Why Your Home Theater Sound Is Distorted

Nobody wants to sit down, put on a movie, and have it sound fuzzy and distorted. Here are some major reasons why your audio might be distorted, and how you can avoid and fix it.

You Have the Volume Turned Up Too High

If the volume is turned up all the way on your speakers, there’s a chance that will cause some audio distortion. You would think that a speaker would only drive as much power as it can handle, but at the highest volume, a lot of speakers will still suffer. Too strong a signal can surpass what the cones inside the speaker drivers can handle, causing audio clipping and distortion.

The cause of distortion from high volumes can also be mechanical. You can overheat the speaker by turning it up too high and overpowering it, and you really don’t want to fry the inside of your speakers. You can also have the coil inside the driver lose its place and rub against the magnet, causing a scraping noise.

To avoid this, don’t overwork your speakers with a super high volume. Adjust the placement of your speakers to see if that solves any volume issues you’re having that leads to you turning them up too high. If you need louder speakers, rather than suffering through clipping and distorted audio, find speakers that can handle more wattage. More wattage generally correlates with more volume.

You’re Providing Too Much Power to Your Speakers

If you have a dedicated amplifier powering your speakers, you should ideally have an amplifier that has a power rating lower than the maximum wattage of your speakers. However, if the amplifier is more powerful than the speakers can handle, you can end up driving way too much power into your speakers. This will inevitably cause audio distortion, and can also permanently damage your speakers.

Like the above issue of turning the volume up too high, providing too much power from your amp to your speakers can also cause overheating, damaging the internal components of your speaker. You’ll probably be able to smell it if the speaker is overheating, since the smell of hot plastic and metal is a noticeably unpleasant one.

Make sure that your amp doesn’t supply more wattage than your speakers do, otherwise you run the risk of overdriving them. If you already have an amp that is more powerful than your speakers, be very careful not to provide too much power, because while at best your audio may sound distorted, at worst you could fry your speakers.

Your Speaker Placement Is Off

Speaker placement can have a large impact on sound quality. Most notably, if your speakers are placed too close to the wall, lower frequencies can get “stuck” between the wall and speaker and sound muddy and boomy. This will make the sound distorted overall. Moving the speakers as far from the wall as they comfortably can be will ensure this isn’t an issue.

You also want to make sure that your speakers are pointed toward where you’re sitting, so the sound is projecting directly at you. Height also matters, so you want to keep your speakers at about ear height. With those factors in place, along with keeping your speakers away from the wall, you should have the best audio possible.

You may also get a distorted, fuzzy, or overly boomy sound from where your subwoofer is positioned. Make sure that it’s resting on a surface that isn’t causing intense vibrations when the bass is turned up, and if the surface is the issue, find a way to pad it or move it.

Your subwoofer should be on the floor, and the surface should be completely level. If you want to avoid irritating any downstairs neighbors, consider putting an isolation pad underneath your subwoofer, or placing it on a carpet instead. If you can’t place it on the floor, just make sure it’s on some level surface that won’t interfere with how it sounds.

Your Speakers Are Damaged

If you’re getting a fuzzy or distorted quality to the audio coming out of your speakers, there’s a chance the internals of the speaker are actually damaged. This can happen when you blow your speaker, usually from playing it at too high a volume. Doing this damages the drivers, making for distorted audio at best, and no audio at all at worst. You may hear clipping, fuzzy distortion, or other strange qualities. You can also have the speaker coil become dislodged or rub against the magnet, or if you overpowered it, the internals of the speaker could’ve overheated and become permanently damaged.

In the case of a broken speaker, there’s a chance you can get it fixed, but it’s often more worth it to simply replace the speaker, since repairs can be complicated and expensive. Make sure to take good care of your speakers, don’t drive them too hard, and avoid physically damaging them with liquids, dust, or by dropping them.

The Audio Source Is Low Quality

There’s a chance that the issue with your audio isn’t coming from your speakers, but rather the audio source in the first place. Depending on what media you’re watching and where you are watching it from, it could just have poor audio quality to begin with, either because the version you’re watching is low quality, the mixing is bad, or a variety of other issues.

To see if this is the issue, test whatever you’re watching or listening to on other speakers to see if it still sounds just as bad elsewhere. Whether it does will help you diagnose the issue. If the audio source is in fact the problem, try finding a higher quality version of what you’re trying to watch. If you can’t find it, you may just have to sit though some bad audio. Sometimes that’s part of the art of film.

Whether your audio is distorted from damaged speakers, volume issues, speaker placement, or the source itself, there’s always a way to fix it. You don’t have to accept bad audio, and now that you know, you can get to the root of the issue and solve it.