Which channel is more important in Home Theater

 In a typical home theater setup, it will be ranging from 5.1 channel to 11.1 or even more. What does all this channel means ? Each channel is referring to one of the output from receiver or processor to the output to of a speaker. From picture we can see that each channel is also called with specific name. The Center, the stereo left / right, the rear left / right with 1 subwoofer. This is so called the 5.1 where the 5 channels are the center, stereo and rear. The point 1 mean is referring to the subwoofer. 

Taking this simple 5.1 setup, what do we want to pay more attention to ? Especially when you have limited funding or space, what will you go with first. The very first or most critical speaker is the center channel. It is quite obvious that center channel is the one producing speech or dialog in any movie. It will be impossible to watch any movie without dialog. This become apparent this is the critical channel. I will spend my budget as much as possible for the center giving the critical of it. Many a times people will also complaint about not able to hear what the dialog during a movie. So a good center channel will be even more important. 

Center channel is also usually a speaker is design to be place horizontally. This allow clearance of display to have the channel as closely as possible to screen. Having a center channel very close to the center of the screen is also crucial. You do not want to be looking at the screen and the dialog is coming from the bottom or the top or any where else. The sound should be coming from center of the screen. It will certainly be awkward if the sound is coming from other direction.

After center channel, which should be next on the list ? This is the tricky question. As we called our front channel channel as stereo right / left, the reason for this is sometimes it is use for stereo purpose like music. So now we need to take into consideration the stereo purpose of your home theater or simply this purely home theater only. The other consideration is also the front and center channel matching. In surround sound setup, the panning effect is very important. The coherent of the sound will be lost if the sound travelling from one speaker to the other is not right. So now I will say that given the importance of the sound continuity the front channel will be the second on the list.

The next obvious option is the boom box. How can any home theater be without the beast (subwoofer). We are not talking about just the size but any setup of home theater will be needing it to fill in the ambient. Probably will be even more important for some bass lovers. Although LFE or Low Frequency Effect might not be always there is in a movie but when the time comes for it to rock, it will be totally amazing how much ambient will change with the kick of bass. Of course we do want to have proper blend of the subwoofer with the rest of the 5 other speakers. So we need to take into consideration what is the capability of all the speakers to choose the right subwoofer. 

Last but not least will be our surround channels. Surround speakers is also known as filler to the ambient sound. There won't be surround sound without this speakers. Although this is kind of taking the back seat but for some with really big budget this is something that will be good to have to get the best speakers as well to enable the blend in. Remember we talk about panning effect, it will still play an important role as not to loose the sound travelling around the room during the movie. In typical home locally, surround speakers can't be too big as well with limited space. Usually it will be comprise. In ideal situation all speakers should be in the same model and range. 

In the current surround sound format of course now we have atmos or DTS X with in ceiling for the top surround. This is different from the older tech of height surround. This top surround will give the actual feeling of sound over head which can be really exciting of actually knowing a plane or helicopter flying over your head like in real environment. Not many people typical home locally has the luxury of over head speakers. There is so called atmos enabled speakers which is using the same concept of soundbar reflecting sound to create the effect. This will be more to nice to have rather than must have in surround sound given the limitation of homes. 

In summary the center channel play the most important role that will be top priority and the second will be a little more subjective if is either the front or subs dependent of the objective on the home theater setup. So it can be sub first or front channel first. Next step will be the surround which can be back surround or side surround or even both. This is more dependent on room size and the area of coverage. Finally the atmos which is more to nice to have. Hope this little tips helps for someone who is starting out the journey to get you going.