(ARA) Trying to plan the perfect evening for Valentine’s Day? Reservations are impossible to get, and prices are high. Why brave the elements and fight traffic to sit in a crowded, stuffy restaurant or theater? A much better idea would be to prepare an intimate dinner for two and enjoy a movie in your own home theater.

The DVD player has been one of the most popular new products of the last year. Following closely in its footsteps is another innovative product: the Home Theater in a Box or HTIB. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, HTIB is fast becoming a craze, with sales reaching $794 million in 2001 alone.

So what is HTIB? A box filled with everything a consumer needs to create a movie-theater experience at home, says Tom Hannaher, audio expert at Cambridge SoundWorks.

HTIB packages usually include a DVD player, five matching speakers for surround sound, a powered subwoofer, and accompanying wires for hook-up. These components, when attached to the TV, create a home theater system that delivers “movie-theater” sound quality.

For consumers shopping for an HTIB system, Hannaher offers this advice:

• Buy a system that is matched to the room’s size and acoustics; smaller, less powerful systems are going to get lost in a big room with high ceilings.
• Make sure the speakers are acoustically matched. HTIB systems are outfitted with five speakers — all of which should be closely matched in size and performance. For instance, huge left and right speakers with a tiny center speaker are apt to sound “off,” especially when the action pans across the screen (as in a jet taking off — the sound goes from right to center to left, and should sound consistent all the way across).
• Not all HTIB systems are equal. Some high performance systems are outfitted with top of the line speakers and components. One example is the Cambridge SoundWorks product called MegaTheater 505. It includes the Cambridge SoundWorks AVS500 DVD/tuner all-in-one console. This unit plays DVDs, music CDs, has an AM/FM tuner, and also provides inputs and outputs for a VCR and cable box, enabling the user to replace the traditional stack of separate components with one unit. It’s matched with five high performance Newton Series MC50 speakers and a high performance subwoofer to create the accurate bass found in many movie and music soundtracks. For more information, go to www.hifi.com.
• Buy from a company with a liberal return policy. The only way to truly test out an audio system is in a living environment. The system will sound different in your living room than in the showroom.

(Editor’s Note: Article countesy of ARA Content.).