4 Cool Audio Gadgets to Improve Your Home Theater Setup

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Owning a home theater system isn’t just a great way to save money on movie tickets and concession costs (a large popcorn costs about $10 these days) – it’s a long-term lifestyle investment that can provide years of entertainment, even decades. But beyond a great soundbar or a great pair of floor-standing speakers, there are plenty of other home theater add-ons that can enhance or enhance a setup you already love – you just need to think beyond more traditional upgrades.

Whether you’re using a Dolby Atmos 9.2.4 setup or a single pair of bookshelf speakers, we’ve got four cool audio gadgets that could have a big impact on the look and sound of your home theater, no matter its size. The full summary is available to purchase online at major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, and we’ve done our best to include reasonably priced products. You’ll find a full overview of how we selected these items at the end of this article.

Investing in a wired system is one of the best ways to enjoy premium audio formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, but all those speaker wires and subwoofer cables can create quite a mess behind your TV stand. If you’re building your home theater from scratch and know your system will include in-ceiling, wall-mounted or wall-mounted speakers, this Cable Matters 7.1 Triple Gang Speaker Wall Plate with HDMI is a great way to reduce cable clutter.

In a traditional wired home theater, all non-front-facing speakers are typically wired to the wall or ceiling. One end of the wire connects to the speaker and the other end is routed to the bottom of a stud bay located near your AV receiver. Instead of having all those wires sticking out of a cable conduit in your drywall, the Cable Matters wall plate lets you connect those wires to its rear terminals. Simply run a speaker wire from the corresponding front terminal to your AV receiver.

Not only does this help keep the back of your entertainment center cleaner, but the plate’s gold-plated connectors help maintain signal strength between your speakers and amplifier. Conveniently, this model also has connections for an active subwoofer and an HDMI device. This will come in handy if you want to keep your AV receiver in another room or in a hidden media closet.

Driving a home theater system requires a dedicated AV receiver or amplifier, but even the most advanced equipment can only do so much when faced with poor room acoustics. Drywall, hardwood floors, and even some furniture in your home theater can introduce unwanted reverberation; they can also prevent your speakers from delivering immersive sound to your seating area. But chances are you can work around an unfavorable room layout by simply adding acoustic panels to your setup.

This Umiacoustics 4-Pack Acoustic Panels with Hanging Brackets has a 4.7 out of 5 stars rating on Amazon (based on over 170 reviews). The panels use two-inch-thick fiberglass to absorb and redirect home theater sound. If you’re having issues with dialogue clarity or your system is producing too much reverb/echo, these panels should help group the decibels into a more cohesive soundstage. Each panel measures 23.6 x 11.8 inches and Umiacoustics offers six unique color options.

All necessary mounting hardware is included and the panels can easily be removed and repositioned. For best results, we recommend placing the panels at reflection points along side walls and behind your main seating area. You can also try installing them on the ceiling if vertical reflection points in a room are muddying your sound.

Running speaker wire from one end of a large room to the other isn’t impossible, but if you don’t want to cut into drywall or manage long distances, you’ll miss out on full home theater sound. The rear and surround speakers may not deliver the same powerful sound as your front channels, but they play an important role in background detail and spatial immersion.

Luckily, this Rocketfish Wireless Rear Speaker Kit is here to save the day. This is a combination system that uses a transmitter and receiver unit operating on a frequency of 2.4 GHz with a range of up to 100 feet. The transmitter plugs into the speaker outputs of your AV receiver, while the wireless receiver is placed near your rear speakers. You’ll need to connect the receiving end to a wall outlet, and you’ll still need to run shorter wires between the receiver and your speakers, but you’ll avoid the headache of running 50-foot (or longer) speaker cables.

The Rocketfish system is also a great audio accessory for those building a one-room home theater. You can start by focusing on front speakers and essential AV components, then add wireless rears when your budget opens up again. While a phased approach isn’t for everyone, it’s a great way to keep yourself from spending time, energy, and money on a part of your surround sound that you’re not yet ready for.

One of the greatest thrills for an audiophile is integrating existing hardware into a modern home theater setup. That said, analog connectivity has largely been dethroned by digital audio and video, which can make wiring certain parts of your system a bit difficult. But if you’re willing to invest in a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) like the Prozor 2.0-channel PCM DAC, you should be able to bridge the gap between your vintage AV gear and your new TV and AV components.

Here’s a common use case: You just bought a brand new TV and plan to use its built-in apps to stream movies and shows. You want the app’s audio to come through your surround sound, but your AV receiver is older and doesn’t have HDMI ARC/eARC, digital optical, or digital coaxial. What you will do is connect the digital optical cable provided by the Prozor DAC to the output of your TV and plug the other end into the input of the DAC. You can then run a left-to-right (red and white) RCA cable or 3.5mm headphone jack from the DAC’s output to an available input on your receiver.

This Prozor device supports audio signals up to 192kHz/24-bit, so you shouldn’t have to worry about quality loss during conversion. One thing to keep in mind, though: Most DACs – including this one – will downsample 5.1 signals to stereo audio, which means you should set your TV’s audio output to PCM. Although this means you won’t get “real” surround sound, you may be able to set your receiver to a simulated surround mode that splits stereo PCM signals across multiple speakers. It’s not bitstream-powered Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, but it certainly gets the job done.

The main goal of this article was to find audio accessories to help you overcome any home theater obstacles you may face or to improve your existing setup without overhauling the entire system. Instead of focusing on soundbars, speakers, and other big-ticket items, we’re turning to a range of budget-friendly products that make your home theater nicer, sound better, and add compatibility.

Each of the four products we selected are sold through major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, and we only chose items with 4 stars or higher in user reviews. We’ve also done our best to keep costs reasonable (our most expensive pick costs just under $100).