Expert Tips for Optimizing Your Home Audio Setup

Great sound isn’t a luxury; it’s a treat you can enjoy every day at home. Whether you live in a cozy Sugar House bungalow, a new build in Daybreak, or a classic brick place in Holladay, the right tweaks can make your music and movies feel rich, effortless, and oh yes—fun. Here’s a clear, no-nonsense guide from AZP Home Theaters & Automation to help you dial in your home audio setup in Salt Lake City. We’ll keep it practical, local, and friendly. And if you want hands-on help, we’re right here in SLC.

Your room is the first “component”

Speakers get the glory, but the room decides how they sound. Hard floors, big windows, and bare walls throw echoes around. Soft surfaces—rugs, curtains, fabric sofas—calm things down. If your living room has lovely hardwoods and tall glass looking out toward the Wasatch, beautiful; add a dense area rug and lined curtains to tame reflections without losing the view.

The shape and size of your room matter. Square rooms often exaggerate certain bass notes. Rectangular spaces tend to be smoother. Bookshelves with real books work like accidental Acoustic panels. Even a plant wall helps scatter sound a bit. Small changes add up.

Local note: during winter inversion, windows stay shut and rooms feel quieter but bass can get boomy. In summer, with windows cracked open, some bass energy escapes and everything breathes a little more. That’s normal—tune with the seasons.

Want a quick and friendly set of fixes?

• Add soft surfaces where sound would bounce: a rug between speakers and sofa, curtains near glass, a throw on that leather chair.
• Break up bare walls with art, shelves, or acoustic panels that match your style. Subtle panels can look like decor.
• Mind your corners: that’s where bass piles up. A pair of corner bass traps can make the low end punchy instead of muddy.

Speaker placement that actually works

Here’s the thing: a few inches of movement can change everything. Start simple. Create a loose triangle between the two front speakers and your main seat. Keep both speakers the same distance from your seat and roughly at ear height when you’re sitting.

For bookshelf speakers on stands, aim for the tweeters to hit ear level. Floorstanders should stand a foot or two from the back wall. Too close means boomy bass; too far and you lose warmth. A little “toe-in”—turning speakers slightly toward you—can sharpen focus and center vocals.

Center channel for home theater? Angle it up or down so it fires at ear height. Mounting beneath a TV and letting it shout at your knees is a common miss. And if you’re building Atmos, keep height speakers toward the front and rear ceiling zones, symmetric left to right, following Dolby’s angles as best you can. Don’t chase perfection—chase repeatable results that sound good from your couch.

Subwoofer sanity: deep bass, not sloppy bass

A sub should sound tight and supportive, not like a garage door rattling. Start near the front third of the room, often in a front corner. No shame in the classic “sub crawl”: put the sub at the sofa, play a bass-heavy track, and walk around the perimeter listening for smooth bass. That spot? Put the sub there.

Set the crossover around 80 Hz to begin. Adjust phase and level so the sub disappears—voices stay clear, kick drums feel fast, and explosions hit without lingering. Two subs can be better than one because they smooth bass across more seats. If you’re curious, tools like Room EQ Wizard (REW) plus a UMIK-1 mic show exactly what your room does below 200 Hz. But you don’t have to go full lab coat. Ears first, graphs second.

Power and sources: receivers, separates, and streaming that plays nice

Salt Lake homes range from modest living rooms to sprawling basements perfect for a dedicated theater. For many, a solid AV receiver from Denon, Marantz, or Yamaha is plenty. If you’re pushing big speakers or want more channels with cleaner headroom, add an external amp or move to separates with a dedicated processor and power amp. Keep it simple if you can, but don’t be afraid to step up if your room asks for it.

Streaming should feel effortless. AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Spotify Connect, Tidal, Qobuz, or Roon—choose what fits your daily habits. For multiroom audio, Sonos, HEOS, and BluOS are rock solid. Use eARC on your TV and receiver for fewer lip-sync hassles, and set your TV’s audio output to “Passthrough” or “Bitstream,” not PCM, to feed the receiver the right signal.

Quick, high-impact settings:

• Set speakers to “Small” on the receiver and use a sub crossover—even for large towers—so your amp breathes easier.
• Match HDMI ports that support your features: eARC for TV audio return, and 4K/120 for gaming if you’re team PS5 or Xbox.
• Turn off TV processing like “TruMotion” for movies. Motion smoothing makes film look odd, and sometimes adds audio delay.

Cables, power, and the myths in between

You don’t need boutique everything. Use decent oxygen-free copper speaker wire, sized for the run. Under 25 feet? 16-gauge works. Longer runs or big power? 14- or 12-gauge. For in-wall runs, choose CL2/CL3-rated cable for safety and code compliance.

HDMI? Use certified Ultra High Speed for 4K HDR and gaming. Shorter is better with HDMI—skip the 30-foot spaghetti unless you go active or optical. And don’t coil signal or speaker cables tightly; give them some breathing room to reduce interference.

Power conditioners can help with surge protection and noisy circuits, especially in older homes in Millcreek or Capitol Hill. But the goal is protection and consistency, not magic. A good surge protector and clean power layout beat overpriced cable “pixie dust.” You know what? Neat cable management often solves more problems than expensive cords.

Calibrate with intent: room correction that respects your ears

Auto-calibration exists for a reason. Run it. Systems like Audyssey (Denon/Marantz), YPAO (Yamaha), MCACC (Pioneer), and Dirac Live (NAD, Arcam, others) measure your room and set delays, levels, and EQ. Use the supplied mic on a tripod and follow the measurement points. Pro tip: keep the mic stable and quiet; HVAC noise skews results.

After auto-setup, check these by hand:

• Speaker sizes: set to Small with crossovers near 80 Hz, sometimes 60–100 Hz depending on the speaker.
• Levels: use an SPL meter or app to match channels. Dialogue should sit firm and centered without strain.
• Distances: make sure they match the tape measure. If the sub “distance” looks longer, that’s normal; it accounts for processing delay.

Dirac Live and Audyssey MultEQ Editor let you shape target curves—often a gentle bass lift below 100 Hz sounds more natural. Careful though: don’t EQ the life out of your system. EQ fixes steady room issues; it can’t change physics or a bad placement. If you want to really see what’s happening, REW plus a minute of patience gives you a treasure map of your room’s bass. It’s geeky, but very satisfying.

Smart home touches that feel… smart

A great system should be easy for everyone in the house. Tie your audio into Control4, Josh.ai, Alexa, or Google Assistant. Create scenes like “Movie Night” that dim lights, set the TV to eARC, and bring the sub up 2 dB. Make a “Backyard Evening” scene that streams a chill playlist to patio speakers while keeping indoor volume lower for the kids. Summer nights in SLC deserve good tunes under the string lights.

With multiroom platforms such as Sonos, HEOS, or BluOS, your kitchen, office, and theater can stay in sync. And a small but delightful trick: have the doorbell or intercom lower music volume for a few seconds. Little things make a home feel thoughtful.

Fast fixes for common quirks

Let me explain a few headaches we see all the time in Salt Lake homes—usually simple to clear up.

Network tip: if you’re on Utopia Fiber or Xfinity in SLC, reserve IPs for your AVR and streamers so they don’t “wander” and disappear from the app. A tiny router change can save a weekend movie night.

When to call the pros in Salt Lake City

Sometimes you want a second set of ears—and a crew with tools and tidy cable work. That’s us. AZP Home Theaters & Automation designs, installs, and tunes systems across Salt Lake City, Millcreek, South Jordan, and up the canyon for Park City folks who want a relaxed listening room after a powder day.

We handle tricky basements with low ceilings, brick or stucco walls, and weird floorplans. We know which in‑ceiling speakers disappear visually but still sound alive. We pull safe, code‑friendly wiring for remodels and set up reliable networks that keep all the apps happy. And we calibrate—carefully—so your home theater hits hard without the wild swings.

If you’re thinking ahead for a remodel or a new build, even a short prewire chat pays off later. If you’re retrofitting, no problem—we’re neat, we patch cleanly, and we leave your house the way we found it, just with better sound.

Want your system to sound like you remember at the concert, only without the sticky floors? Give us a ring or drop a note. We’ll listen, we’ll measure where it matters, and we’ll deliver a system that makes you smile every time you press play.

Call AZP Home Theaters & Automation: 385-475-3549 | Request a Free Quote