How to Improve Your Home Theater in 2018
Does your home theater leave you feeling like you should be getting more? Because a lot of home theater owners feel this way, we’ve compiled a list of the best things you can do to improve your home theater in 2018.
Seating
One of the first things people notice in a home theater is the quality of seating. Besides the initial look around, seating is a huge part of the first impression your theater has on people. Most standard movie theater seating is awkwardly shaped, has stiff cushions, and leaves you feeling cramped. Instead of seating your guests in an ergonomic nightmare, let them lean back into luxury. Finding seats that are comfortable and cushioned will create a much more enjoyable theater experience. Don’t throw in your old dorm room couch, or some cheap thrift store seating. Invest in some quality seating that will truly allow you to immerse yourself in the theater experience.
Reduce Sound Reflection
What’s something that concert halls and bathrooms have in common? Great acoustics. What’s something you don’t want your home theater to have? Great acoustics. Acoustics typically refers to the ability a room has to bounce sound waves around, which is great for choral music and concerts, but not for home theaters. The more sound waves bounce around, the more chance the wave has to become distorted, making it sound messy and hard to hear. In a movie theater, you want as control the reflection of sound as much as possible, making the sound you hear come directly from the speaker. Any hard, flat surface is a perfect surface for reflecting sound waves. To dampen the sound, add curtains or carpet to the walls and place sound absorbing tiles on the ceiling. There are a lot of expensive options out there, but there are several effective DIY options available that look nice too.
Lighting
In commercial movie theaters, when the movie starts, the light go out and besides the illumination from the screen, the theater is completely dark. This is because most theaters don’t have any windows or doors that lead directly outside. Any light that makes its way into your home theater has the potential to distort the image on the screen and disrupt your viewing experience. A simple fix for this is a nice pair of blackout curtains for any windows in your home theater. It is also important to consider the color of the paint in your room. The darker your paint color, the more that the world will melt away when you turn the lights off to watch your movie. Darker colors will also improve the performance of your projector.
Sound
Another simple adjustment you can make to take your home theater into the next dimension is adjusting your speaker placement. Speakers placed in the far corners of rooms, or inside cabinets provide at best, muffled and distant sound to your audience. Instead, look for a guide on speaker placement relative to audience seating. The best speaker placement helps audiences feel like they’re right in the middle of the action.
Upgrading your amplifier and receiver are also important steps to improve your home theater. Having enough power can bring life to even mediocre speakers, especially in intense action sequences.
In order for your movie sound experience to mean anything though, it’s also important to invest in a good subwoofer. If you want your movie’s audio track to have depth and resonance, it’s important that you have a good subwoofer. When choosing a subwoofer, it’s worth noting that size isn’t everything. Choose the best quality sub you can on your budget. It’s better to choose a high quality subwoofer than focusing on size. Sometimes a higher performance 10” sub is a better choice than a 12” lower quality sub.
It’s also critical that your speakers match. Choosing the same brand of speaker may not seem like a big deal to some, but it can easily make or break your audio experience. As audio passes from one speaker to another, you want the sound to travel seamlessly between them. If the speakers are different brands, the pitch or tone of the sound may change between speaker. If you’re listening to a car drive by, you don’t want to hear the sound of the engine change every time it crosses between speakers. It’s worth your time and money to make sure the speaker brands match.
If you’ve got more questions on how to improve your home theater this year, feel free to contact us or head over to our blog and check out other tips and tricks on how to improve your home theater in 2018.
