Six tips for a better home theater

Recently, I attended THX Level 1 and Level 2 training along with DL.TV's Robert Heron, who also happens to be PC Magazine's HDTV guy. These two classes are designed to give people a leg up on designing, installing, setting up, and calibrating pricey home theaters. Although I've been following home theater gear for years, the classes presented me with quite a few eye openers.

I'm not going to go into great detail on what was covered in the classes. If you want to know what goes on in a THX training course, you can read all about it, when former ExtremeTech analyst Dave Salvator attended these classes back in 2005.

The primary guiding principle behind THX is simple: Totally involve the consumer in the experience of the story exactly as it was created by the author in the studio. Like all big goals, it's something to strive for, since not everyone can afford a customized, dedicated home theater built in an acoustically isolated room.