3 Huge Mistakes When Installing Home Theater Systems

There’s no question: a home theater enhances every aspect of a viewing experience.  But having your own theater installed in your house comes with plenty of choices to make.   With a bunch of variables at play, you want to make sure you select the right features the first time around.  Here are the major mistakes to avoid and the best options to add when planning a home theater system installation in your Alpharetta, Georgia home.

1. Incorrect Seat Placement

When you walk into a regular commercial theater, your first thought is most likely, “where do I sit?”  There’s an art to placing home theater seating in the room.  If you don’t have the right location for the seats and sizing of your theater in general, it could result in a really poor viewing experience.

Seating can also affect the audio and acoustics of a room.  If seats are too high up, they can block the surround sound – but you also want everyone’s back and neck to be comfortable as they watch the film.  A perfect choice to make is to have your seating placed in the “sweet triangle,” between the left and right speakers.

SEE ALSO: HOME THEATER INSTALLATION GUIDE: 5 MUST-HAVE FEATURES

2. Poor Screen Choice

There are a lot of different screens to choose from. At the basic level, you can choose between a high-definition television and a projector and screen combination. But even then, you have more choices: do you go for an acoustically transparent screen for better surround sound? Do you go for a screen designed to block out ambient light? Do you go for a fixed position screen or one that retracts out of sight?

The mistake here isn’t choosing a specific one of the options listed above, but rather it’s about not assessing the environment and picking out the best screen solution for the room. If there’s no way to block out light completely, a screen that filters ambient light out is the right choice, but if light isn’t a concern, then there are better screen solutions out there. In short: make sure you’re working with a home theater company who will do a full assessment of the area and design a theater system based on the specific environment.

3. Décor after the Fact

A rookie mistake that homeowners often make is to bring in a home theater installer to set up the theater system, then only after the theater is complete do they bring in an interior designer to add in the décor.

That may not seem like such a big deal, but keep in mind that part of setting up the home theater system includes optimizing the space to have the perfect visual alignment and acoustics. Each speaker is carefully placed so that movie-watchers get the fully immersive surround sound coming from every angle.

When an interior designer comes in after that optimization is complete, they will likely want to add in décor and perhaps even change the layout of the seating to better suit the ambiance, which will throw the perfect theater experience completely out of whack.

The solution is to bring in the interior designer right from the start. Any reputable home theater firm will be accustomed to working alongside designers to develop solutions that both look and sound amazing.

Installing a home theater is a big step, but you avoid these key errors by relying on a home theater provider with experience and knowledge.  To learn more, contact us at (770) 888-8848 or online through our contact page.