Help home Theater audio?

if you want recommendations, it is best if you state what your budget is.

"I'm looking to create a great sound system in my basement.." Ignore box systems or sound-bars. These are for the technically challenged or space challenged. You have a basement - you can handle a normal home theater system. (You dont need to spend hundreds of bucks but look below). Ok - here is what I would suggest. You get a mid-range AV receiver from Yamaha (the RX-V series), Denon (Any), or possibly the Pioneer Elite series or the Sony ES series. Budget $500-$900 for this. Get a SVS subwoofer. (this is the secret to a great HT system - smooth, impressive bass). Another good name is HSU Research (there is a review of a HSU subwoofer in this months issue of "Home Theater" magazine.). Budget $600-$1,200 for this. Speakers: Only consider monitor-style speakers (because the towers dont really give you anything but a built-in stand). Only consider speakers from companies that make speakers as their main business. If you want - get some back issues of Home Theater magazine to see what they like. Look into names like Paradgym, Definitive, B&W, Polk, Energy, etc. WIRES: If you need a long HDMI cable or are running in-wall go to www.bluejeanscables.com. I have used his cables for years and they are budget priced and well built. For short interconnect HDMI cables behind your rack - get the Media Bridge brand from Amazon. $9-$20 per cable and they work well. Speaker wire: just buy a spool of oxygen free 12 ga from a speaker site like www.partsexpress.com "sound bars" Ok - if you have a small room with a TV centered on one wall and 2 side walls - a sound-bar has tweeters that point to the side to bounce sound off the side walls to simulate side speakers. Sound bars are simple to use because they come with their own amp built in and are good for bedrooms, small apartments or for your technology-challenged in-laws. But a real 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system is much better if you are not afraid to run wires around the room. "Still on components can all the different speakers be from different brands and such?" Ok - the subwoofer can be from a different company but you really, really want the 5 speakers to all be the same make-and-model. This is so the sounds do not shift tone when they swirl around from speaker to speaker. "I should most likely get a home Theater in a box system" Well... there are many crappy ones and some good ones. The good ones have a full-sized AV receiver and a self-powered subwoofer. Go to Amazon and search for "Onkyo Home Theater" and you will find several budget-but-decent box systems. "Next how do I hook it up properly?" Usually you run HDMI from all your sources (cable box, Sat box, BluRay, Game system) to the TV. this allows you to watch and listen with the TV speakers for casual watching. You run an Optical cable from your TV output to the AV Receiver and you fire this up for more serious TV and movie watching. Note: You might want to run Cat 6 networking cable to behind your gear. Many BluRay players, televisions and other streaming services want an internet connection. While wireless is nice - a hard-wire is better. Hope this helps.

Designing, installing, and properly calibrating a decent to good home audio or theater system takes years of experience to do properly, so unless you want to spend years to learn about it your should leave it to a professional. Your best bet is to discover and go to your independent high end audio video store as they carry the better brands of equipment and the salesmen at these stores generally have many years experience designing these types of systems. The chain stores (best buys etc) really don't have a clue what they are doing and 90% of the equipment they carry is of very poor quality. There is however one book you may consider picking up that is very informative and well written is The Complete Guide to High End Audio ? by Robert Harley ( get the latest 4th addition). This covers both high end audio systems and home theater. This will give you a good foundation of information so you can make a smart purchase. It is endless what you can spend, and it really just depends how important music or movies are to you which will help you determine your budget. The salemen at these higher end stores will be able to guide, inform, and show you the difference in the quality of the systems you can purchase. Most of the better brands of equipment most people are not familiar with so you may also want to read from some of the better trade magazines like Absolute Sound, Perfect Vision, and Stereophile these really are the only trade magazines I recommend as they are very knowledgeable, and review the truly state of the art audio and video equipment, they do also review some reasonably priced gear as well. With your budget you will be able to put a very nice system together, don't settle for a low end system like those you buy in a chain store. Kevin 40 years high end audio video specialist