Home Theater Technical Tips and Advice

Cousin to the home theater is the media room, which can be used not only for watching movies but also for listening to music and using the computer as well. If you don't have a spare room or basement to convert to a media room, an attic or bonus room might do.

How much do you want to spend?

Budgets for home theaters can range from $5,000 or $6,000 for a family-room location to $70,000 or $80,000 for a full-fledged media room. A dedicated theater, with all the ambiance of the real thing, can venture into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Usually an architect and a home-theater expert work side by side to design a room that suits your needs in a given space. Here are some design elements you'll want to consider with the professionals:

• The placement of the screen and the seating around it is the most important element, says designer Ken Brown. Sometimes there are several options; sometimes there's just one obvious choice. Do you want the screen to be hidden and made retractable?
  
• Long, flat walls won't work for a home theater or media room. "The sound will bounce right off and be ricocheting like a bullet around the room," says Brown.
  
• Access to the room should be good so that furniture and equipment can be brought in fairly easily.

Once the plans are laid down on paper, here's what you can expect to happen:

• The framing begins (a double 2x4 wall is often used to isolate sound).
  
• The wiring is installed, both for the electrical needs of the room as well as the home theater electronics.
  
• Insulation is added for climate and noise control.
  
• The room is sheetrocked and painted.
  
• The furnishings are installed, followed by the home theater equipment.

Tech Tips

Choosing your system:

• Get advice from an expert about how powerful your system needs to be. There's no reason to spend a lot of money on a system designed to accommodate a room twice the size of the theater you're designing.
  
• Research products and prices so that you can make informed decisions. Form a budget that will cover your needs, and stick to it.
  
• Visit several stores and demo as many different systems as possible. And don't forget: Last year's hot new item might be just what you need, and it will be cheaper than paying for this year's hot new item.

Installing cables:

• Try buying cable in bulk and attaching the video and audio connectors yourself. This will be less expensive than buying premade cables. You can buy the parts and tools that you'll need at any local electronics store.
  
• To run speaker wires up through existing walls to speakers mounted on the wall, drill a hole in the wall where you want the speaker to be mounted. Next, drill a hole along the baseboard below the speaker mount; this is where the speaker wire will enter the wall. Take a metal pull chain and feed it through the top hole, dangling it down through the inside of the wall all the way to the floor. Secure the chain, then take a magnet and place it in front of the bottom hole. Pull the chain through the hole. Attach the speaker wire to the bottom of the chain, and pull it up through the inside of the wall to the speaker position.
  
• To avoid lumps in the carpet for speaker wire that runs along the floor, use a utility knife to slice a line through the carpet pad. Run the wire into the slit and reposition the carpet on top.
  
• To organize the web of cables behind your system, gather the cables from each of the components and use plastic tabs to bind groups together.

For more information about home theaters, see the Resources below.