out there, and questions I often get have answers people may not want to hear. What’s the best TV? What’s the best receiver? What’s the best speaker maker? What’s the best Blu-ray player? Aren’t media based formats dead because of streaming?

Preplanning may seem like an obvious notion, but the excitement of building a home theater brings with it the impatience to enjoy the fruits of your labors. You can save time, aggravation, and costly mistakes by taking a little time to plan how your equipment will work/grow in your room, weighing room design decisions, and evaluating equipment for your home theater.

Many consumers simply don’t know how long they can expect their home theater gear to last. With the expectation that consumers get from the computer industry one could easily assume that home theater gear only lasts 2-4 years at best, but that could not be further from the truth. With this knowledge you may be inclined to get equipment that can grow with you, or perhaps, lead you to spend a little more to get something that can.

Building your first home theater can seem like a daunting task. For video there are so many technologies, sizes, and price points that the options can simply overwhelm someone looking to build their first home theater. More often than not, with so much attention focused on the video side of things the audio portion is often just quickly thrown together. Assembling the audio portion of your first home theater can make or break your upgrade options in the future.

The old adage of “you pay for what you get” couldn’t be more true than it is in the home theater market today. With prices being slashed dramatically on large/big screen TVs the lure of getting the biggest screen at the smallest price is tempting, but you may regret it over time, as the reliability of the cheapest TVs may be questionable.

After getting your home theater where you want with components, wiring, and setup comes the best part of home theater nirvana: no longer worrying about all that stuff and simply enjoying the fruits of your labors (that is, if your tweaking/upgrading bug has run its course).

With the continual cheapening of many consumer electronics components to extremely low prices, consumers should be wary this holiday season. The old adage of “you pay for what you get” couldn’t be truer today. In the late 90s it was hard to actually find a piece of crap component due to the demanding home theater hobbyists refusing to buy anything that was rated as garbage. Now with the influx of home theater hobbyists spanning across more and more people, the cheapening of the lower end of consumer electronics is in full swing, and an ill-informed consumer may not know what they’re really getting.

As most any home theater enthusiast can attest, getting the perfect home theater goes well beyond just buying the equipment and setting it up properly. After the initial setup begins the hardest part of the final setup process, getting the best possible performance by tweaking speaker location, getting better cables, improving room décor and seating, and properly calibrating the audio and video settings.

Nothing can dramatically improve the sound your home theater produces more than high quality speakers. Yet, in the age where disposable home theaters cost a mere $300, paying over $400 or more for just one speaker may seem like a waste, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

For many people looking to build a home theater, music comes first… not movies. For those audiophiles or “up-and-coming audiophiles” out there the main goal of the home theater system is to produce music at it’s best, with whatever budget they’re on.

With 2003 came the explosion of cheap “budget priced” home theater electronics, and the trend is likely not to go away. Consumers can now get into home theater with much more bang for their buck than ever before, but with it comes both the good and the bad.

When people think of home theater, they think of big screen TVs, expensive electronics, and expensive speakers. Too many people disregard a home surround sound system as too expensive, citing issues with there being too much to buy and so on when, in fact, they couldn’t be further from the truth.

Whether you’re buying a widescreen TV, A/V receiver, cables, or a hot new pair of speakers, going by the technical specifications alone can be the worst thing you can do.

Surround speakers are the subject of many rumors, myths, and die-hard rules invented by those that think the know best. Truth be told, there is no die hard rule for surround speakers. Deciding which type of speaker design and placement to use has more to do with personal preference than any techno-geek laden rule.

Don’t let the upgrade bug leave you with gear that’s obsolete or leftover for another room. Use forethought and preplanning in your home theater purchases now, and you’ll save money over the long run by avoiding the wrong purchases today.

With all the decisions to make, getting everything together to build a brand new home theater can be a daunting task. It can be easier than you thought after a few tips to get you on your way.

A powered subwoofer is undoubtedly the most important speaker you can purchase. It not only affects the overall sound of your system, it dictates what type of speakers you can buy. Getting a powered subwoofer early on in your path of home theater upgrades dramatically improves sound, saves money, and offers more options.

Hailing from Canada, Paradigm uses advanced research methods to design and create its speakers. Unlike most other speaker manufacturers, Paradigm makes every component that goes into their speakers. Thus controlling every aspect of production to ensure all their speakers meet demanding quality expectations.

The Studio 60s come from Paradigm’s high-end Reference line that represents a “cost-is-no-object-standard”, and is the best speaker line Paradigm offers.

Paradigm’s mission has long been to offer extremely high quality speakers at an affordable price. Many, if not all, of Paradigm’s speakers sound just as good or better than speakers costing much more, and the Paradigm Reference Studio 60s are no exception.

Home theater has evolved into a great thing since the introduction of surround sound for the home in the mid 80s. People have been flocking to the idea of bringing the big screen home with huge TVs and awesome surround sound systems.