Speakers had been high on Eric’s priority list since we closed on the house. One of our selections when the house was built was to have the house wired for surround sound. Eric had begun researching speakers years ago, back when we lived in Raleigh, NC. We visited a home theater store there, where they demoed several different brands of speakers. We listened to speakers made by Definitive Technologies, Polk, and Canton. The speakers made by Definitive Technologies were at a smaller price point and were the ones we were originally considering.

Before moving into our new home, we considered our options for setting up our home theater. The two major options for home theater setup are to do it yourself or to have a dealer install and set everything up for you. We visited a home theater dealer in Richmond and obtained some quotes that included installation and set-up. This particular dealer, however, was more focused on setting up true “home theater” systems (think movie projector and real theater seats) than the more typical TV-receiver-speakers-components set-up that we wanted.

Another factor in our decision-making process was that we decided to join DirectBuy about a month before we closed on the house. We decided to buy our Samsung TV from them and learned that we could also buy our Denon receiver and speakers from several different companies at a discount. Considering that our house was already pre-wired for surround sound and Eric is handy with electronics, we decided to DIY our home theater.

We chose Canton speakers because they are high quality, work well for both movies and music, and have a clean look to them. The 3 major types of surround sound systems are in-wall, bookcase, and stand speakers. Stand speakers were out, because they would defeat the purpose of having built-in wiring high up on the wall, out of reach of our pets. So we were left with either in-wall speakers or bookcase (“on-wall”) speakers. In-wall speakers require cutting holes in the wall in order to mount them, making them more permanent residents, if you will. So we decided to go with the bookcase speakers, because they can be removed more easily when moving out of the house or when replacing them.

To my delight, I found that Canton offers color options for their speakers other than black. The system that we chose, Movie CD 202.2, came in a choice of silver, high gloss white, or black. We chose silver because we thought they would blend in nicely in the living room, where we’re planning on painting the walls sage in the near future. I did not want black speakers if at possible, because I thought they would stick out like a sore thumb.

The speakers were on back order, and we waited weeks for them to arrive. We were impressed with the nice packaging they came in, including real cloth wrapped around each speaker. This is what they looked like after the unboxing:

After a quick trip to Best Buy for some speaker cable, Eric was ready to set them up. Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll discuss the set-up process.

If you could DIY or design your own home theater, what would it look like? Let us know in the comments.