There are so many options on the market so the best thing is to turn the question around and ask what you want from your speakers. For example, I’d say about 90% of the time my speakers are playing music, 9% ABC4Kids and 1% movies. For this reason I have some amazing, huge front speakers for my music, a matching centre speaker for vocals (including TV and movies) and no sub-woofer. The size of my front speakers (1130mm x 300mm x 420mm) means that all the deeper bass is comfortably handled by these fronts. As my music is actual instruments and not normally electronic music the sub-woofer isn’t needed. They are perfect for me. My sister however can’t see the sense in the size.

As a second example, my sister has a huge living area, many small children and lots of pets so having floorstanding speakers was just not a practical option for her. Instead I installed 6 in ceiling speakers and a centre speaker in wall. Her husband loves his movies and so a giant sub-woofer is placed next to his seat so he gets the full impact of his action movies. This is a complete 7.1 system that fills a room that is 3m x 4m with amazing quality audio and yet no speaker is larger than 8”.

A final example for you is recently when a customer walked into the Hallam showroom who needed a home theatre setup. He is in a rental, doesn’t have a lot of room and he wasn’t looking for anything too obvious. We sent him home with the Boston Acoustics 5.1 speaker pack with the Onkyo TX-SR313 receiver and some speaker stands. He rang us a few days later to tell us they were absolutely perfect!

So there we have three different households, three different solutions and three households absolutely in love with their speaker setups. There is no “one size fit’s all” solution to this question and only a “What size fits your world” solution. Have a look around, rule out what you don’t want and then go listen to everything in your price range. You’ll soon find the one that sounds good to you. If you're still in doubt, feel free to call our Selby Techs on 1800 69 2225 to discuss your own needs.