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So what exactly is Home Theater?

Seeing a movie in a theater is a special experience. The movie is shown on a large, rectangular screen. Behind the screen are three banks of speakers - left, center, and right. High up on both sides of the theater are even more speakers. The sound of the movie follows the action on the screen, coming from the front, sides, and rear of the theater. You are enveloped and surrounded by the movie and its full spectrum of emotion and excitement. Which is precisely how the movie's producer and director planned it.

At home, you watch the same movie on a much smaller screen (maybe not, with the sound reproduced through the speakers in your TV. The emotion and excitement of the movie is considerably diminished. You may well wonder why you liked the movie so much when you saw it at the theater!

Wonder no more. Movie excitement is a combination of picture and sound. Movie producers spend millions of dollars on the soundtrack alone. Watch a movie without the sound effects planned by the producer, and you're having a different experience than the movie was intended to provide.

A Home Theater makes it possible to enjoy movies more like the producers intended - on a decent-sized screen with exciting all-around-you sound. In its simplest form, a basic Home Theater system consists of a digital TV, a 5.1 digital surround sound system, and a DVD player.  More elaborate systems can include a wide-screen projection TV, or better yet, an overhead projector with dedicated screen and sophisticated electronics DTS & 7.1 Dolby Digital surround.   Now we can add HD digital video recorders, and soon HD optical recorders when Blu-Ray products become available.  Movies on conventional DVDs look and sound great but HDTV programming from an off-air antenna, or the HD channels from DISH Network and DirecTV are absolutely astonishing!  And since the audio standard for HDTV is 5.1 digital surround, the sound is High Definition too!

How much does a Home Theater cost?

You already own a TV. To turn it into a Home Theater, you'll need a movie source (usually a DVD player) and a surround sound system. If you already own the DVD, you're halfway there!

There are “Home Theater In A Box” models from Sony available at Good Vibes for less than $300.  These systems are not sophisticated but they sound much better than just the internal TV speakers and they really can produce a surround effect.

Component surround sound systems start under $1000. These typically consist of an AM/FM surround sound receiver, a DVD player, 5 speakers (3 in front, two in back), and a subwoofer (that’s the “point 1”).  Your TV and DVD audio play through the surround sound system, to let you enjoy the great sound of movies, TV shows, and sporting events.  The DVD player doubles as a CD source so this turns your Home Theater into a highly enjoyable movies-and-music entertainment system.

  Custom Home Theater from Good Vibes.

Good Vibes sells digital TV's, projection big screens, and DVD players - just like a lot of stores.  But unlike a lot of stores, Good Vibes also sells a quality selection of Home Theater sound systems and provides every service you'll need to select, install, and successfully operate the system that's best for you.

We call our systems Custom Home Theaters - specifically-designed for you, your room, and your budget. Good Vibes began advertising and selling Home Theater systems in 1984, and has more experience configuring and installing such systems than any other store in downstate Illinois. We can deliver your new system "over the counter", and let you have the fun of installing and setting up the system. Or, you can take advantage of our set-up and installation services to provide you with a system that integrates seamlessly with your room and décor.

A Good Vibes Custom Home Theater - be it simple or elaborate - will provide years of quality family entertainment with little or no maintenance. We don't know of anything else you could buy that would provide a better, more lasting entertainment value.

Beat the high cost of gasoline and stay at home with a Good Vibes Custom Home Theater, and Have Great Fun!

The Sound of Digital Home Theater

Dolby Surround Sound revolutionized movie soundtrack production in the mid-70's, and became recognized as "state-of-the-art" with the huge success of Star Wars in 1977. It became the surround sound standard for Home Theater with the introduction of Dolby Pro Logic® surround sound receivers some 10 years later.

Since then, Dolby Digital® 5.1 surround sound became the primary standard for movie soundtracks and HDTV although now there are 6.1, 7.1 and DTS (another standard) encoded discs as well as electronics to decode them.   

Dolby Digital provides for 6-8 discrete channels of audio information: left, center, right, left rear, right rear, and low frequency effects (LFE).  It provides vastly superior channel separation and detail compared to earlier systems and it requires more total amplifier power, better rear channel speakers and, for the complete effect, a dedicated subwoofer.  The center rear channel(s) are configurable i.e. your receiver can be “told” to operate as a 5, 6, or even 7 channel set depending on how many speakers are installed.  If the content only has 5 channels the receiver can be programmed to fill in information (or not—as the user prefers).

Digital surround sound is here to stay and if you haven’t experienced the added realism that digital surround brings into your home, you owe to yourself to see and hear a demonstration.  While you’re in, check out the many high definition TVs as well as surround system options displayed in our store.

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