Bring the Family Together This Season with a Home Theatre Design

Tips to Create the Perfect Home Entertainment Space

Between football games and holiday parties, there’s no time like the stretch from October through December. If you like to host family and friends at your Muskoka, ON home, you can find an all-new way to entertain with a new or upgraded home theatre design.

And a home theatre doesn’t have to be a secluded room with two rows of recliners. There are flexible, multipurpose ways to use a theatre room that encompasses all the best equipment while making space to have conversations, share food, play games, and create lasting memories.

As a home theatre installer based in the Toronto and Muskoka area, we’ll share some of our entertainment ideas below to help spark inspiration.

SEE ALSO: Why We Love Crestron Lighting Control (and You Will Too!)

First, the Room

If you’re building a new home or theatre from the ground up, this is an excellent opportunity to achieve the perfect acoustics with minimal lighting. Rectangular rooms create less sound distortion than square rooms, and the fewer windows, the better. Windows can tamper with sound, too, and let in ambient light that will fade video projection or add glare to a TV. While walls are being constructed, we also recommend implementing soundproofing materials and in-wall speakers, if you’d like. 

But if you’re working with an already-existing room, we can still make great use of it. Soft carpeting absorbs excess sound waves for balanced audio, and blackout motorised shades can block out ambient light during the day. Acoustic wall panels help boost sound quality, and darker wall colors will minimize light reflections.

Building Surround Sound

There’s no single way to arrange a surround sound system. The most basic setups use three speakers and a subwoofer, referred to as a 3.1. system. Add two left and right speakers beside the viewer for a 5.1 system, and with two rear speakers, you’ll envelop the entire room in a dynamic soundscape. You need to hear it to believe the difference!

As we mentioned above, if you’d like a clean, minimalistic appearance in the theatre, in-wall and in-ceiling speakers hide the equipment within the walls. You’ll still hear high-fidelity movie and music audio, but with less clutter.

 

Larger-Than-Life Visuals

This is one of the most hotly debated questions in the home theatre community: TV or projector? Projectors used to be the clear winner, with the largest visuals possible. But today, 100-inch-plus screens are now on the market, and microLED panels can construct any sized display imaginable.

So, how do you choose? TV screens are apt to be brighter and clearer than a projector, but many projectors, especially laser-based models, are still impressively vibrant. An ambient light-rejection screen can help with fade, too. The decision ultimately comes down to personal preference for your home cinema.

Connect It All

You want your home theatre to be easy to use and activate at any time. Otherwise, you might not use the space as much as you’d like. With your screen, speakers, lights, and thermostats integrated into one control system, you can turn on the whole room with one press of a button. So, when the family’s over, take appetizers and drinks to the theatre room, where holiday movies or music can play over your impressive entertainment system.

We hope these tips can provide some useful guidance for your home’s entertainment this season. If you’re looking for a home theatre design or installation in the Muskoka area, Connect E3 is your local home theatre expert. Contact us here or send us a message below to discuss your project!