Atlantic Technology Blog

The new PowerBar 235 from Atlantic is a great powered sound bar using H-PAS so no subwoofer is needed. Why then do we include a subwoofer output on the back of the bar? Ease of installation and performance. Two characteristics for which Atlantic is well known.  Most people will be happy with the bass output of the PowerBar but 5% of people will want more. Some people really want powerful, room-shaking explosions from their action movies and the PowerBar by itself can’t deliver as much as a system with a subwoofer. Plus, bass output of the soundbar can be influenced by your application.

Did you know that some of the best product ideas and features often come from personal frustrations? Everyone is familiar with the famous Mr. Dyson who got so frustrated with his vaccum that he completely reinvented it. Our personal frustrations installing and using products have always shaped our designs. Sometimes the smallest of features can make a big difference in how easy a product is to live with.

The Dilemma: You want great Theater Sound, without any visible speakers.
(No, not even in-walls!)

The Answer: The Atlantic Technology ICTS-6HT. Bona fide, top-quality LCR sound from an IN-CEILING speaker.

Expand wirelessly!

If you want music in another room but don’t want the expense and hassle of running speaker wiring to the remote location, then the WA-5030 wireless amplified system is for you! (See figure 1)

The WA-5030 System wirelessly transmits a stereo audio signal from one location to a dedicated wireless stereo 30 watt-per-channel amplifier/receiver. The amplifier/receiver is then connected to any general purpose loudspeaker and voila! Music in another room—instantly—without complicated, expensive wiring runs.

“Where do I put the subwoofer?” This is probably the most often-asked question when putting together a home theater system. It can be dazzlingly confusing, or strikingly clear, depending on how you approach it. We prefer the ‘strikingly clear’ approach ourselves. We’re sure you will, too.

With traditional box subwoofers, it’s best to experiment with placement, since no two rooms are exactly alike. Keep this in mind: room boundaries—such as floors, walls, and ceilings—act like “acoustic mirrors,” and will reinforce the subwoofer’s output. Therefore, a subwoofer placed 3 feet out from all the sidewalls behind a chair, for example, will sound thinner and weaker than the same sub in the same room placed directly at the floor-wall intersection.

If we had a dime for every time we were asked this one, we’d be rich beyond our wildest dreams by now. Here’s the question we get asked so often:

“I’m putting in in-wall speakers…..so what should I use as a center-channel that’s horizontal?”

To which we answer, “Why do you want your in-wall center-channel speaker to be horizontal?”

To which we invariably get answers like, “Well, um…..aren’t they supposed to be horizontal? I mean, they look better horizontal above or below the TV, and besides, aren’t all center-channel speakers horizontal?

What makes the best home theater subwoofer?

That's a tough question, and it's not as obvious an answer as we might think.

Perhaps the most relevant way to think of "Best" is the following:

1. The most well-suited to the task, and

2. The best value/performance for the money.

Many of Atlantic’s speakers have a switch labeled “Boundary Compensation.” In all honesty, we realize that many people probably have no idea whatsoever what a “Boundary” is and why the heck one should “Compensate” for it.

So with that in mind, let’s talk about this in down-to-Earth terms and see if we can avoid the usual eye-glazingly boring technical explanation.

You hear a lot of talk about low impedance these days:

“Use speakers of the correct impedance.”

“This receiver has low-impedance drive capability.”

“When you parallel speakers together, their impedance drops.”

And so on. Unfortunately, not many people understand this stuff because it’s been decades since audio was a hot hobby and people actually found this kind of thing interesting.

So we’ll do our best to explain this in plain language—and why it matters to you—without trying to turn anyone into an electrical engineer.

No, we’re not talking about spreading peanut butter on a muffin. We’re talking about speakers spreading out sound. This is what engineers call the Radiation Pattern, or “dispersion.”  The Radiation Pattern can be “wide,” “directional,” or “controlled.” These attributes can be good, bad, intentional, or unintentional. It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.