The Top 5 Small Home Theatre Room Ideas
(Including an essential checklist for home theatre construction)
When thinking about home theatre ideas your focus is usually on how the room will look, how will it be used and if you’re a home theatre enthusiast, you most certainly will want to know how to get the best performance out of your home cinema. The following guide will not only provide you with ideas for home theatre decor, we will also provide you with a home theatre idea wiring guide and an essential checklist to use for your home theatre idea and design. What I am giving you here are all the hints, tips and advice you need to execute this perfectly and within any budget size, we will cover small home theatre room ideas and also go into the detail necessary for the superb custom home theatre experience for more grand home theatre installations
Before we introduce the different home theatre ideas and designs, there are two subjects that we need to cover in detail.
TVs, Projectors & Lighting
TV or projector? This is the first important decision you need to make and it will determine how you set up your Home Theatre.
Consider the darkness of the room before choosing a projector.
Budget is a factor here – you could opt for the latest Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) technology and get yourself a 75+ inch UHD OLED TV but that will set you back around $28000. However, if you don’t want to spend that much you could choose a really nice true 4K UHD projector which will cost less than half that price. Projectors also offer you that authentic-feel cinema experience whereas TVs tend to be too focused and too sharp in a small areas which can be fatiguing over time. So, with Home Cinema Projectors, if the resolution is there, it allows you to have a longer and more enjoyable watching experience for everything – sports, movies etc.
This is where the lighting comes into the decision making, home theatre ideas that incorporate projector systems will not tolerate any bit of light without negatively impacting the image quality. Room lighting has always been an important aspect of the image display quality that most people overlook. Did you know that even TVs require the ambient light in a room to be no brighter than 10% of the peak white light coming from the screen? And for home theatre projectors, light control is even more important – if black is defined as the absence of light, then the room should also be absent of light if we are to get even half decent blacks on screen. Lighting control should be carefully considered based on whether you’re using a TV for a small home theatre design idea or for a cinema experience the use of a home theatre projector. After all, a premium viewing and gaming experience is why you design a home theatre in the first place.
Sound & Room Size
Now, you may not have much choice when it comes to the size of your idea for a home theatre but you can still work with what you’ve got to make the best use of that space. You might think that bigger is better but this is not always the case, the key to small home theatre design idea is putting the right elements together and achieving the same cinematic experience as a large home theatre design (just in a smaller space). You need to consider that that the bigger the room the more power you will need to fill that room with sound. The opposite is also true, a small room will limit the level of sound you will be able to produce both due to the cubic volume of space in the room and also whether you can physically fit the speakers in the smaller theatre room.
The optimal sound experience is key to enjoying your entertainment now you have chosen your home theatre TV or cinema, the next part of your home theatre design idea is the surround sound system.
When it comes to sound the benefits of more channels is a greater flexibility in placement of sound around the listener in a room, so this means 5.1 is the absolute minimum required to create a 360ﾟsound field. In the example provided above we are able to achieve the effect of a 5.1 home theatre system with the use of a dedicated soundbar. Note that not all sound bars are designed for home theatre, therefore it is necessary that you invest in the higher end of this range to ensure the soundbar carries enough drivers (speakers) to deliver the surround sound effect.
Home Theatre Room Design 1
(Large TV with Soundbar and Subwoofer)
Small Home Theatre design can be as simple as a TV and Soundbar
- Room Size: Small and enclosed (3 metres x 4 metres)
- Performance: Best with square shaped room and 4 walls for sound reflections.
- Best for: Simple setup and configuration, ease of operation, easier installation for rooms with no prior cabling. Budget friendly.
- TV: 55’ To 75”
- Soundbar: midrange to high end (the more speakers in the soundbar, the better)
- Subwoofer: Wireless preferred for placement in back corner of room. (Note: need access to powerpoint.)
In the next small home theatre design, we have three speakers at the front, left, centre and right and then two rear speakers for left and right Surrounds. This is an effective home theatre design and should not be ignored. It is what the home cinema experience began with in the first place. However the disadvantage of 5.1 nowadays is that it does not move sound from the front to the back of the room for the real cinema experience. For example; a scene where there is a flyover of a helicopter, the sound then collapses to the sides of the room because that is the only place where your speakers are positioned.
Home Theatre Room Design 2
(Large TV with 5.1 Surround Sound)
Small Home Theatre Ideas – TV with LCR speakers
- Room Size: Small to Medium
- Performance: Best with square shaped room but can be adapted to open plan living rooms with the use of in-ceiling surround speakers.
- Best for: Dedicated home theatre room design or high usage living rooms where home cinema experience can be delivered within a restricted budget.
- TV: 65” to 75”
- AVR: Minimum 5.1 channel amplifier
- Speakers: Floor standing Left and Right Speaker, Bookshelf Center, In-ceiling surround Speakers, Wired subwoofer.
The 6.1 and 7.1 home theatre systems are better because there are speakers are directly behind the listener as well as to the sides, so sounds can now move from the front speaker to the back of the room in a nice smooth transition. The 7.1 home theatre design is better than 6.1 home theatre design because it gives the ability to have stereo effects across the back of the room as well as stereo effects at the sides of the home theatre room. This enables you to have much more smoother transitions in the panning from the left surround speakers to the right surround speakers and across the back of the theatre room, with a 6.1 cinema system it has a tendency to snap or jump from the left, to the back, to the right. It is not very common to see 6.1 home theatre design today.
Home Theatre Room Design 3
(Projector with 7.1 Surround Sound System)
Dedicated Home Theatre room with in wall in ceiling speakers
- Room Size: Medium
- Performance: Best with a square or rectangle shaped room.
- Best for: Dedicated media rooms with little light and no foot traffic.
- Projector: Mid Range Home Cinema Projector with 90” to 110” Screen
- AVR: Minimum 7.1 channel amplifier
- Speakers: In Wall Speakers for Left, Right and Center channel, In-ceiling surround Speakers, Wired sub woofer.
You can go beyond a small home theatre design with the 9.1 to 11.1 home theatre installation. This will take you into the realm of breaking the horizontal plane. Sounds very sci-fi doesn’t it? Let me explain – in the real world sound is like a sphere all around us, it comes from every direction but the idea of a home theatre is it comes from two directions – front and back. With 9.1 to 11.1 Home Theatre design the additional speakers are the height channels (now called Overheads) and they have been added to create a more enveloping sound field, something that is more real, like what we hear in the real world.
Dolby Atmos 7.4.1 (11.1)
One of the most recent developments in Home Theatre ideas is the Dolby Atmos configuration Which is still an 11.1 cinema system despite the labeling of 7.4.1. Essentially the additional 4 speakers are placed in a unique position in the ceiling giving the added ‘Front Presence’ and ‘Rear Presence’, however this requires a dedicated Dolby Atmos AVR so remember to keep this in mind if you choose this as your idea for a home theatre.
The following two home theatre design ideas are the fully immersive home theatre experience. There should be adequate discussion and planning before implementing these designs as you will be investing a considerable amount of money towards your home theatre. The wrong home theatre design or poor planning for the home theatre wiring, structure and seating can lead to a less desired effect and in turn a home theatre room that is seldom used.
Home Theatre Room Design 4
(4K Projector with 7.2.1 Surround Sound System – Dolby Atmos)
- Room Size: Large
- Performance: Best with a square or rectangle shaped room.
- Best for: Dedicated media rooms with soundproofing, little or no light and no foot traffic. Equipement housed in a dedicated rack in a different location of the home.
- Projector: High end home cinema projector with 100” to 130” Screen
- AVR: Minimum 9.2 channel Dolby Atmos certified amplifier
- Speakers: Floor Standing Left, Right and Center channel, Bookshelf surround back and surround speakers, in ceiling overhead speakers and a Wired sub woofer.
Home Theatre Room Design 5
(4K Projector with 9.2.1 Dolby Atmos Sound System with equipment hidden).
Fully immersive cinema with Dolby Atmos 7.4.1
- Room Size: Large and dedicated home theatre room.
- Performance: Long rectangle shaped room.
- Best for: Dedicated media rooms with soundproofing, little or no light and no foot traffic. Equipement housed in a dedicated rack in a different location of the home.
- Projector: High end home cinema projector with 100” to 130” Screen
- AVR: Minimum 11.2 channel Dolby Atmos certified amplifier
- Speakers: Floor Standing Left, Right and Center channel, Bookshelf surround back and surround speakers, 2x in ceiling overhead speakers and 2x wired subwoofers.
Some further points of advice to consider when thinking of Home Theatre ideas can be described below.
Choosing an AVR
Don’t be tempted to overlook this step, without a good quality Audio Video Receiver (AVR) the overall experience you’ll get from your home theatre won’t be as good as it should be. Connectivity, processing and power amp ratings are the three most important aspects of choosing an AVR and although the pricing hasn’t dropped over the years more functionality has been continually added. My first AVR in 1992 cost me over $2000 and it didn’t even have an Subwoofer out!
When choosing an AV receiver there are a number of features you should make sure are included, such as network capabilities, Dolby atmos capability, smart device application for control, enough HDMI inputs (especially ones that support Audio Return Channel). In addition, you should pay close attention to the power ratings for the receiver as, ultimately, this will dictate how loud the system is going to play in any given space. If you have a big room (up to 6000ft³ of space) you could use one between 100 – 200 Watts per channel but if your room is small (less than 3000 ft³) choosing one below 100 Watts per channel will be sufficient.
Over the past four years or so there have been a number of changes in this industry so you should also make sure you choose something with the latest additions included as well as networking. You need to have connectivity to be able to stream not only just movies, but music and any other form of media, pretty much all content these days is now streamable. You must be able to control your system and integrate it into the rest of your space, it’s very important that you select an AV receiver with all these standards.
HDMI & Speaker Cable
As with AVR, this is another crucial component you must not miss out. While HDMI is a very neat design and brought a solution to the need for bringing back the single leads when DVDs were introduced, I feel it is reaching its end of life. Now we have moved to Ultra High Definition we have effectively twenty times the resolution of the original SD content and that doesn’t even include the extra data required for HDR and Wide Colour Gamut. So, just on pixels alone its a massive increase to the amount of data that has to go through that lead and what we’re seeing now is some of these leads aren’t coping once we get over 5m.
As for Speaker Cable, this is one topic bound to cause an argument but for me the more strands of fine copper the better. There are three aspects to speaker cable that a lot of people are not aware of – Firstly, the longer the cable the more resistance it will have over that length. The other two aspects are capacitance and inductance, a lot of people do not realise what this will do to your sound. Capacitors present ever increasing resistance to low frequencies, so if you are running full range speakers and your speaker cable doesn’t meet the capacitance requirement, it will filter the bass out of your system. Inductance does the opposite, it creates ever increasing resistance to high frequencies, so what that may do is roll off the high frequencies although that may be what you want.
If you’re on a budget for your system design then you absolutely need to spend more on the parts that matter the most – surround sound systems are about ambiance and versus imaging that comes from the front speakers. So, if I had to make a choice, I’d definitely be using the better copper upfront for the left, centre and right speakers.
Soundproofing
Once you have the right quality and enough volume to fully immerse yourself in your man cave activities the next thing to plan is how you will soundproof your space. The last thing you need is complaints about the noise and requests to turn down your well executed surround sound system….
There are two sides to effective soundproofing – sound isolation and control of reverberation. Sound isolation is the control of sound between your HT and the outside world. Control over reverberation is what happens inside the room and this is the more important of the two for me. Most people think that by packing wool into the wall cavity they will be able to achieve the perfect soundproofing of the room but all they have completed is the first step – helped with sound isolation.
When you are planning the control over reverberation consider using curtains as these are probably one of the most unrecognized items that we have in our home which can be used as a sound treatment. They absorb high frequency sounds and, depending how thick they are, can affect some of the upper mid range too. Another option for the control of reverberation is to make sure the speaker design layout in the entire space is completely symmetrical, think of it so that center channel is straight ahead at 0ﾟ and your speakers are then equally distanced from this center in a circle. Your treatments in relation to that, should also be symmetrically laid out around that circle, so that you are not hearing absorption on the one side and not on the other.
Remember that it is necessary to absorb some sound, diffuse other parts and sometimes we need to have a little bit of reflection, so long as it is not an echo. If the walls of a room are treated too intensely they can actually create a ‘suck out’, they absorb so much it actually begins to diminish the sound and that’s not a good thing. You’d be surprised how many common items we find in our rooms that will aid us in the control over reverberation – padded sofas are excellent for soaking up bass, bookshelves full of books are an excellent diffuser, curtains absorb high frequencies. It all helps and, chances are, if you plan the layout of your man cave with these things in mind you probably won’t even have to go out and buy anything specialized.
For more advice on Small or Large Home Theatre design ideas Contact our professional team of experts.
