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Use this link for more ideas on
how to plan your home theater.
"Plan your home theater carefully to maximize
the performance of sound and function."
You can avoid some of the pitfalls in poor design of
your room by following a few basic rules:
- Don't make your
room a cube.
- Make sure your
dimensions don't share a common denominator.
- Make sure you have
enough sound (not volume) for your room.
- Make sure the
configuration of your room compliments functionality, as well as the
sound system.
- Elevated
Floor
POINT 1 - The Cube
A common mistake for many is to make their
room a cubical shape. This is detrimental to sound. This will create what
are known as "standing waves" and "nodes", as well as other sound
anomaly's. We'll not get into the technical jargon here, but the
results of such design will not allow you to get any quality sound. The
room will sound different in every seat. TOP
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POINT 2
- Dimensions
If your room is 12W X 16'L X 8'H,
notice that all of these dimensions share a common denominator of 4.
This goes back to the same audio anomaly's
mentioned in the previous point. However, you can change these figures by
just 1 foot and eliminate many of these problems. You would also eliminate
the "common denominator" factor. TOP
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POINT 3 -
Sound
One thing that many don't "equate" is how much sound
is needed for a room. Often time they mistakenly equate this with volume.
Truth is, you can have more than enough volume, but still have very poor
sound. Sound is actually measured in cubic feet. Remember that sound is a
vibration. If your speakers are not large enough or rated to move a
certain volume of air for your room, you may be spending a lot of money
and still getting nothing.
Also, some sound systems are very elaborate and
offer time alignment, as well as equalization. Time alignment is something
will get into in another article. If your home theater installer can't
offer you this or doesn't know what you're talking about, you may want to
question their "expertise". TOP
*****
POINT
4 - Configuration
This point actually has many facets. Here we can get
back to the shape of your home theater. Something that will help and make
your room unique is to try to make your room a trapezoid. It doesn't take
that much space and will drastically help the audio of your home theater.
Something else you'll want to consider is where your
furniture will be placed. Furniture actually needs to be placed away from
all walls. This will help to improve the sound quality of your home
theater as well. TOP
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POINT 5 - Elevated Floor
A home theater is not like your living room. This is
a room dedicated to viewing. All the furniture will need to face the
viewing area. If you have one row of furniture behind another, persons in
the second row will not want to be stretching their necks to view over the
heads of those in front of them.
This can easily be compensated for by
building up the subsequent rows by a minimum of 6 inches. If you have
enough ceiling height, you may want to go 12 inches or more for each row.
Furniture can be fit "into" the steps on either side so they look like
they were built into the room (which they were).
At first, you may feel that this is out
of your design element. However, with proper planning, this design is
easily compensated for in home theaters. It also adds a real cinema feel
for your room and will make it friendlier and you'll want to use your room
often.
TOP
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The foregoing were only a few of the many decisions
that will need to be made to make your home theater design perform at its
best. You can contact Advanced Audio Video to assist you in home theater
design. We'll gladly work with your home professional in making your
home theater the room that you want it to be.
Contact
RETURN HERE to
continue with more ideas for planning your home theater.
Design and installation of home theaters in NC, SC, GA,
TN, FL. Including installation and design of home theaters and lighting
controls in Highlands, Cashiers, Sylva, Murphy, Waynesville,
Hendersonville, Fletcher, Asheville, Boone, Greenville, Sylva, Atlanta,
Charlotte, Tryon, Shelby, Anderson, and throughout. Custom home theater
design and installation. Sound isolation and sound design available for
all home theaters.
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If you're looking for a Lutron, AMX Controls, Control 4,
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home security, or any other electronic needs for your home,
CONTACT Advanced Audio
Video. We can put together a home theater and lighting control system that will meet
those needs and work with your budget.
 
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