Screen Placement
In many homes, the family room serves as the Media Room. While many of the planning considerations are the same or very similar to a stand alone Home Theater, a multi-use space often brings with it additional consideration requirements to maximize your ultimate enjoyment.
The focal point in many family rooms is a fireplace in the middle of a focus wall with either a blank wall space or cabinets flanking the fireplace. Placing a flat screen television over the fireplace mantle is a very popular design option. This can be great, if you can comfortably place the seating far enough away so you don’t feel like you’re looking at the ceiling to watch the evening news.
When selecting your desired screen size, consider cutting a cardboard or poster board template to the dimensions of your ideal video screen and placing it at the proposed location. Sit back in your chair and take a good long look. Is it comfortable? If not, consider lower placement of moving the screen to either side of the fireplace – if not another wall.
Speaker Placement Options
Ideally, your speakers should be placed and positioned in direct equality to your video display. This would place your left and right front speakers as to create a 45 to 60 degree angle between your main seating position, with surround effect speakers placed to the side and or rear (depending on your specific system requirements). The center channel speaker, which brings you all the dialog key to enjoying and following the movie plot, should be placed ideally above or below the center of your screen.
Providing the deep bass effects, the subwoofer is a key sound component and can usually be placed discretely in a corner.
Sunlight Effect
If you plan to enjoy your Media Room during the day for more than casual viewing, then consider how streaming sunlight may shine on your television screen. Sunlight glare can wash out a picture. Audio Craft often recommends automated window treatments/shades or even some equally impressive manual shade options available in numerous fabric finishes to complement most any interior design.
Audio Craft offers a wide selection of speaker and subwoofer options that allow you maximum placement performance by matching the speaker to your room’s specific architectural requirements. We can advise and direct you to the right speaker for your application.