The 7 Most Common Home Theater Mistakes

as you might imagine we get called in all the time  to look at home theaters that people feel like   they installed or someone installed for them and  they're just not what they expected and because of   that we've put together our top seven home theater  mistakes to help make sure when you're building   your theater you avoid these the number one home  theater mistake we see is the wrong screen size   most of the time it's because the screen is  too small for the room and the seating position   sometimes although a lot less often it's too  big and the seating position is too close   and people can get vertigo because it's  just done wrong if you want to nail the   screen size or you're trying to figure out go  over to audioadvice.com we actually have a free   home theater design tool that will allow you to  put where your seats are going to be the size   your room and it will help you figure out exactly  what the right screen size is for your situation number two home theater mistake wrong paint color  we go into a room there's a great projector a   great screen and you've got basically white or  light-colored walls that are bouncing all the   light around the room and it just doesn't look  good make sure when you're planning out the   color of your room ideally you want darker colors  there's a reason when you go into a movie theater   that it's dark the picture looks a lot better  when you don't have white walls bouncing   everything around also when you're choosing  the paint color think you want a matte or flat   color so we're not getting gloss reflections  or anything else like that around the room   also think about furniture that's around  it sometimes we'll walk into a room   and we'll see this great television and  we've got great sound but there might be this   furniture right below the screen that's gloss  and reflecting light straight back onto it number three is bad sight lines sight lines  are the lines when you're sitting in your   chair and you're looking at the screen itself  you can mess this up in a couple of ways one   is if you don't have high enough risers and you're  basically looking into the back of someone's head   so you really need to think about the  design of the room if you've got one   two maybe three rows of seats how high the  screen should be how high the riser should be   if you go over to audioadvice.com our  free home theater design tool will   actually make sure all of your sight lines  are perfect and you don't have an issue number four is spending too much money on video  when you think about your budget what happens   is people will go in and say okay i want the  biggest screen i can get or the best projector   and the sound is anemic and what you'll  find when you go into a theater and it just   immerses you in the emotion it's because  they found that balance of great video   and great sound when you cut the sound out and  you put everything into video and the cables   aren't good and the components aren't good and  the speakers are tiny you just don't get that   great experience you're looking for if you're  trying to figure out how much money to spend in   the various portions of the home theater you're  designing one now go over to audioadvice.com we   actually have a great video and whole article on  how we recommend people allocate budget between   cables and video and audio and everything  else to get that right optimal theater number five is not enough power so what happens  is you go to design your theater room maybe you're   just grabbing off of an electrical outlet that's  being used for a bunch of other things in the room   and your amplifiers just either one you know blow  a circuit or they actually blow their own fuses or   you just can't get that deep bass because you  don't have enough amps for what you're running   in the room so in some cases you need to actually  pull a dedicated circuit for the room itself it   gives you that power to get the punch and the  video and the audio and everything you want number six is not calibrating the system again  sometimes we'll be brought into a home and they're   ready to upgrade to theater they've heard about  audio advice or they're calling us for advice   and we realize whoever installed the system they  just plugged all the components up but they really   were not audio and video experts consequently  they never calibrated the system pretty much every   decent receiver or processor today has some auto  calibration on it and you can run that calibration   yourself whoever's installing it if they're audio  experts or theater experts they can guide you on   running it and actually tweaking it really getting  it right in fact for all the top processors   and receivers audio advice sends our tips and  tricks guides on how to do these calibrations   to our customers obviously if we're doing it  ourselves we do it if someone's buying from us and   they're do-it-yourselfer we will send it to them  and really make sure you get the calibration right   and i'm telling you from an audio perspective  when you hear a system that's been calibrated   and it's really taken out all the modes and  nodes in the bass and everything else it just   sounds totally different and the experience  is so much better this is also true in video   you'll see on our site we've got a couple  videos and reviews and buyer's guides on how to do   these kinds of calibrations on video in particular  we'll find that people know how to calibrate it to   get it matched up for instance a projector onto a  screen but they're not going back and doing panel   alignment in the colors and all the things you  need to do to really get that great pop another   part of calibration is making sure that you're  getting the best sound that you can sometimes   we'll go in and we'll actually see the surround  sound settings set to not get the best sound   what we typically advise people is you either  want to set to bit stream or in most receivers   and processors it gives you the ability to choose  what the default decoding is for multi-channel and   also for 2-channel for most people setting to  dolby atmos for your multi-channel and actually   setting to dolby for 2-channel is the best outcome  now let's talk about the two channel just for a   second because the multi-channel most people  get it i want to get that great dolby atmos   sound or dts if it comes in but in two channel  most people enjoy where it's taking the dialogue   and putting it into the center channel and it  can take a stereo feed whether it's listening to   music or watching a television show and actually  make it really quite impressive in the theater   some audiophiles prefer to set the two  channel to just stereo which is fine as well number seven of the top mistakes that we see  is not getting the acoustics right in the room   and what i mean by this is not the settings and  calibration that we just talked about but the   actual acoustics of the room itself so  when you're designing a room if you've cut   a lot of hard flat walls or it's cube-like you  don't have carpet you're going to have a very   harsh sounding room there's some easy things you  can do to make that room sound better using carpet   soft textures maybe bookshelves in the back of  a room or if it's a true theater room you know   the kind of furniture that you use in it but doing  acoustic panels is one of the easiest things to do   it's not that expensive and can really soften  up a room to make it sound great if you've got   questions on how to do that we actually have an  article on how to think about the acoustics and   set up the acoustics in a room at audioadvice.com  i hope these seven mistakes will keep you from   making the same mistake when you build your dream  theater if you've got questions about anything   home theater related or audio related jump over  to audioadvice.com you'll find we've got people   on chat and on the phone that are happy to help  you out plus we have a full home theater design   tool there that will help you figure out where  your seats should go how big your screen should be   and avoiding a lot of these mistakes plus a whole  list of buyer's guides that go into details on   avoiding all these mistakes and the things  you should do to get your home theater right   if you enjoyed this video like it  and subscribe thanks for watching

Channel: Audio Advice

Views: 587,864

Keywords: acoustic panels, audio advice, calibration, colors, diy, home cinema, home theater, home theater budget, home theater calibration, home theater receiver, home theater riser, home theater room, home theater wall color, how to, how to calibrate, how to design a home theater, how to set up acoustics panels, install, mistakes, most common, paint, power, projector, projector calibration, riser height, room acoustics, screen size, separate circuit, sight lines, surround sound processor

Id: Ke6nL4h07GQ

Length: 8min 25sec (505 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021