Home Cinema Buying Guide
Why Buy
Switch on and experience the epic surround sound experience of the cinema in your own living room. From systems to separates, we'll explain all of the technology and help find the right product for your home.
What's more, with a style, size and price to suit everyone, bringing your favourite movies and music to life has never been simpler, or more affordable. Whether you're looking for a discrete all in one system, or your very own home cinema separates system, we'll talk you through all of the options available and make sure you have everything you need to make every night in like a magical night at the movies.
Things To Consider
Centre Speakers
Goes under your TV. Most of the dialogue will come from here, locking the sound to the screen for a faithful and accurate performance.
Front Speakers
Sit either side of your TV. From the car chases to that kiss in the last scene, the majority of the action comes at you from the front speakers.
Subwoofer
Can be hidden away behind your TV or sofa. This speaker deals with all the big bass moments, making your favourite soundtracks really pack a punch.
Rear Speakers
Place behind your sofa.Watching DVDs will never be the same again the atmospherics and surround effects are spellbinding.
DVD Receiver
Goes on your TV stand. The centre piece of your home entertainment system. Plays CDs, DVDs, also has a radio tuner and provides the power for your speakers.
If your room can't accommodate five speakers, or you simply don't want that many, there's still a range of home cinema options with 3 speakers available.
All in One Systems
Get it together with an all-in-one system!
Laskys stock a wide range of one-stop systems that contain everything you need for the instant home cinema experience. Our range of products are subtle, stylish and discrete, yet provide powerful performances when you dim the lights!
You will benefit from cinema-like movie sound from your favourite DVDs, where bullets will ricochet around you and explosions make the floor rumble beneath you.
You can also get sensational surround sound from anything you watch on your TV, bringing everything from your daily soap to weekly football matches into breathtaking reality. And best of all, your new DVD home cinema system will double up as a hi-fi, allowing you discover hidden parts of your most treasured CDs that you wont have heard before, making you feel like you were there when it was recorded.
Home Cinema Separates
Design and build your very own home entertainment system
With home cinema separates, you can tailor your system to exactly meet your needs. Whether you are upgrading a specific aspect of your set-up or want to create it from scratch, we'll help you choose the right components to turn your idea of home cinema heaven into reality.
By choosing home cinema separates you'll benefit from superior sound quality and the flexibility to upgrade individual elements of your system either now, or in the future. Best of all selecting the components for your separates system couldn't be easier, with essentially four main elements to a home cinema set-up:
1. DVD Player
This will play both CDs and DVDs in crisp, digital quality and can replace the hi-fi in your living room, giving you clutter-free home entertainment. Look out for improved connectivity including component video and optical audio outputs for the highest picture and sound quality. Also look out for increased playback that includes JPEG and MP3 CD playback to play any digital photos or downloaded music through your home cinema set-up.
2. Home Cinema Receiver
The receiver will power all of the speakers in your system and also has a radio tuner. It will turn sound from anything connected to it into fantastic surround sound. This will be the hub of your home entertainment system.
The key to a good receiver is a wealth of audio inputs to connect devices such as TVs, DVD and CD players, videos and even games consoles. Also, increased wattage will offer a more detailed audio performance from your favourite music and movies.
3. Surround Sound Speakers
You'll need five speakers and a subwoofer to complete your set-up. You can either choose floor-standing speakers that offer powerful performance or satellite speakers, which are more discrete and can be mounted on stands. The subwoofer will provide all the bass you need and can be hidden away without compromising sound. Good speakers will be able to handle a high wattage and have two or three speaker cones to reproduce different parts of the sound including mid range and treble.
4. TV Screen
Whether you're intending to use your existing TV, or buy a new screen to compliment your new home cinema system, you'll need a big screen to enjoy your movies on. From Plasma and LCD to Rear and Front Projection, there's a fantastic range of big screens to compliment your monster sounds!
Sound Not Speakers
Immerse yourself in sound not speakers
There's a home cinema set-up to suit any room, regardless of its shape or size. Compact and stylish, our range of systems enable you to get the surround sound experience with less speakers, but definitely not less sound!
If you like the idea of making the most of your DVD collection, but aren't so keen on having several speakers then our range of alternative home cinema systems are perfect.
Using as little as one speaker, you can get a realistic soundstage from music movies and even the radio! Here's just a selection of the home cinema products available with fewer speakers.
How Does It All Connect?
With an increasing number of sockets to be found on the back of products it can often be confusing to know the difference between each connection and how to hook it up to your TV. By simply choosing the right connection for your TV you can drastically improve the picture and sound quality of your home entertainment system and truly maximise your music and movie collection.
The guide below will make all the connections simple to understand and help you find the best way to connect all of your home entertainment set-up.
Scart
This is the most commonly found connection on DVD home cinema systems and will carry both picture and sound to your TV. It is best for convenience but doesn't offer the optimum picture performance.
S-Video
Offers improved picture quality over a Scart connection with increased image sharpness. It carries picture only to your TV so separate cables for sound will need to be used.
RGB Scart
A higher resolution version of the Scart giving noticeably brighter and bolder pictures from DVDs. Carries both picture and sound to your TV.
Component Video
Offers the highest possible picture quality from DVDs where pictures will appear sharper with more definition, and colours will appear bolder. Component video cables are also capable of carrying a progressive scan signal for the ultimate picture performance. It is a picture only connection so separate audio cables will need to be used. Cables are often supplied in the box, but to get the best possible performance from your home entertainment system, click here to view our range of high-quality interconnects from Monster Cable.
Subwoofer output
A single Phono connection carrying dedicated bass sounds to the subwoofer.
Speakers Terminals
A home cinema system will usually have speaker terminals for five speakers. If you buy higher quality speaker cable, make sure it will fit into the speaker terminals.
Digital Audio connection
Both optical and digital co-axial connection perform the same task of carrying sound for up to five speakers without losing quality. Can also carry Dolby Digital sound from devices such as Sky+
Composite Video Connection
The most basic picture and sound connection available. The leads for this connection are usually included in the box. However, most TVs only have sockets on the front, meaning unless customers purchase extra cables they will have wires visible.
Phono connection
Dedicated audio connection used to input sound from Digital set-top boxes, TVs, Video Recorders etc. It is a useful connection for sound when picture-only leads such as component video are being used.
