Integrating Stereo into Home Theater

"I now pronounce you... Man and Stereo."

Or person and stereo.

Some lucky souls have separate areas for music and for Home Theater. But apparently not the folks whose homes are visited by officers of the law on Cops.

Let's assume you have ONE area - likely the family room - in which to dedicate space to Home Theater AND stereo listening. Can one system serve both and if so, how well?

Well, yes it can and no it can't.

The devil's in the details.

Let's assume you want to have stereo music at times, not 5 channel surround sound. Let's assume some other things too:

You love music.

You don't want to deafen yourself. Reasonable sound levels will serve your purpose.

You can sit and face the speakers (see stereo system section and the BESTS for positioning.

There's no reason you can't use the left and right speakers of your home theater system for your music. But there are many variables.

Using your Home Theater Receiver

But this assumes your front speakers are full range (carry all frequencies from low to high). If they don't, you'll have to try to also use your subwoofer. Without knowing more about your receiver, I can't help you.

NOT Using your Home Theater Receiver

Will your sig other allow you to have MORE (separate) speakers in the front of the room? Didn't think so.

Do you want to swap speaker cables and then maybe forget at the wrong time, risking the equipment? Didn't think so.

The limiting factor is likely to be your speakers and receiver (and we are talking relatively HIGH fidelity here... the good stuff...) And though you won't believe me yet, maybe even your speaker wire.

Now you COULD buy a worthy home theater sound system in the first place and that would get you a LOT closer to the best of both worlds. Even the $1500 Epos system I suggest over in suggested systems is a WONDERFULLY capable speaker system.

THAT'S WHY I cringe at the thought of the SUNDAY SUPPLEMENTS in the newspaper fooling you into buying a $400 receiver with speakers and thinking you have just arrived at the street corner of great sound and happy wallet. It doesn't work that way.

So, understand that the best purchase is to make a concentrated effort upfront to find Home Theater speakers that will mate well with your music as well as movie/tv sound. And then to buy a receiver that's as neutral and good sounding as you can afford.

Using your Home Theater Receiver ELSEWHERE

In case you DO have another listening location - here's what to do (and this assumes you can get speaker wires from your home theater receiver to there somehow.)

Get a Receiver with ZONE 2 connectivity. It might require a separate power amplifer for Zone 2 (in which case it will provide preamplifier outputs - just be sure these come AFTER the volume control or you'll need an amp with volume controls on it, since line outputs are normally full ON,) but... in the Denon AVR2805 Receiver (and others), for example, you can power up your zone 2 speakers with the simple flick of a switch.

Another reason why I say, "get the best sounding receiver you can afford." For Zone 2, you could then select speakers which are not at all compromises between home theater video audio (if you know what I mean) and audio... audio.