The book can be a reference for home theater lover as well.

He clearly favors high quality equipment over mass merchant stuff (e.g. Rotel over Pioneer), but doesn't provide specific opinions or guidance on individual brands or pieces. The author merely suggests what to look for in a quality AV equipment (e.g. binding posts for speaker connections on receivers rather than simple push clips), then suggests that you read reviews in his magazine, Fi. <I>This review refers to the first edition.</I>

P.S. Once you get started on this one, you might not be able to stop.

Dave

This is an excellent book for the beginner home theater addict. Buy this book before you go out and purchase that DVD, TV, Reviever combo that * Retailer is selling you for $1000.

It will save you time, and allow you to meet your expectations more realistically based on your budget.

This book did not include discussion of using direct-radiating speakers (normal speakers) as surround speakers rather than dipolar or bipolar speakers. I'm quite certain that most home theaters are using direct-radiating speakers as surrounds, but this is not addressed and is not shown in the speaker setup diagrams.

I also found it extremely annoying that the author would say things about how certain speaker or component companies produce inferior products, but then refuse to mention names! Example from 'Build and Sound Quality: How to Spot Overpriced Underachievers': "The company that makes Speaker A is marketing-driven. They don't care what the speaker sounds like, only that it offers perceived value and sells in large quantities." And in that same section: "Speaker B is made by a company founded by dedicated enthusiasts who strive to create the best-sounding speaker possible at a given price level." Now how is that helpful? I'm guessing that the Speaker A company is an advertiser in Robert Harley's home theater magazine and he doesn't want to [make them mad]. This book would be so much more valuable to someone new to the hobby if they were told which brands to avoid and why (but I guess that wasn't the author's objective).

One last problem I found was that the author would quote very specific prices or price ranges for certain components, but not mention that this was "as of December 1999" or even "2000 prices." Someone reading this book in a few years (or even now) could be very misled by this. Example from 'How to Choose a DVD Player': "Budget machines start at about $200, with most players falling in the $400-$600 range." Obviously, a mass-market electronics product such as a DVD player is going to fall in price over time, and in fact budget players now go for $99.99, with most players falling in the $150-$300 range.

Despite the few flaws mentioned above, this book is actually a very good, detailed introduction to the world of home theater. I was especially impressed with the descriptions of the various audio formats that exist (which can be confusing), and also with the discussion of front projector technology.

Note that this is the 2000 edition which is probably fine to buy through the year 2001 or so (since relatively recent technologies such as progressive scan DVD players and DLP projectors are discussed), but the book will probably be showing its age and due for an update by 2002.

If there is anything missing from this book it's that I'd like to see a chapter on room design (e.g. room size, recommended projection screen size for viewing distance, more information on acoustic treatment, etc.) Otherwise, this is all you'll need for understanding all those home theater magazine reviews. Make sure you get the version that's been updated for 2002!

This book answers all those questions and a lot more. It should be titled, "All you really need to know about home theater." I figure that I have scrounged together a $15,000 system for about 1/2 that amount. When you know what you're looking for, you can get closeouts, discontinued models, etc and not get ripped off. I found that the information I had received in stores was sometimes close but sometimes dead wrong. When you finish this book you will not be at the mercy of uninformed sales people!

The book does get fairly technical but this is essentially a technical subject. Harley does a nice job of making it very understandable. The book is also very thorough as it covers every aspect of a home theater system.

I wished he had made more product recommendations but I can imagine that they would change frequently. I checked out his website and found that I could purchase up-to-date product reviews and recommendations for a few bucks; well worth it if you are about to spend from 3,000 on up on a home theater system.

This book is, as they say, a bargain at twice the price!

Mr. Harley, on the other hand, is no engineer at all, nor even a hands-on amateur, but a promoter. He combines occasionally astute observations with technical nonsense, so that even when his conclusions appear to make sense you have no idea how he got there. Simply put, he often either doesn't know what he's talking about, or he does and is simply writing what equipment vendors and the gullible want said.