Home Theater Speaker Review

Surveying reviews of home theater speakers

CNET is currently the best place to read about home theater speakers, especially if you want to spend less than $1,000. The site's home theater speaker reviews are updated regularly, and though not as detailed as those at audio and video enthusiast websites and magazines, provide plenty of information for nontechies. ConsumerReports.org also rates and compares moderately priced home theater speakers, but doesn't cover nearly as many models and the editors offer little in the way of discussion or insight. Enthusiast magazines and websites, including Sound & Vision and Home Theater, offer richly detailed reports and make recommendations, but don't do as good a job of comparing home theater speakers. They also tend to focus mainly on pie-in-the-sky speaker systems with price tags that fall far outside the realm of reasonable for the average buyer. Helpful owner opinions about home theater speakers can be found at AVSForum.com, AudioReview.com, Amazon.com, Crutchfield.com and elsewhere.

One issue with buying home theater speakers is the wide range of options and prices available. Complete surround-sound speaker packages can be had for under $200, or cost as much as a well-appointed luxury car. Audio aficionados sometimes disparage budget speakers, and many are poor performers with insufficient bass, buzzy high frequencies and inaccurate sound reproduction. But there are also a lot of affordable home theater speaker systems that can produce audio -- both TV and music -- that will please all but the most critical or status-conscious listener. Our focus in this report is on those systems that cost $800 or less, though a few more upscale options are also profiled.

If you don't want to spend so much on speakers, consider a home theater in a box. This type of kit is aimed at those who want to minimize their number of decisions and keep costs down. Home theater systems include a matched receiver/DVD player and surround-sound speakers in one box, and some now even include Blu-ray players. Basic systems can be had for as little as $200. See our report on home theater systems for more on this type of kit.

The urge to not splurge on speakers is understandable, especially if you've just spent most of your home theater budget on a big flat-screen TV. However, you need to choose very carefully when it comes to budget home theater speaker systems. That said, even the cheapest systems can deliver better sound than the speakers in your TV can provide.

A case in point is the Yamaha NS-SP1800 (*Est. $130). While no experts have weighed in on the system, it has accumulated an impressive feedback record among owners posting at Amazon.com and elsewhere. These speakers won't stand up against better speakers -- most of which cost many times more -- but user reviewer after user reviewer reports that for the price, sound quality is just about unbeatable.

Yamaha calls the NS-SP1800 an "entry level" system. It is a 5.1-channel set up, which means that it has all of the speakers necessary for five-channel surround -- the most popular format -- plus a powered subwoofer (that's the .1). The subwoofer is on the small size, but it can pump out sufficient bass for smaller spaces, reports say.

Speaking of reports, owner feedback indicates that most are satisfied with both value and performance. Several reviewers say that they own higher-end speakers but purchased the NS-SP1800 for use in a vacation room, bedroom or for another secondary home theater and are completely satisfied. Complaints are relatively few, though a flimsy hook-up cable gets a couple of mentions. Reports do say that audiophiles will want to look elsewhere, but for everyone else, the Yamaha NS-SP1800 seems to be a reasonably good alternative to using your TV's built-in speakers.