For those cinema buffs out there, the idea of creating your very own home theatre is stuff of dreams – but thanks to lower prices and more advanced technology, those dreams can come true no matter your budget! Whilst a cinema has its advantages of having a huge screen and massive audio capabilities, a smaller home cinema is the perfect, cosy environment to enjoy your movies with a more personal touch.
There are many different home theatre ideas for small rooms out there, so it doesn’t matter if you have a tiny roof space, a spare room or even a bedroom conversion to find the best equipment for. For the ideal small room home theatre setup, you will only need a few pieces of important equipment to get you started.
Choosing the Right Screen
The main piece of equipment is the screen itself. There are many different technologies that go into making screens, and each comes with a list of advantages and benefits over the others such as picture quality as well as the price – but there is something for everyone. For smaller rooms, wall-hanging a television is the best way to go. It allows you to get the perfect viewing angle, as well as saving some space for furniture.
Wall mounting a television can be done simply by purchasing a special TV mount that fits your TV, and drilling a few holes in a wall to mount it. You can do this yourself, or have it done professionally by television antenna installers.
Wall-Mounting Saves Space
An alternative to wall mounting a television is to remove the television from the equation all-together. Choose an HD video projector to give you a large theatre-like experience and mount the projector from the opposing wall or a ceiling for the ultimate in small home theatre room ideas.
Projectors offer you the chance to mount them on an opposing wall, allowing you to hide your audio amplifiers, television decoders, DVD players and game consoles out of the way, giving you an unimpeded wall to enjoy your entertainment with a huge potential for viewing angles.
After you have chosen your screen or projector for your home theatre setup for a small room, the next stop is the audio system. Many home theatres employ surround sound setups to give them the best immersive audio features, and whilst you may not have the room (or the budget) for a 24 speaker cinema-spec audio system, you can always scale down the size without hindering on audio quality.
Go Surround Sound on a Budget
Many people start out with a basic 2.1 system containing two stereo speakers and a subwoofer – this is great for bedroom setups and small living room areas, but for a truly immersive cinema experience you will want to stop for no less than 5.1 or 7.1 systems. These surround sound systems vary in price depending on the quality of the speakers and the audio decoder/DVD player at hand, but generally include 6 or 8 speakers for placement around the room.
You can always wall-mount your satellite speakers in a surround sound system to help save on space, and choose a set of large front speakers to give you the power needed to enjoy your movies at their finest. A subwoofer can even be hidden in a small sofa to give you truly seat-trembling bass!
A small home theatre setup doesn’t have to cost you thousands of dollars to start with. So invest in the items you truly need before spending that little bit extra on the gadgets and gizmos. Building the perfect home theatre system can be done over a few weekends, so spread the costs over time to build up your home movie system.
Once you have got the screen or projector, the audio system and the decoders, games consoles and DVDs to enjoy, then you can look into mood lighting, intelligent remote controls, luxury lazyboy chairs and a popcorn machine to give you into the true movie-goer experience!
