FAQs: Designing A Home Theatre Room

Home theatre rooms shouldn’t be underestimated – they are often a great place to spend time with the family! But when you’re designing a home theatre room, there are a few things that you should take into account. A lot of the components you will be dealing with are quite technical, and the devil is in the details. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people come to us with questions on designing a home theatre room for the first time. That’s why we have come up with this list of FAQs. So have a read – hopefully, it will put you on track for your home theatre project.

I’m thinking about designing a home theatre room – how do I know which room to choose?

Precision: it’s the aim of the game when it comes to designing a home theatre room. Although you may not associate TV viewing with precision design, there are some seemingly minor things that can make all the difference. That’s why it’s vital to get off on the right foot, by choosing the correct room. And by correct room, we mean the correct shape. Square rooms can have some slightly undesirable acoustic qualities. You may not notice straight away, but this can dull the effects of your state of the art speakers. Our advice: go for a rectangular room. This will project sound optimally, and give you the best in surround sound entertainment.

I want the best sound system in my home theatre room design – which should I choose?

Sound systems are nothing short of abundant. With different brands, prices, configurations, and styles, it’s any wonder the experts can make a decision. So how on earth are you supposed to choose one for your first time designing a home theatre? Luckily, it’s nowhere near as daunting as it first seems. Stick to the basics and seek expert advice – that’s your first port of call. The next is to know about dipole and bipole speakers. These produce quality sound, but they don’t have the transitional capability that you want in home theatre speakers. The transitional capability is the ability of your speakers to transfer sound from one side to another, to give a surround sound effect. That effect is what you really want from a home theatre, and that’s why you should avoid bipole or dipole speakers where possible.

I’ve started designing a home theatre room, but I’m not sure where to put my speakers: What do I do?

Now you’ve overcome speaker-fear and bought an excellent set. Where do you put them? Ultimately, this is a matter of experimentation—try and find the spaces that project sound best in your room specifically. If you have a five speaker set, a good starting point is to place the subwoofer and two speakers up the front of your room. Then take the remaining two and place them on either side of the room, behind your viewing position. Then take them all for a test ride, and finetune their position as you go.

TV time! How far away should I position my furniture from the screen?

Now we are into the finer points of designing a home theatre. You’ve got all the goods, so it’s just a matter of placing them correctly. And there are few more important placements than the TV. Your screen needs to be the perfect distance from your viewing position. A good rule of thumb is to take the diagonal width of your screen and multiply it by approximately two. That should give you a good starting point, and you can adjust it to suit yourself from there.

I’ve almost finished designing a home theatre room – how can I optimise the viewing angle?

Choosing the right angle will go directly to the comfort of your home theatre. So it’s well worth taking some time to get it right! The expert advice is that the vertical angle of your TV screen should be between thirty and forty degrees. That is thirty to forty degrees between your eye height and the upper and lower limits of the display.

For more great advice on designing a home theatre room, contact the experts at AV Everything on 0418 737 021!