Here we go again!

What's home theater without great bass? Fine tune your system to get the roar and rumble!

This article is part two of a series on home audio bass management. The first one dealt with bass management for stereo sound, while this one tackles the same issue with regards to home theater. Life is, of course, more complicated with home theater as you have a receiver, a subwoofer, and at least five speakers to deal with. As was the case with stereo sound, the key to getting great bass out of a home theater system is knowing your equipment and making good decisions based on what you know. Check the manuals for details, and don't be afraid to experiment.

Setting up your receiver
Dolby? Digital receivers give you a number of options for setting up your home theater, including some control over how to manage the bass. This process can be confusing, but the upside is that once you find a configuration you're happy with, your receiver will remember it. So, you won't have to go in and monkey with the settings every time you pop in a DVD.

For the five Dolby Digital channels that play the full range of frequencies (that is, the front speakers, center channel, and surrounds), you will be given the choice to set them to "Large" or "Small" in the receiver. A "Large" denotation tells the receiver to send a full-frequency signal (including bass information) to that speaker. A "Small" denotation tells the receiver to filter out the bass sounds (usually below 150 Hz) and direct them elsewhere.

The important part here is to assess your speakers' ability to produce low-frequency tones. For example, if you have big, powerful tower speakers in the front, and relatively wimpy surrounds, you would set your front speakers to "Large" and your surrounds to "Small." Your towers can probably handle a full-frequency signal, whereas the bass frequencies sent to your wimpy surrounds would be partially (or totally) lost. The "Small" setting on your surrounds tells the receiver to re-direct the bass to a different channel that (hopefully) can do the job. Where does the "Small" speaker bass go? Read on!