It might seem like somewhat of a stretch to compare any home theater to a boom box, but we are basically looking to point out why a proper home theater is so much more desirable than any other type of stereo equipment (with a bit of humor wired into the equation…).

While some boom boxes may seem quite impressive at first glance, configuring such a device for home theater operation may not be as simple as you’d think. In order to supply rear speakers for your surround sound, you might have to open up the boom box and extract certain speaker elements. You would then need to drill a few holes in the back for the additional wiring that would be required. Any open cavities left behind by the removal of these speakers should be covered up – cardboard may suffice, but a more rigid plastic is preferable. Since the drivers you now have for surround sound cannot simply be taped to your wall, you will need to procure a suitable enclosure – Tupperware containers or old birdhouses might work, although a custom built box would be better…

With all fun aside, a purpose-built home theater system delivers an entertainment experience that has been carefully crafted to excel at cinema. Front, center and surround speakers are designed around the acoustic attributes of those specific channels. For example, a center channel may very well be the most important loudspeaker in a home theater system, so great care is taken to ensure that it can deliver dialogue and spatial imaging correctly. Surround speakers may be direct radiating, dipole or bipole, as the rear soundstage is often more difficult to configure based on room geometry and placement options. AV Receivers come with a host of digital processing and decoding capabilities, which are necessary to send the desired signals to certain speakers. In all, the end result needs to completely immerse you in the movie or program you are watching, and only a well designed home theater can do that. 

Other options, including the typical ‘home-theater-in-a-box’, stereo receivers which have multiple speaker outputs that claim to ‘surround’ you with sound or compact solutions that have “virtual surround” or similar features – none of them can replace equipment that is meant to replicate a movie theater in your home. At BRAVAS, we pride ourselves in designing and installing some of the finest home theater solutions out there.