Having kids has ruined my movie going outings. In fact, I can’t remember that last time I went to see a movie at the box office. In self-defense, my husband and I bought the big screen plasma last year. This year we invested in the surround sound system.

I’m no audiophile, so I looked on Amazon.com and found the Energy RC-Micro 5.1 Surround Speaker.

The first thing that impressed me was the sleek design of the entire unit. These little black boxes where much more attractive than their big, box ancestors. They were small and less obtrusive as well.

This weekend I finally got around to finishing my Audio Concepts B-Flat Coax 8″ in-ceiling surround speaker install. I detached the B-Flats from their ceiling mount and stuffed fiberglass insulation (the cotton candy kind, rated R13) in the cavity between ceiling joists. According to the B-Flat installation instructions and in-ceiling/wall tips elsewhere, the insulation should improve sound quality. The end result was not what I expected.

The Onkyo SKS-HT540 7.1-channel home theater speaker system consists of eight (yes eight!) Speaker. It has just over 7 discrete channels of audio to replicate the sound quality you see in theaters. The most important speaker in this series is the center-channel speakers. It should always be on top of your TV or in a place that has to be placed in front of you. To achieve the best effect, should the other 8 speakers in the places that are setrecommended by the manufacturers (which I did).