Surround Sound for Couch Potatoes   

When you come home from work, do you want to plop down on the couch, grab the remote, and watch TV for a while? Answer: Yes or No. If no, then you might still find this article informative. If yes, then YOU ARE A CERTIFIED COUCH POTATO (at least part time), and you need to read this article (even if you are too lazy to, in which case get someone to read it to you). And the most important thing for a certified couch potato is the remote control.

How about when the kids start running and jumping and making all kinds of noise, and then your better half starts hammering you with do this, do that. That is when you need a TV sound system that can get REALLY LOUD. Just press the volume up button. Problem solved!

So here is what a certified couch potato needs:
1. a really big screen TV
2. a really loud sound system
3. a universal remote control

For the really big screen TV, you can go with a 36 inch CRT, a 60 inch rear projection TV, or a 120 inch front projector, depending on your definition of "really big". Obviously, if your definition of "really big" is "huge", then you need a front projector. On the other hand, if you have to watch TV in bright daylight, you could just get a CRT and move the couch really close to the TV to make it look bigger.

For the sound system, you could go with a 5.1 channel surround system that gives you 6 speakers. Or you could opt for a 6.1 channel system with 4 surround speakers, and 2 subwoofers for a grand total of 9 speakers. Now that will get really loud! However, you must have good quality speakers. Cheap speakers may play fairly loud, but they tend to lose clarity and sound muddy at high volumes. In fact, my 5.1 channel system has very expensive speakers that can get so loud that even I can't stay in the room, and yet they will still sound clean and distinct at deafening volume levels. Is that over the top? No, because modern DVDs have sound tracks that go from very soft most of the time, to very loud during explosions and action scenes. That's called having lots of "headroom", which is almost as important for a couch potato as having lots of "belly room".

For the remote control, you could get a cheap universal remote that may have all the "codes" for your components, or it may not. It's really a crap shoot on whether it will work everything. Stepping up to a learning remote will help ensure true "universality". Or, even better, an LCD screen remote that allows programming your own special commands and descriptors so you can quickly figure out which button to push. After all, the remote control that comes with each component has a descriptor word on each button to help you. The universal remote uses the same buttons for different functions on different components. Boy can that get confusing, and it violates the couch potato moto (which is something like KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, but probably more vulgar).

Unfortunately, the learning programmable remote is not easy to set up, so you may need to hire an expert for that, and that will cost you an arm and a leg. But a certified couch potato only needs one arm anyway (ha-ha). Eventually, you will be working that remote like a Sony Play Station, and no one will dare challenge you (or is that only on fantasy island?). Anyway, enjoy the movie.