10 Biggest Home Audio/Video Mistakes

Axiom Home Theaters put together this interesting and helpful list of what to do and, more importantly, what not to do when you're shopping for a home theater system.

Highlights from the top 10 list of biggest mistakes when buying home theater equipment or speakers:

• You bought an all-inclusive package that comes with speakers and a receiver. Sony may know how to make electronics, but designing a speaker system is a much different game. (And in fact, it may have been outsourced on the cheap.)
• You didn't listen to the speakers in the store using your own media. Don't rush. Listen carefully.
• You got knocked out by the bass. This is practically a parlor trick. Big bass makes speakers sound powerful and expensive, but once you try to watch a sitcom with this setup, voices get muddy and full of hiss.
• You bought those cute little 2-inch cube speakers. Er, sorry. You can't get full sound from tiny speakers, which don't have the range to handle highs and lows.
• You don't understand what "200 watts of total power" meant. More vendor trickery: 200 watts divided by five speaker channels means 40 watts per speaker, barely enough to power a dim light bulb. You want 80 to 100 watts per channel.
• Your wife wants to hide the speakers because they're ugly. Putting furniture around your loudspeakers will muddy the sound. If she finds them ugly, might we suggest some paint... or possibly some long-term re-education?
• You got suckered by a 30-minute infomercial. Spending money on ads is not the same as spending money on acoustic research, development, and testing. The best speakers probably come from companies you've never heard of and which don't spend millions on advertising.

You'll find a few more tips and more explanations by clicking through to the full Axiom piece. Happy speaker hunting! (Full disclosure: Axiom makes speakers but I've never tested them myself. Their experts certainly seem to know what they're talking about, at least.)