Home Theater Design; Key elements to a well laid out home theatre
When you are planning a home theater design, there are many different aspects that should be considered before you begin purchasing equipment for the room. Some of these key decisions are:
- How will your home theater be used, is it a dedicated home theater or is it a mixed use room such as a family room or living room?
- How many home theater chairs will you need, how many people will be in the home theater room?
- What size is the space?
- What shape is the space?
- What type of décor do you want in your home theater?
- What existing equipment do you have that you want to include in your home theater?
- How loud do you want the home theater system to go?
The standard home theater design is your screen at one end of the room, with a central speaker, a speaker on each side of the screen, and two speakers on each of the right and left side and a rear speaker. If you are not having your home theater custom installed, you can still design your home theater in a professional manner for professional results.
Ideally, in this setting, your speaker placement will be the front speakers around the same height of the display screen at the same height from the ground for each of them. The speaker placement for the side and rear speakers should be about 60 centimeters above the heads of the viewers.
The front speaker in the center should be in the same position as your screen with the front left and right speakers placed at 25 degrees to the side and equidistant from the viewers. The left and right secondary surround speakers should be placed at 90 degrees to the viewers, and again, equidistant from the viewers on each side. The rear speaker should be directly behind the viewers and slightly above their heads.
Now for most homes, this set up is for a square or rectangular room and it may not work for every home. It is important to plan out your home theater design on paper before you purchase speakers and a television, to ensure that you get a size that is right for the room, being neither too large or small as well as appropriate speakers that will provide the best sound. This drawing of your room should be to scale.
To plan your home theater chair placement, you need to draw a line from the ‘face’ of each person in a chair to the screen to ensure they have a good line of sight.
You can place your subwoofer anywhere in the room but you will want to experiment with the different areas because the sound can change from one place to another.
When you have the basic idea of your home theater design, you will need to make decisions about the equipment that you want to purchase. You want a television or screen that the entire audience can see but isn’t too big for your room either. Everyone wants a gigantic television screen, however if your room is too small for one, it won’t be an enjoyable viewing experience. Similarly with your speakers, you need to ensure that you have speakers that are the right size for your room. If you have a large room, you will need speakers that produce a big sound. This often means having large floorstanding or cabinet speakers. Smaller rooms can take advantage of on-wall or in-wall speakers which offer good quality sound but take up less room in the theater. For larger rooms, placement of the speakers is key to ensure that the sound is truly ‘surround sound’, ensuring that everyone can hear the movie or show that is being played on the screen without it being too over bearing or too quiet.
Take the time to map out your vision for your home theater design. This will help you work out which equipment you need and will narrow down the number of items you need to test out in a home theater store and ultimately purchase. Talk to a professional home theater installer if you have questions about the best placement of components. With everything properly laid out, with the right equipment, you can have a home theater design that you will be happy with for a long time.
~ Ben Anton, 2007
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