Home Movie Theaters

Our home theater started out as an unfinished basement room with dimensions of 14 by 18 by 9 feet. The room is rectangular, with three doors and no windows. Audio problems are inherently more difficult to solve than video problems. Fortunately, the room dimensions are friendly to acoustic resonances. Since the theater would be right under the great room of the house, the main goal was to decouple the theater from the rest of the house as best as possible.

When it came time to build a home theater in the basement of our home (14.5 by 18.5 feet), my wife set the tone by requesting a traditional movie theater décor with a touch of whimsy. On the technical side, I was most concerned about the installation and soundproofing to ensure it sounded as terrific as it looked. The walls, stage, and seating platform are all filled with insulation, and the walls are covered with sound panels, made from 1-inch-thick batting, and covered with velvet fabric and then framed with wood trim boxes. Molding added the extra bit of elegance, and pillars gave the room dimension and function. Doubling as sound panels, two of the pillars have cabinet doors. One of them opens to reveal the equipment rack; the other has shelves for storage.

With the latest crop of home theater seating, you may never want to leave home.
Usually, the first question that comes to mind when you walk into a home theater is, “Where do I sit?” No matter how clear the picture looks or how powerful the sound is, a bad chair or sofa can ruin your home theater experience. But new technology and innovative designs aren’t just for the latest consumer electronics. These fresh seating options offer style, comfort, and convenience. They provide a killer combination of looks and practicality that will make your home theater memorable—in a very good way.

The owners of this house were building their dream home, with the expectation of fully integrated systems throughout the house, which would include 12 televisions, multiple zones of music, a dedicated theater, interior and exterior lighting, security, and more. This kind of complex whole-home project is nothing new to Electronics Design Group (EDG), of Piscataway Township, New Jersey. However, the challenge here was that the house was over 100 years old and was being rebuilt to keep its early 1900s aesthetics.

I love the wow factor of themed home theaters and it was the love of old science fiction films and the <i>Steampunk</i> genre that prompted me to design my theater like the <i>Nautilus</i> from Disney’s classic 1954 film, <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>. Rather than try to duplicate any one particular room of the submarine, details and influences from the entire boat were combined to create this one-of-a-kind theater.

Beginning with some postcards depicting old european towns and villages, the homeowners of this “French cobble-stone town” wanted a themed area that would lead into their theater. Designed by JP Themed Theaters along with systems integrator Audio Advice, this basement theater whisks you away to an early 20th century French Quarter.

Rotel, known for their high performance AV components, offers up several new models for the most discriminating user. The 15 Series offers a broad range of home theater and custom-installation electronics including the RSP-1570, a 7.1 Home Theater Surround Processor/Preamplifier, and three high powered amplifiers; the RMB-1575, RMB-1506 and the PB-1572 (all pictured above).