Planning a home theater can feel like facing a mountain of questions at first: 5.1 or 7.1? Is a soundbar enough? TV or projector? And what on earth does 7.2.4 mean?
This guide sorts it out. It shows you the different levels of home theater setup and what each one really brings, the different room concepts available – from the living room to invisibly installed speakers and your own dedicated cinema room –, why your room determines more about the sound than the price of the speakers, and the order in which you should allocate your budget most effectively. In the end, you'll know which setup is right for your situation, what mistakes you can avoid, and roughly how much a home theater costs.
Take twenty minutes. They're well spent – you don't buy a new home theater every year.
Table of Contents
- The two questions that determine everything else
- The levels of home theater setup: from soundbar to height level
- The room concepts: living room, invisible, dedicated room
- The picture: TV, short-throw, or projector?
- Why the room determines more than the price
- Where your money should go first
- What does a home theater really cost?
- Home theater in a rented apartment
- Typical mistakes and bad purchases
- How far we go
- Conclusion: Which setup for whom?
- FAQ
1. The two questions that determine everything else
Before you think about individual devices, answer two questions. Everything else follows almost automatically from them.
Question 1: How serious are you?
Do you just want more intelligible voices and a bit more punch on movie night? Or do you want to truly forget you're sitting on your sofa during a movie? This isn't a question of right or wrong – but it determines the level of home theater setup.
Question 2: Where should it take place?
In the living room, where you also live, eat, and listen to music? Or in a room that you can dedicate to this one purpose?
Important: These two axes are independent of each other. There are fully-fledged 7.2.4 setups in completely normal living rooms, and there are dedicated cinema rooms with a neatly set up 5.1 and a simple roller screen that work great. So you don't have to choose one package, but rather combine the level you want with the concept that fits your living situation.
However, there is one asymmetry: A dedicated room can do everything a living room can – the reverse is not true. More on that below.
2. The levels of home theater setup: from soundbar to height level
Soundbar: when it's the right answer
A soundbar is not a "bad home theater", but a solution in its own right with a clear profile. It's right for you if there's no room for multiple speakers in the living room, you can't or don't want to run cables, the whole thing should remain visually inconspicuous – and your main goal is better intelligibility and more fullness than TV sound, not maximum immersion.
What a soundbar cannot do by design: true localization of sound sources all around you. Effects that really come from the back left need a speaker there too. Virtual processes can hint at this, but not replace it.
The rest of this article will cover true multi-channel setups. If you realize that a soundbar is the better path for you: Soundbar buying guide covers the topic in great depth. Here's the product range: Soundbars
5.1: the foundation
Five speakers plus a subwoofer: front left and right, center, two surrounds at the back or to the sides, plus the subwoofer for the foundation.
This is the level at which you can talk about a real home theater – and for most living rooms, it's also the most sensible. The jump from TV sound or a soundbar to a neatly set up 5.1 is the biggest one you'll experience in this whole topic. Everything after that is refinement.
The center is the most important speaker here, even though it's rarely treated as such. Practically all speech runs through it. A good center determines whether you reach for the remote during quiet dialogue or simply listen.
7.1: more surround sound at the back
Two additional speakers, but not simply "more of the same": The previous surrounds move to the sides next to your listening position, the new surround-back speakers take over the rear area. The result is a more even surround instead of a gap between the sides and the back.
7.1 is worth it if you actually have space behind the couch. If the sofa is pressed against the back wall, the benefit is minimal to counterproductive – the rear speakers will practically be right next to your ears.
And one rule we take very seriously: Better two perfectly positioned surrounds than four half-baked ones. If you can't get the four to be symmetrical and with a reasonable distance, you're better off investing the money in two better speakers in the right positions. The result is noticeably better.
The height level: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and co.
Only here does a flat surface become a room. The third digit in designations like 5.1.2 or 7.2.4 stands for the height speakers – rain, helicopters, reverb in a cathedral.
There are two ways to get there: add-on speakers that sit on top of your existing speakers and reflect the sound off the ceiling – without a single drill. Or real ceiling speakers that are installed according to specifications and locate much more precisely, but require construction work.
Important: The height level is the add-on, not the foundation. If the lower level isn't set up properly, it brings little. That's why it belongs far back in the priority list.
How the formats work in detail, which angles apply, and which setups make sense, we cover thoroughly in a separate article. And for height speakers directly: Dolby Atmos Speakers
Multiple subwoofers: the underestimated level of home theater setup
The second digit (the ".2" in 7.2.4) stands for the subwoofers. Two subwoofers are not twice as loud – they make the bass more evenly distributed across the seating positions. Standing waves form in a room: In one spot it booms, a meter further away the same tone is almost completely missing. A second sub in the right position smooths this out considerably.
Anyone who regularly watches multiple movies often gets more out of a second subwoofer than from two additional surround speakers.
Product range: Home Theater Speaker Sets · Subwoofers · Centers · Surround Speakers
3. The room concepts: living room, invisible, dedicated room
Before we go through the three concepts individually: We went through all the possibilities you have at home once in a video – from the living room to your own room.
Concept 1: The living room cinema
The classic and for the vast majority the right path. Speakers are visible, the room remains a living space, and the system has to fulfill two jobs: movies in the evening, music during the day.
That's exactly why the stereo quality of the front speakers is particularly important here. A setup that is only optimized for movie sound will bring little joy when listening to music. Conversely, good stereo speakers work excellently as the front of a home theater.
The big advantage: You see your speakers, you can choose them by sound and appearance, and you can rearrange, add to, and optimize at any time.
The limits: Furniture is in the way, window fronts reflect, the couch should stand where it should stand – and room acoustics can only be influenced to a limited extent without it looking like a recording studio. You work with compromises here. Good compromises, but compromises nonetheless.
Floorstanding speakers · Compact speakers · Speaker stands
Concept 2: Invisible – Built-in and under-plaster speakers
For everyone who doesn't want visible technology in the room. There are two variants: Built-in speakers in the wall or ceiling, where a grille is still visible. And invisible speakers that disappear under the plaster, can be painted over, and are simply no longer visible after that.
The appeal is obvious: a completely clean room, no black hole on the wall when a motorized screen or picture hangs in front of it, and all the electronics disappear into a cabinet.
The catch: This needs to be planned early. It makes sense with new construction, a major renovation, or if a ceiling is already being lowered. Doing it afterwards in an occupied apartment is elaborate to impossible. Anyone who is considering it should therefore speak to us very early – not only when the plaster is on.
Custom Installation · On Wall Speakers
Concept 3: The dedicated cinema room
A dedicated room that doesn't have to be anything else. This happens more often than you think – often when children have moved out and a room becomes free.
Here every compromise falls away. You can choose dark wall colors and completely eliminate stray light, which does more for the image of a projector than any device upgrade. You can use an acoustically transparent screen and hide front speakers plus a subwoofer behind it – the sound then comes exactly from the image. You can determine the seating position according to acoustic criteria instead of furnishing. And you can do real room acoustics: absorbers, diffusers, bass traps.
What something like this looks like in the end, you can see with us: We built our own cinema room from scratch and exploited exactly these possibilities.
A realistic path that is often chosen with us: a solid, cozy setup in the living room for everyday life – and the dedicated room for the evenings when it really should be a cinema.
4. The picture: TV, short-throw, or projector?
A home theater is not just a sound question. Three paths lead to the big picture – here is the short version, detailed in Projector, Laser TV, or TV?
TV. Highest brightness, best contrast, works in a bright room without any preparation, very low latency for gamers. Disadvantage: The size has practical limits – not only in price, but also in transport into the apartment. And a permanent black rectangle hangs on your wall.
Short-throw projector (Laser TV). Stands on a piece of furniture close to the wall and still creates a very large image. Significantly brighter than a classic projector, suitable for daylight – but absolutely needs a special high-contrast screen whose structure reflects light falling from the sides and above. Without this screen, you give away the main advantage. Second point that many overlook: The projector stands where the center should actually go. This needs to be thought through beforehand.
Classic projector. The largest image diagonal, the softest, most cinematic image, and it disappears on the ceiling. The price for this: It needs a darkened room. In daylight, black becomes gray, and even the best screen only changes a part of that. Anyone who can darken the room gets the most impressive image here.
About the screen in brief: Roller screens disappear when not in use, but can easily become wavy over the years – tension variants stretch the fabric on the sides and prevent this. Frame screens are always flat, but always visible. And if the center is to go behind the image, you need an acoustically transparent (micro-perforated) screen.
Projectors · TVs · Mounts & Stands
5. Why the room determines more than the price
This is the section that surprises the most in the store: A carefully set up mid-range setup beats an expensive system that is positioned incorrectly in the room. Every time.
The seating position is the most important lever. Two things count: distance to the back wall and position in the room. A sofa directly against the back wall is the most common cause for disappointing surround playback – the rear speakers then practically sit next to your ear, and instead of a sound cloud, you hear individual boxes. A distance of around one meter is the target. And: Do not put the couch in the middle of the room if possible. There, reflections overlap particularly unfavorably; the rear third is usually the significantly better choice.
Speakers need air. Squeezed directly into a corner or against the wall, the bass swells up and overpowers the lower mids – the result sounds muddy instead of precise. 30 cm distance from the boundary surfaces is a start, 50 cm is noticeably better.
The foundation counts. On carpet, you couple speakers with spikes to the floor, on hard floor you decouple them with dampers. In both cases, the bass becomes more precise and speech intelligibility increases.
The center belongs free. It must not go into the rack and not be pushed back onto the sideboard, where it radiates against the furniture surface. To the front edge, if necessary slightly overhanging – and if it stands too deep, angle it with its feet toward the listening position.
All this costs almost nothing and brings more than the next higher price class. How you optimally position each individual speaker is explained in detail in Positioning speakers correctly. Matching accessories: Dampers / Decouplers · Wall Mounts
6. Where your money should go first
If your budget is limited – and it usually is – then in this order:
1. Room and setup. Costs nothing and is still skipped most often. See the section above. Start here before you spend even one euro.
2. Front left/right plus center – from one series. These three carry the movie. The center makes the voices, the fronts the foundation and the stereo enjoyment. Here quality pays off the most. And definitely from one series: same tweeters, same sound signature. Otherwise, you'll hear the character change with every pan across the front.
3. The subwoofer. The step that makes "sound" into a "cinema" – and at the same time relieves your front speakers and the AV receiver from the power-draining low tones. However, it also needs the most attention in setup and adjustment. A model with integrated room correction takes a lot of work off your hands and is usually worth the extra cost. Subwoofers
4. The AV receiver. It doesn't have to be the most expensive, but it must have the features you actually need – otherwise you'll buy a new one in two years. Specifically: enough amplifier stages for the channels you plan (whoever wants Atmos later needs the channels now), the sound formats you want to use, sufficient and current HDMI connections for your sources – and a powerful room correction system if your room is acoustically difficult. In critical rooms, that is exactly the point where the surcharge is most likely worth it. Details in AV Receiver Buying Guide · AV Amplifiers
5. The picture. Here a special rule applies: If you already have a usable TV, invest in the sound first – the jump is bigger. If you're starting completely from scratch, the picture naturally belongs in the budget from the beginning and is planned in parallel, because the image provider and speaker setup are mutually dependent (keyword: Where to put the center?).
6. Surround speakers. Important for the surround sound, but carry less signal share than the front. Better two good ones than four mediocre ones.
7. The height level. The add-on. Without a clean lower level, it brings little – with a clean one, a lot.
8. Fine-tuning and accessories. Decoupling, proper cable bridges instead of the included sheet metal bridges, careful room correction. Small money, noticeable effect. Speaker cables
What about room acoustics? It’s deliberately not on this list—not because it’s unimportant, but because most people don’t want to implement it in their living room. But once you’re ready to use absorbers and diffusers, acoustics move right to the top. In a dedicated cinema room, it is one of the most important factors of all—there, it makes more of a difference than the next class of equipment.
7. How much does a home cinema really cost?
The honest answer: It’s difficult to give a single figure because so many variables are involved. Still, here are a few benchmarks so you know what price range you’re looking at.
The entry level starts with a satellite system—five small speakers plus a subwoofer—combined with a compact AV receiver. This is in the low four-figure range and already delivers genuine multichannel sound.
The next level is four full-sized bookshelf speakers, a subwoofer, and an AV receiver. That puts you at around 3,000 euros and gives you a 5.1 system you can take seriously.
A really good living room 5.1 is more likely to cost around 7,000 euros. The scale is open-ended at the top—15,000 or 20,000 euros is not uncommon for a 5.1 system with high-quality floorstanding speakers and a matching receiver.
All these figures are for the sound alone, without the picture. TVs, projectors, or short-throw projectors plus screens come on top of that. The same goes for every additional step: more channels, a second subwoofer, height channels, room acoustics, cinema seats, installation, and on-site calibration.
Realistically, the projects we implement range from around 3,000 euros to over 200,000 euros. This isn’t bragging, but the honest range—and the reason we prefer to advise you personally on this topic rather than hand you a price list.
The most important advice on budget: Plan for the level of upgrade you want in three years. An AV receiver with enough channels costs a little more today and will save you from having to buy a completely new one later.
8. Home cinema in a rented apartment
Not being allowed to drill is not a dealbreaker—it just changes the priorities.
What can be done without structural changes: The front and center speakers will be on furniture or stands anyway. Surrounds can be placed on stands instead of screwed to the wall. For height channels, there are top-mounted speakers that simply sit on the front speakers and reflect sound off the ceiling—no ceiling mounting required. And a projector can be placed on a shelf if ceiling mounting is not an option.
Cable management without wall channels: Flat cables under carpet edges or behind skirting boards, cable channels painted to match the wall, or the simple option of running the cable along the skirting board. It’s not elegant, but it’s invisible enough—and much better than giving up surround sound.
What you should realistically plan for: In apartment buildings, the subwoofer is the critical point. Low frequencies travel through walls and ceilings. Decoupling the subwoofer from the floor helps noticeably, as does a night mode on the AV receiver that limits the dynamic range. And a second, smaller subwoofer often produces more bass at your listening position with less volume throughout the house than a single large one.
Speaker stands · Wall mounts · Dampers / Decouplers
9. Typical mistakes and bad purchases
Mixing speakers from different series. The most common and expensive mistake. A center from one series, fronts from another, something else at the back—you get sound, but the sound signature changes with every pan. Better to go one level down, but stay within one family.
Better a half-baked 7.1 than a proper 5.1. Four speakers crammed in somewhere at the back sound worse than two well-placed ones. Build a proper 5.1 first and save up for the upgrade.
Putting the center speaker inside the furniture. This happens all the time. It then radiates against wood and glass, the voices become muffled—and then you wonder why speech intelligibility is poor. It belongs freely at the front edge.
Putting the couch against the back wall. Visually obvious, acoustically the classic problem. If at all possible: move it away.
Leaving the metal bridges in. Almost every speaker with bi-wiring terminals comes with simple metal bridges. Replacing them with proper cable bridges costs little and is audible.
Buying a TV that is too large for the room. Not just because of the price and viewing distance—a very large TV often no longer fits in the stairwell or the elevator. Measure beforehand.
Forgetting the screen with a short-throw projector. Without a suitable contrast screen, you give away the crucial advantage. And the position where the projector has to stand often conflicts with the center speaker.
Relying blindly on calibration. A calibration system corrects a lot, but it cannot fix a bad setup. And if it intervenes too much, it takes the life out of the soundscape. Set up properly first, then calibrate.
Buying too few power amplifiers. Anyone building a 5.1 today who wants Atmos in two years will be annoyed by a receiver without the necessary channels.
10. How far we go
With home cinema, the range of what customers need is greater than in any other category. That’s why we work on four levels—choose how much of it you want:
As a specialist retailer for individual components. You know what you want and need speakers, a receiver, a projector, or a screen. We deliver and are available to answer questions.
With advice and planning. We look at your room situation, plan the setup, coordinate the components, and you get a cohesive overall concept instead of a collection of individual devices.
With on-site installation and calibration. We come to you, set everything up correctly, wire it, measure it in, and optimize it by ear. Exactly the work that lies between “it works” and “it’s great.”
As a complete installation. Invisible speakers plastered in, a dedicated cinema room, an acoustically transparent screen, room acoustics, seating, control system. From the first drawing to the finished room.
With us, you can hear and see all three concepts live—living room cinema, invisibly installed room, and dedicated cinema room. That replaces any description. View advice & installation →
A note on this: For a proper home cinema demonstration, we take the time to do it right. Please book in advance instead of dropping by spontaneously—then we can give you the attention the topic deserves.
11. Conclusion: Which setup for whom?
You simply want better TV sound, have little space, and don’t like visible technology. → Soundbar. Honestly and without detour: That is the right solution for you. Soundbar buying guide
You want a real cinema experience in a normal living room. → 5.1 with proper front speakers and a center from the same series plus a subwoofer. Invest the care in the setup, not in additional channels.
You have space behind the couch and want more. → 7.1, or alternatively 5.1 with height channels via top-mounted speakers. Both make sense—more surround at the back, more dimension from above.
You want your living room to stay clean and you’re renovating anyway. → Built-in or invisible speakers. But plan early, very early.
You have a room to spare. → Dedicated cinema room. Here you get everything out of it without compromise—and here the investment in room acoustics, which is usually ruled out in the living room, is also worth it.
You have a limited budget and want maximum effect. → Front and center from the same series, a good subwoofer, careful setup. The rest can wait and be added later.
FAQ
Is a 5.1 system enough, or do I absolutely need Atmos?
5.1 is completely sufficient for a very good home cinema. Atmos adds an additional dimension, but does not replace a solid lower level. Build a proper 5.1 first, add the height channels later.
Do all the speakers have to be from the same manufacturer?
The front, center, and surrounds should come from the same series—same tweeters, same sound signature. The subwoofer is not critical in this regard; it operates in a frequency range where the sound signature plays almost no role.
Can I continue to use my existing stereo pair as the fronts?
Usually yes, and that is often a very good way to go. Just make sure to choose a center that matches acoustically—ideally from the same series or at least from the same manufacturer.
How large can the TV be for my room?
When watching films, the viewing distance is less restrictive than many think—modern resolutions allow you to sit significantly closer than before. The more practical limits are usually wall space, price, and whether the device fits in the apartment at all.
Do I absolutely need a subwoofer if I have large floorstanding speakers?
Yes, for home cinema. The LFE channel contains signals that even large floorstanding speakers cannot reproduce. In addition, a subwoofer noticeably relieves your fronts and the receiver.
How long will such a setup stay current?
Speakers last for decades. The electronics are the part that ages faster—mostly due to new connection standards and audio formats. That is exactly why it is worth planning a little more generously for the speakers than for the rest.
How to move forward
If you have read this far, you probably already have a rough idea of which direction to go. The next step is simple: Tell us about your room. Floor plan, seating position, what you imagine, what is structurally possible and what is not.
We will plan a setup from this that suits you—and you can hear it at our place beforehand.
View advice & installation →
Tell us about your room →
Directly in the range: Home cinema speaker sets · AV amplifiers · Subwoofers · Projectors · Custom installation
Author: Fidelity
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