Speaker installation is as easy as hooking up a few cables and maybe screwing a mount into the wall, right? What could go wrong? Well, the truth is that it’s much more than hooking up a few cables and screwing mounts into the wall! And when it comes to asking what could go wrong…well, let us tell you just a few of the potential disasters that could accompany DIY speaker installation.
Speaker Installation Disasters You Should Avoid
Not Buying Your Speakers First!
There are a lot of components that go into a good quality home entertainment system. When it comes to buying your speakers and your amplifier, ALWAYS buy your speakers first. Choose your speakers based on sound quality, the size of your room, and your budget. Once you have selected your speakers, choose an amplifier that works well with your speakers. You still have to work with your budget and quality DOES matter, but use your speakers as a starting point.
Not Knowing Your Space
When you’re installing your own home speakers it’s not unusual to think that bigger speakers are better. This can lead to absolute disaster if you are fitting your home entertainment system in a smaller room of your home. You have to know the size and the acoustics of your space so that you don’t wind up getting speakers that are just too large for your room. Too much speaker power doesn’t just mean “cool shaking walls” it can actually damage your hearing!
Multiple Branded and Unmatched Speakers
When you’re shopping for your speakers it’s important that you match ALL of your speaker components. You don’t want to invest in a subwoofer from one company and your other speakers in the set from another company. Match your speakers in terms of the brand as well as in strength to get the best sound quality from your system.
Speaker Vibration
When installing speakers in your home it’s also pretty common for DIY’ers to place their speakers on shelves, ledges, entertainment centers, or wooden floors. This can cause a degree of vibration and alter the quality of your sound. Hiring a professional speaker installation expert will allow you to take advantage of their experience in dampening speaker vibration. They may do this for you by identifying specific placement issues or recommending particular mounting systems or brackets that will result in cleaner sound.
Not Optimizing Your Sound
Ready to buy a receiver for your speakers? Most homeowners will buy a receiver for their speakers and not think twice about adding a separate amplifier. The truth is, though, that the amplifier built into multi-channel receivers isn’t worth its salt for optimal sound output. We recommend using a separate amplifier for your three front channels but this only works if your receiver has pre-outs. The purpose of this is to lessen the load on your receiver amplifier. Want to skip the receiver all together? Even better! Your sound quality will greatly improve if you purchase individual elements separately rather than investing in a receiver.
Improper Speaker Placement
Surround sound systems are developed with multiple components that all contribute a part of a whole. When properly put together, each part contributes a unique aspect of your audio profile. DIY homeowners often make the mistake of either placing speakers improperly or placing objects in front of speakers.
When you place speakers improperly throughout your room, the complete sound profile of your speaker system is going to get thrown off. For example, if you place all of your speakers in the front of the room, you are obviously not going to get the well-rounded sound profile. Placing too many speakers at the front of the room so that the front and back sound profiles are out of balance will also result in an imbalance in your acoustics. If you’re not sure how to properly place your speakers, we recommend calling in a speaker installation expert to help you get the job done.
What about obstructions to speakers? You’d be surprised how many people obstruct their speakers with…well, just about anything! The most commonly obstructed speaker component is the subwoofer. Homeowners sit their subwoofer on the floor and then feel that it looks “ugly” and do anything they can to hide it. The problem with this? You’re not just hiding the speaker itself, you’re obstructing the sound. This results in lower sound quality and imbalanced acoustics!
Cheap Mounts or Speaker Towers
There are a good many speaker mounts available on the market today and one of the biggest mistakes we see people making quite often is investing in less than quality speaker mounts or towers. If you’re investing good money in your speakers and your other audio components, why use cheap speaker mounts or towers to hold them? You’re not only risking that those mounts or towers could break, topple over or fall off the wall causing damage to your speakers, but you’re also risking a loss of sound quality. Cheap mounts can result in extensive vibration and reduction of sound quality and that’s going to take away from the acoustics that you paid for.
Using the Wrong Cables or Cheap Cables
Again, if you’re investing good money in your speakers and your other audio components, why would you try to save on cables? Better quality cables are going to cost you more up front, but you’ll be amazed at the difference in sound quality. What causes this difference? Most often it’s the material that the cables are made from. More expensive cables use materials that better conduct to result in better acoustics.
Want Professional Speaker Installation Services Instead?
Good call! If you live in southwest Florida and need help with your speaker installation, just pick up the phone and call Gulf Coast Installs at (239)-682-1077. We’ll get your speakers installed right and by the time we leave, no one will ever know we were there!
