"How much does a home theater room cost?" This is one of the most common questions we get and it can be difficult to estimate a budget without knowing the details of the project. Just as it would be difficult to tell someone how much a house costs. They come in all different shapes and sizes and nearly every aspect of a home can be customized. In order to calculate how much it will cost to build a home theater, you first need to nail down some of the specifics.
This article is part of our Home Theater Design Series that covers virtually everything about designing a home theater. In addition to our world-class home theater design tool, we've given you everything you need to begin your home theater journey in Home Theater Central.
A home theater is a dedicated room in your house built for the purpose of enjoying movies, television, sports, and gaming. These rooms are designed to provide a true cinema experience -- they’re typically a closed room (to give you complete control of light and sound) and feature a front-projector instead of a TV -- a consumer version of what you would expect to find at your local movie theater.
If you’re looking for a more multi-purpose family room with a TV -- perhaps something open to your kitchen or used in a variety of ways other than entertainment, this is typically referred to as a Media Room. We have plenty of thoughts and experience when it comes to media room design, but that is a discussion for another day.
As we’ve heard from thousands of customers over the years, a well-designed home theater room will quickly become your favorite room in the house. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Let’s take a look at what it will take to help you start putting a budget together for your dedicated home theater.
For the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume that you already have a finished room picked out. Perhaps it’s a bonus room above the garage, a spare bedroom, or a finished basement. If you do not have a finished room, you can probably expect between $50 to $250 per square foot to build out a room from scratch. Of course, this also depends on your location, the level of construction needed, and the quality of materials you choose.
Once you’ve picked the room, you may be excited to jump straight into picking out all of the gear and the popcorn machine -- but you’re forgetting the most important and most often overlooked aspect of any custom home theater project -- the room design.
It never ceases to amaze us when we find a room full of great equipment that was put in the wrong places, or in a room that sounded awful acoustically! Getting this right requires knowledge of how the speakers will react with the room and usually requires taking measurements, doing some tests, and creating some drawings to make sure everything is perfect. Keep in mind that if you want multiple rows of seating, expect riser construction to cost in the $1,800-$3,000 range
This includes determining:
While it’s nice to have a beautiful picture and loud booming sound effects, when it all comes down to it, the most important part of a movie is the dialogue. If you can not understand the dialogue, you can not follow along with the plot. If you can not only understand it, but hear all the subtle emotions of the characters you will be magically transported to feeling like you are part of the movie.
Acoustic treatments can make average equipment sound great, and great equipment sound amazing! You can spend as little as $500 for some basic panels up to $10,000-$30,000 depending on the size of your room and how far you want to take it. At Audio Advice, we have been designing home theaters for over 25 years. In that time, we have never had a client tell us they could not hear a huge improvement after we installed their acoustic treatments.
Find a local provider who specializes in home theater design. Of course, if you’re near our Raleigh or Charlotte showrooms, Audio Advice is happy to help! Expect to pay somewhere in the $500-$3,000 range for a professional design and for ultra high-end theaters, design can be upwards of $15,000 or more. It’s money well-spent to ensure that you’re getting the right layout and equipment for the room.
Once you have a great design, you can jump back into picking out the equipment, furniture, and decor.
Let’s start in our favorite place -- the equipment! If you’ve ever been to a big box store and seen low-end “home theater in a box” (HTIB) systems for a few hundred dollars, you probably realize that prices for this stuff is all over the map. We wouldn’t recommend putting the time and money into a custom home theater if you’re going to put a cheap system in, but you can probably expect to spend anywhere from $7,500 up on all of the equipment.
While you may be expecting us to start with the projector itself, this technology tends to become outdated more often than some of the other components in your system. Instead, we are going to start with the areas we think are the best investments and move down from there.
We can not stress enough how important the screen is. You will probably have it for decades if you get a good one. It’s as important as the projector to producing a great picture.
As an example, a decent 120” 16:9 screen is typically going to start around $1,800. The really good ones of the same size will be a little above $3,000- and worth every penny. Typically, anything less and you are not going to get all of the performance your projector is capable of.
Right along with the projector screen, another area we highly recommend you invest is the speakers. We are constantly remodeling 20+ year old theaters and reusing the great speaker package they’ve always had, just adding more speakers and newer components to give them the latest surround sound effects. Money spent here is well worth it. No one has ever told us they spent too much on speakers!
When you designed your theater, you determined the speaker configuration. Depending on which you selected, you may have anywhere from five speakers and a sub in a traditional 5.1 surround sound system all the way up to nine speakers and two subs for the newest object-based surround sound systems like Dolby Atmos or DTS-X.
We recommend spending at least $400 per speaker for the main front three. These are more important than your surrounds (or rears). The center channel is particularly important because it’s where 80% of the dialogue comes from in movies and TV shows.
Get in the $1,500 each price range and you will start to be able to recreate the impact of those big special effects.
Decent subs will start at around $500 each and can go as high as you can imagine. If you are a big action movie buff, the sub is not the place to pinch your pennies. Two is also always better than one for the most even bass around your room.
For the effects channels, which now include Atmos in ceiling, your sides and rears, pick something in the $400 per pair range and up. Again there is a wide range of choices out there and quality goes up usually with the price. We do not think you need to spend as much on the surrounds as the front three.
Each year brings a slate of new models offering better performance than their predecessors.
It has been really fun to see how front projection technology has improved over the years. The $1,500 front projectors available now surpass the $20,000 models of just 15 years ago! This is a good starting place, but we wouldn’t recommend going any lower than this. Less expensive models are typically more for business applications like conference rooms and do not offer the same features as front projectors design for home theaters.
If you’re interested in the latest and greatest and your budget allows for it, you can expect to pay from $10,000 all the way up to $60,000 or more on a front projector that includes features like widescreen or 2:35 aspect ratio, 4K, and great video processing.
One more thing to consider when looking at front projectors is the cost of the lamp. While the life of these lamps have improved over the years, a typical projector today has an average life expectancy of around 6,000 hours before it will need to be replaced. Looking into the cost of the replacement lamp for your particular model is something you may want to consider before making a purchase.
Your home theater receiver is the brain of your system. All of the surround sound processing, video switching, and amplification for your speakers happens inside your home theater receiver.
The amps inside a home theater receiver are very important. To get the full impact of the dynamics of special effects, they need to be able to control your speakers very well. Yes, you can buy an all in one home theater receiver for as low as $149, but this type of unit will have a very low-quality amplifier section and will not do justice to the speakers if you took our recommendations in the previous section. To get something that sounds great, you should expect to pay around $800 and up.
If you’re into a more high-end system and it fits into your budget, you can purchase a separate home theater processor and multi-channel amplifier. This will not only give you better sound but is also scalable in the sense that you can probably keep the amps for 20+ years and only switch out your processor every 5-10 years as technology improves. These components will typically start out in the $3,000 range and go up depending on how many channels of amplification you get and the power levels.
Now that we’ve picked out your equipment, your next consideration should be the seating.
Before we discuss your seating options, we want to make sure we circle back to the design stage for a second. If you are planning on having multiple rows of seating and didn’t work with a professional to design your theater, you may wind up having sight line issues once you get your furniture in the room. There is nothing worse than someone’s head blocking your view. The flip side of this is having a screen that is too high off the floor which gives you neck pain when you strain to look up at it.
We’ve seen all kinds of furniture in the home theaters we’ve designed, from your typical home theater chairs to large comfy couches. Of course, the two factors that determine how much you will spend on seating are the prices of each piece of furniture and the number of pieces you will buy.
Home theater seating spans a wide price range from just a few hundred dollars a seat of the made in China variety to the European or US made seating that can run as much as $7,000/per seat. You do want to be comfortable while sitting there for two hours plus enjoying a movie.
We highly recommend you consider getting decent quality seating. Some of the inexpensive types may seem like a great deal at first but not so much after a couple of years when the padding starts to give out. Generally, if you choose something above around $800/seat you will get decent quality. The really good stuff seems to start at around $2000/seat.
Brands like Salamander, CinemaTech, United Leather, and Row One by Jasper Cabinet provide tons of options and customizations from materials and colors to endless configurations.
Just as the design of the room is often overlooked when building a custom home theater budget, so is the installation and calibration of the components.
We suspect more than half of the nice home theaters in America today have the home theater receiver set to the factory defaults. We see this all the time when we go in to upgrade our customer's theaters. Calibrating all of the options available on today’s home theater receivers is critical to getting what you paid for. Properly calibrating the settings on your projector, how the speakers are placed, and all of the settings involved are where the difference is made between a room full of equipment and a true movie theater experience.
Of course, home theater installation costs will vary based on your room specifications, the equipment involved, the acoustics of the room, and many other factors. Keep in mind that most professionals opt to only install equipment that they sell. By helping you select the equipment, we can guarantee that everything will work together as expected. Having to piece together a system that may or may not be ideal (and taking responsibility for the end result) is risky. We want our customers to be happy, and working with you to choose the right elements is a critical piece of the process.
Now that you have the room design and all of the critical components chosen and installed, all that’s left are the details that really bring your room to life. Details like the carpet you choose, curtains on either side of the screen, walls sconces on the side walls, and a popcorn machine can make all the difference.
For a truly unique look, ask your provider if they work with any interior designers that they would recommend. The right interior designer can help bring the room to life, whether you want to keep it simple or create a fully-themed room.
As you can see, there is a wide range of options that make the answer to “What does a home theater cost?” really difficult to pin down. As a starting point, you can expect to spend $10,000 on a private home theater room.
At Audio Advice, we have designed award-winning, high-end theaters in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but most of the custom theaters we build range from $10,000 to $50,000. When you consider the average kitchen renovation today costs you $30,000, this is pretty reasonable. A well-designed home theater is an investment that will bring fun and entertainment to you and your family for years to come.
If you are located within a few hundred miles of Raleigh or Charlotte, North Carolina and have any questions or would like to discuss your home theater project, please feel free to contact one of our home theater designers or chat us online.
If you already have a setup and you are looking to upgrade your Home Theater Speakers or Home Theater Receiver, be sure to check out our Best Home Theater Speakers and Best Home Theater Receivers articles.
Our Home Theater Buyers Guide is also available. This guide is a deep dive into how to purchase a new Home Theater System.
Enter your room dimensions, audio, and video preferences while it designs your theater in real-time. Receive optimal screen size, seating locations, speaker locations, and receive precise measurements for your room layout. Work with our system designers via chat, email, phone, or in-store for expert advice, product selections, and more.
If you are in the market for a new home theater system or improving part (or all) of the one you already own, you’ve probably figured out that the options can be more confusing than advanced algebra! Explore our guide to understand the available options and how they might work or not work in your particular situation. If you need help customizing a solution for your space, reach out - we're happy to help!
There are so many great options when it comes to choosing sources for your home theater or media room that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Should you use a streaming device like an Apple TV 4K or Roku Ultra? Do you still need a cable box or Blu-ray Player? Do you want the very best option with a Kaleidescape? We answer all these questions and m...
A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...
If you’re building a home theater or media room, a common forgotten element is planning for your electrical needs. Audio Advice shares their best practices so you can have a powerful entertainment system!
...
A guide on how to get the best sound out of your home theater room. We have some tips and tricks to greatly improve the way your home theater sounds. You’ll learn about how to use some basic things around the house to enhance your acoustics and how to choose aftermarket acoustic treatments.
...
This article is part of our home theater design series, and we will cover how to mount your front projector to your ceiling. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your projec...
This article is part of our home theater design series and we will cover how to mount your front projection screen. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your first screen li...
For the home theater enthusiast looking to upgrade their picture in a family or media room, the choice between a large, flat panel tv and an ultra-short throw projector can be a daunting one. Watch our latest video where we dive into the pros and cons of each display!
...
In this article, we will go over all the things you need to consider when trying to find the best front projection system for your home theater or family room. We have put together a pretty straightforward decision tree to help you quickly determine your ideal front projector choice!
...
Learn how to choose the best size for your TV or front projection home theater system. We’ve culminated in the advice of the movie industry and our years of experience with real-world home theaters to take the guesswork out of helping you choose the perfect screen size. You’ll just need a tape measure and a calculator.
...
While this is one of the most common questions we get, the answer is something pretty hard to pin down. As we’ve heard from thousands of customers over the years, a well-designed home theater room will quickly become your favorite room in the house. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Let’s take a look at what it will take to get ...
Learn about technologies and features you should look for in a new audio-video receiver for your home theater. We will make it easy to decide which features are important for your system and which ones you may not need to worry over.
...
Today’s home theater receivers come with so many features, they can make your head spin. Just take a look at the specs on any brand’s website and you’ll probably see more than 50 features listed in the long list of advantages the brand is pitching you. Sure you want all of the latest and greatest, but in the end, room EQ optimization i...
Follow our home theater AV receiver setup to greatly improve the overall sound of your home theater system.
...
Whether you’re researching for a future home theater installation or exploring ways to enhance your current home theater, we’ve created a series of videos to walk you through upgrades to make optimizing your setup easier — including everything you need to know, from tweaking your picture to improving the acoustics in your room. In this par...
If you are a home theater enthusiast, you are probably aware of how important a role the center channel speaker plays in a great home theater experience. Here, we will give some basic set up tips and hopefully even a couple of suggestions for experts that will help you get the most out of your center channel speaker.
...
Check out our free tips on how to improve the picture performance of your home theater’s TV or front projector. We go over some simple steps that will allow you to fine-tune your picture like a pro. Whether you have a new home theater or yours has some age on it, these tips are sure to make you smile when you see the improvements.
...
Imagine you are really getting into a great action movie, the spaceship lands, and all of a sudden, you hear this terrible buzzing or rattling sound coming from somewhere in your room. The effect of the movie has just been totally ruined. This tip breaks down how to find and eliminate noises your room might be making due to vents, furniture, li...
Follow along in our guide where we help explain how and give you the right tools to perfectly set lip sync in your home theater.
...
This tip is designed to help you nail down the right contrast and brightness settings on your television or projector. If you have not yet watched our Top 5 Tips for improving your Home Theater video, we would suggest you watch that first as it covers all of the major items you want to adjust in order, including brightness and contrast.
...
This tip is designed to help you perfectly focus your projector and is part of our Top 5 Tips For Improving Your Home Theater Video series. You can follow these steps using your projector’s pattern or we show you in this video. Make sure your projector has warmed up for at least 20 minutes before running this test.
...
If you follow these tips, you can substantially improve your home theater or media room. This tip breaks down how to get the perfect sharpness settings on your television or front projector.
...
Although hanging acoustic panels in a home theater or listening room is not too difficult, it does require a little thought & planning. In this video, we show you two effective methods we use here at Audio Advice that are easy for the average DIYer.
...
A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...
Adding a subwoofer to your home stereo system or home theater system can make a huge improvement in your sound if you know how to properly position and adjust the settings.
...
As more original Dolby Atmos movies continue to come to streaming platforms, you will not want to choose upgrades for your home theater system until you watch our next video. Since you already own most of the key parts, you won’t even have to change that many components! We will cover essential tips & tricks to get great-sounding uncompre...
While this is one of the most common questions we get, the answer is something pretty hard to pin down. As we’ve heard from thousands of customers over the years, a well-designed home theater room will quickly become your favorite room in the house. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Let’s take a look at what it will take to get you there.
With the free patent-pending Audio Advice Home Theater Design Tool, you can now easily design a high-performance room with the tool doing all the complex calculations in real-time. Let’s take a look at how to use the tool. Start by moving the sliders to adjust the room to match the exact dimensions of your own space, and hit the Next button to begin designing your home theater!
Under the "seating" section, add how many seats you'd like per row and how many rows you want. If you select two or more rows, additional sliders will appear, which let you change your riser height and depth. Now choose which row you want as the primary row. This tells the system to maximize performance for this row. Then set the distance from the screen to the seats by either moving the slider or using your mouse to move the seats. You can even set aisle position and width.
Click Next to move to the video setup. First, select if you are using a TV or a Projector. When you select "projector," you are now prompted to choose your brand and model. Choose the aspect ratio of your screen. Note that each selection has a pop-up with a detailed explanation. In this case, explaining widescreen versus sixteen by nine. Adjust the screen size to match your desired immersion level, with the average being equivalent to sitting in the middle of a theater and higher in the front of a theater. Choose your screen gain, which is explained in the pop-up. The Audio Advice team is available on chat, phone, and in-store to answer additional questions.
Audio Advice uses data from its projector laboratory tests and your design to determine the ideal projector location to achieve the best picture for your room. It also shows you the brightness in nits and turns green if your brightness is fully HDR compatible or yellow if your projector is too dark. You can move the projector forward and backward using the slider or your mouse and see the impact on the brightness.
Let's move to the audio setup! First, choose in-wall or box speakers. If you select in-wall, you can choose an acoustically transparent screen that moves the speakers behind the screen. In addition to main and rear surrounds, the tool also allows you to select front wides. You also have a choice of the number of subwoofers and atmos speakers.
Note that if you make any changes, such as moving seats or removing speakers, all other speakers will adjust in real-time to their new optimal locations. If you move something out of spec, you will see it turn orange, and you can move it back to a non-orange position. This allows you to achieve an optimally designed room in a fraction of the time previously possible.
Turn on the sound dispersion button first to see the impact of the most revolutionary part of the tool. Audio Advice’s proprietary AI algorithm addresses one of the greatest challenges in theater design which is to balance the design from 100% focused on the main listening position with a design that maximizes the performance across all seats. Most people will want to shift as far to AI optimized as possible until just before speakers turn orange to achieve the best performance for all seats while still 100% in Dolby spec for the primary listening position.
There are a set of button views at the bottom, starting with a ruler showing you the main measurements as you build. The sightline button shows how the tool automatically adjusts screen height for optimal viewing from all seats. You can also see how the screen looks from the primary viewing seat, zoom in and out and use your mouse to view from different angles.
When you save your design, review it with an Audio Advice expert to ensure you avoid common mistakes and have the best design possible for your room. The system saves your design with a printable version of all measurements, including screen height, speaker positions, distances, and even the pole length you need for your projector. If you are installing it yourself, you will find how-to-videos, an inspiration gallery, and everything home theater-related at AudioAdvice.com. If Audio Advice is installing for you, prepare to have an incredible room to enjoy for years to come!
Enter your room dimensions, audio, and video preferences while it designs your theater in real-time. Receive optimal screen size, seating locations, speaker locations, and receive precise measurements for your room layout. Work with our system designers via chat, email, phone, or in-store for expert advice, product selections, and more.
If you are in the market for a new home theater system or improving part (or all) of the one you already own, you’ve probably figured out that the options can be more confusing than advanced algebra! Explore our guide to understand the available options and how they might work or not work in your particular situation. If you need help customizing a solution for your space, reach out - we're happy to help!
There are so many great options when it comes to choosing sources for your home theater or media room that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Should you use a streaming device like an Apple TV 4K or Roku Ultra? Do you still need a cable box or Blu-ray Player? Do you want the very best option with a Kaleidescape? We answer all these questions and m...
A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...If you’re building a home theater or media room, a common forgotten element is planning for your electrical needs. Audio Advice shares their best practices so you can have a powerful entertainment system!
...A guide on how to get the best sound out of your home theater room. We have some tips and tricks to greatly improve the way your home theater sounds. You’ll learn about how to use some basic things around the house to enhance your acoustics and how to choose aftermarket acoustic treatments.
...This article is part of our home theater design series, and we will cover how to mount your front projector to your ceiling. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your projec...
This article is part of our home theater design series and we will cover how to mount your front projection screen. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your first screen li...
For the home theater enthusiast looking to upgrade their picture in a family or media room, the choice between a large, flat panel tv and an ultra-short throw projector can be a daunting one. Watch our latest video where we dive into the pros and cons of each display!
...In this article, we will go over all the things you need to consider when trying to find the best front projection system for your home theater or family room. We have put together a pretty straightforward decision tree to help you quickly determine your ideal front projector choice!
...Learn how to choose the best size for your TV or front projection home theater system. We’ve culminated in the advice of the movie industry and our years of experience with real-world home theaters to take the guesswork out of helping you choose the perfect screen size. You’ll just need a tape measure and a calculator.
...While this is one of the most common questions we get, the answer is something pretty hard to pin down. As we’ve heard from thousands of customers over the years, a well-designed home theater room will quickly become your favorite room in the house. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Let’s take a look at what it will take to get ...
Learn about technologies and features you should look for in a new audio-video receiver for your home theater. We will make it easy to decide which features are important for your system and which ones you may not need to worry over.
...Today’s home theater receivers come with so many features, they can make your head spin. Just take a look at the specs on any brand’s website and you’ll probably see more than 50 features listed in the long list of advantages the brand is pitching you. Sure you want all of the latest and greatest, but in the end, room EQ optimization i...
Follow our home theater AV receiver setup to greatly improve the overall sound of your home theater system.
...Whether you’re researching for a future home theater installation or exploring ways to enhance your current home theater, we’ve created a series of videos to walk you through upgrades to make optimizing your setup easier — including everything you need to know, from tweaking your picture to improving the acoustics in your room. In this par...
If you are a home theater enthusiast, you are probably aware of how important a role the center channel speaker plays in a great home theater experience. Here, we will give some basic set up tips and hopefully even a couple of suggestions for experts that will help you get the most out of your center channel speaker.
...Check out our free tips on how to improve the picture performance of your home theater’s TV or front projector. We go over some simple steps that will allow you to fine-tune your picture like a pro. Whether you have a new home theater or yours has some age on it, these tips are sure to make you smile when you see the improvements.
...Imagine you are really getting into a great action movie, the spaceship lands, and all of a sudden, you hear this terrible buzzing or rattling sound coming from somewhere in your room. The effect of the movie has just been totally ruined. This tip breaks down how to find and eliminate noises your room might be making due to vents, furniture, li...
Follow along in our guide where we help explain how and give you the right tools to perfectly set lip sync in your home theater.
...This tip is designed to help you nail down the right contrast and brightness settings on your television or projector. If you have not yet watched our Top 5 Tips for improving your Home Theater video, we would suggest you watch that first as it covers all of the major items you want to adjust in order, including brightness and contrast.
...This tip is designed to help you perfectly focus your projector and is part of our Top 5 Tips For Improving Your Home Theater Video series. You can follow these steps using your projector’s pattern or we show you in this video. Make sure your projector has warmed up for at least 20 minutes before running this test.
...If you follow these tips, you can substantially improve your home theater or media room. This tip breaks down how to get the perfect sharpness settings on your television or front projector.
...Although hanging acoustic panels in a home theater or listening room is not too difficult, it does require a little thought & planning. In this video, we show you two effective methods we use here at Audio Advice that are easy for the average DIYer.
...A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...Adding a subwoofer to your home stereo system or home theater system can make a huge improvement in your sound if you know how to properly position and adjust the settings.
...As more original Dolby Atmos movies continue to come to streaming platforms, you will not want to choose upgrades for your home theater system until you watch our next video. Since you already own most of the key parts, you won’t even have to change that many components! We will cover essential tips & tricks to get great-sounding uncompre...
With the free patent-pending Audio Advice Home Theater Design Tool, you can now easily design a high-performance room with the tool doing all the complex calculations in real-time!
Welcome to the Audio Advice Guide to a Home Theater System. This article is the cornerstone of our Home Theater Design Series that covers virtually everything about designing a home theater. If you are in the market for a new home theater system or improving part (or all) of the one you already own, you’ve probably figured out that the options can be more confusing than advanced algebra! The good news is that having a great home theater or media room is one of the best things you can do to enhance time spent at home with family and friends. We have brought together and organized all of our home theater articles to help you understand the available options and how they might work or not work in your particular situation.
We have grouped the articles (most of which have a video as well) into sections to help navigate through all of the information we have put together for you. If you are just starting out, you may want to read through most of the articles or you can jump to the article most relevant to your current needs. In addition to our world-class home theater design tool, we've given you everything you need to begin your home theater journey in Home Theater Central.
We have designed these articles and videos to be a basic educational source for someone interested in a home theater system. Entire books have been published on some of the items we cover in a few paragraphs, so we hope you’ll consider this library as your go-to quick reference.
Lots of changes have happened to the world of home theater in the last few years. We will go over all of the latest, and give you a bit of history on how we got to where we are now.
This is an interesting article to give you a perspective on how today’s systems have the capability of giving you a far more immersive experience than those of just a few years ago.
The first question that comes to mind for most people is how much will a home theater cost? Well, that is a pretty similar question to how much does a car cost, but we give you some general ideas in this article.
As technology has progressed, we feel now is a great time to start planning your home theater. We’ll help you understand the advantages of starting now.
We love to work with our clients to help design the best space. Our home theater design tool is very helpful in planning most aspects of your room. We suggest you read over the following articles in advance to have a better understanding of the “why” behind our suggestions.
A super important aspect of a home theater is making sure all of your guests can see the screen and be comfortable when enjoying a movie. Our sightlines article here will help you think through some important options.
If you are planning on more than one row of seating, sightlines become really important. This article will help you design the perfect riser for your new home theater.
Many people have an “oops” moment at the end of their project and realize they forgot to think about some things that can make or break your home theater.
Getting the lighting right in your home theater is supercritical. You’ll find this article very helpful on all things lighting for your home theater room.
Home Theater Lighting Best Practices >
Nothing is worse than having to deal with audio or video hum or breakers flipping because you did not plan for the electrical needs properly in your home theater. Learn how to avoid any possible issues in this article.
This is probably the most often asked question we get when it comes to home theaters. The general answer we have is as big as you can make it!
If you are going with a front projector, you’ll need to decide if you want to go with a normal HDTV type screen or a full movie experience widescreen. Learn about the differences in this article
Widescreen Explained: What’s with the Black Bars? >
After you have decided on the type of screen we’ve put together some tips on how to select the ideal size for your room here:
How to Choose the Best Home Theater Screen Size >
For those of you going the front projector route, we have a great article on picking the right kind of screen material for your space.
How to Choose the Best Front Projection Home Theater Screen >
In today’s world of surround sound, there are many options for speaker layouts. This article will give you the pros and cons of several possible configurations with ideas on the best places to put the speakers as well.
Home Theater Speaker Layout Options >
Once you have picked out your speaker configuration, you’ll have some choices on the types of speakers you might use for each channel. We go over those options in this article:
Understanding the Different Types of Home Theater Speakers >
For the full home theater experience, you’ll want one or more subwoofers. Learn about your options in this article:
The heart of your system will be a home theater receiver or separate processor and amps. This category has a lot of options. Our guide will explain all the tech talk so you can figure out the type that fits best for your long term home theater goals.
Best Home Theater Receiver Options >
This is one part of home theater that has actually gotten simpler over time. Most of us enjoy streaming services in our home theaters. But, if you really want the very best picture and sound, you might want to read our take on the best.
Home Theater Source Component Options >
Make sure you get all the sound and picture you paid for by properly calibrating your home theater components. You would not believe the difference this will make, so we highly recommend you spend the time to calibrate your system.
Do I need to Calibrate my Home Theater Receiver? >
Learn how to get better and more even bass response everywhere in your room.
We feel the center channel is the most important speaker in a home theater. We have some simple and easy tips on how to make yours sound even better.
How to Optimize Your Center Channel Speaker in a Home Theater System >
Many people don’t think about the acoustic part of their home theater until they sit down the first time and realize there is a lot of echo in their room. This basic guide will give you a good understanding of what is important for your home theater.
We hope you have enjoyed our home theater system buyer’s guide. A great home theater is one of the most fun and used things in a modern home. Hopefully our guide has started you down the path to owning a home theater or media room that will make you smile every time you turn it on.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via email, phone, or chat from our website. We’ve been creating great home theater systems ever since home theater first came about and would love to help you turn a place in your home into one that will become your favorite room in your house!
Enter your room dimensions, audio, and video preferences while it designs your theater in real-time. Receive optimal screen size, seating locations, speaker locations, and receive precise measurements for your room layout. Work with our system designers via chat, email, phone, or in-store for expert advice, product selections, and more.
If you are in the market for a new home theater system or improving part (or all) of the one you already own, you’ve probably figured out that the options can be more confusing than advanced algebra! Explore our guide to understand the available options and how they might work or not work in your particular situation. If you need help customizing a solution for your space, reach out - we're happy to help!
There are so many great options when it comes to choosing sources for your home theater or media room that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Should you use a streaming device like an Apple TV 4K or Roku Ultra? Do you still need a cable box or Blu-ray Player? Do you want the very best option with a Kaleidescape? We answer all these questions and m...
A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...If you’re building a home theater or media room, a common forgotten element is planning for your electrical needs. Audio Advice shares their best practices so you can have a powerful entertainment system!
...A guide on how to get the best sound out of your home theater room. We have some tips and tricks to greatly improve the way your home theater sounds. You’ll learn about how to use some basic things around the house to enhance your acoustics and how to choose aftermarket acoustic treatments.
...This article is part of our home theater design series, and we will cover how to mount your front projector to your ceiling. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your projec...
This article is part of our home theater design series and we will cover how to mount your front projection screen. If you are thinking about a DIY home theater, mounting the screen and projector may give you some pause, but there is no need to worry. With the right knowledge and some of our tips, you will be able to install your first screen li...
For the home theater enthusiast looking to upgrade their picture in a family or media room, the choice between a large, flat panel tv and an ultra-short throw projector can be a daunting one. Watch our latest video where we dive into the pros and cons of each display!
...In this article, we will go over all the things you need to consider when trying to find the best front projection system for your home theater or family room. We have put together a pretty straightforward decision tree to help you quickly determine your ideal front projector choice!
...Learn how to choose the best size for your TV or front projection home theater system. We’ve culminated in the advice of the movie industry and our years of experience with real-world home theaters to take the guesswork out of helping you choose the perfect screen size. You’ll just need a tape measure and a calculator.
...While this is one of the most common questions we get, the answer is something pretty hard to pin down. As we’ve heard from thousands of customers over the years, a well-designed home theater room will quickly become your favorite room in the house. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Let’s take a look at what it will take to get ...
Learn about technologies and features you should look for in a new audio-video receiver for your home theater. We will make it easy to decide which features are important for your system and which ones you may not need to worry over.
...Today’s home theater receivers come with so many features, they can make your head spin. Just take a look at the specs on any brand’s website and you’ll probably see more than 50 features listed in the long list of advantages the brand is pitching you. Sure you want all of the latest and greatest, but in the end, room EQ optimization i...
Follow our home theater AV receiver setup to greatly improve the overall sound of your home theater system.
...Whether you’re researching for a future home theater installation or exploring ways to enhance your current home theater, we’ve created a series of videos to walk you through upgrades to make optimizing your setup easier — including everything you need to know, from tweaking your picture to improving the acoustics in your room. In this par...
If you are a home theater enthusiast, you are probably aware of how important a role the center channel speaker plays in a great home theater experience. Here, we will give some basic set up tips and hopefully even a couple of suggestions for experts that will help you get the most out of your center channel speaker.
...Check out our free tips on how to improve the picture performance of your home theater’s TV or front projector. We go over some simple steps that will allow you to fine-tune your picture like a pro. Whether you have a new home theater or yours has some age on it, these tips are sure to make you smile when you see the improvements.
...Imagine you are really getting into a great action movie, the spaceship lands, and all of a sudden, you hear this terrible buzzing or rattling sound coming from somewhere in your room. The effect of the movie has just been totally ruined. This tip breaks down how to find and eliminate noises your room might be making due to vents, furniture, li...
Follow along in our guide where we help explain how and give you the right tools to perfectly set lip sync in your home theater.
...This tip is designed to help you nail down the right contrast and brightness settings on your television or projector. If you have not yet watched our Top 5 Tips for improving your Home Theater video, we would suggest you watch that first as it covers all of the major items you want to adjust in order, including brightness and contrast.
...This tip is designed to help you perfectly focus your projector and is part of our Top 5 Tips For Improving Your Home Theater Video series. You can follow these steps using your projector’s pattern or we show you in this video. Make sure your projector has warmed up for at least 20 minutes before running this test.
...If you follow these tips, you can substantially improve your home theater or media room. This tip breaks down how to get the perfect sharpness settings on your television or front projector.
...Although hanging acoustic panels in a home theater or listening room is not too difficult, it does require a little thought & planning. In this video, we show you two effective methods we use here at Audio Advice that are easy for the average DIYer.
...A guide on how to design your ideal home theater or media room so all your friends and family experience a beautiful picture with great surround sound. Learn about how the dimensions of your room can impact the sound, finding the ideal screen viewing height, and how to design a home theater riser so everyone has a great seat.
...Adding a subwoofer to your home stereo system or home theater system can make a huge improvement in your sound if you know how to properly position and adjust the settings.
...As more original Dolby Atmos movies continue to come to streaming platforms, you will not want to choose upgrades for your home theater system until you watch our next video. Since you already own most of the key parts, you won’t even have to change that many components! We will cover essential tips & tricks to get great-sounding uncompre...
If you are in the market for a new home theater system or improving part (or all) of the one you already own, this guide is for you. We have brought together and organized all of our home theater articles to help you understand the available options and how they might work or not work in your particular situation.
The term Home Theater or Home Cinema can cover a wide variety of options depending upon your budget, room size, how many people you want to entertain, and the way your room is constructed. In our Best Home Theater Systems section we have put together some options to help give you an idea of what you might expect at various price ranges. We asked many of the experts at Audio Advice for their opinions on what might be the best package for the categories here and came up with some great options for you to consider. If you already have a setup and you are looking to upgrade your Home Theater Speakers or Home Theater Receiver, be sure to check out our Best Home Theater Speakers and Best Home Theater Receivers articles.
Our Home Theater Buyers Guide is also available. This guide is a deep dive into how to purchase a new Home Theater System.
When thinking about what type of system might be best for you, we would like to suggest you consider a few things.
Dolby Atmos
If you enjoy action type movies, consider planning for Dolby Atmos as the effects are astounding on some of the new movies coming out. You may not be able to do it all now, but it's not a bad idea to get something with the ability to add the Atmos speakers later. To fully experience a movie the way the director intended, you need some horsepower.
Room Size
If your room is fairly large, you’ll need some decent sized speakers and/or good subwoofer(s). On the other hand if your space is very small, you can get impactful sound with a smaller speaker package.
Speaker Placement
You will also want to think about where to put everything. A TV on a stand with speakers free standing around it is certainly easy, but may not fit the design of your room. If making things disappear is important to you, consider smaller, bookshelf type speakers and a small subwoofer you can hide in a corner.
First, we figured you probably already have a TV, so we left that off. However, we do recommend a matching TV - you’ll notice we really love Sony TVs. We have been carrying them for 30 years and they consistently have the best picture. We also felt that you were likely to have some way to play movies be it a Blu-ray player, Roku, Apple TV, Firestick, Nvidia Shield, or many of the other great ways to get content these days. Finally, we did not include HDMI cables and speaker wire as part of the package since we are not sure what lengths you may need, but do not overlook this important component. To get the best picture from the new HDR feeds available on streaming and bluray, you’ll need the latest cables and great speakers benefit from good speaker cable. Yes, we know most TVs now have apps, but we think the extra $99 or so for an Apple TV or Roku gets you a far better experience, and remember, TV designers make TVs not apps, and the people at Roku and Apple are pretty good at making a great interface. Plus, in most cases, switching things is just a lot easier this way.
All packages include the bare minimum main 5 channels
Our systems focus on a speaker package that will give you at the bare minimum the main 5 channels (left, right, center, surrounds) and a subwoofer or that bass impact a real home cinema needs to have! Most of these will include a surround sound receiver, and in just about every case we picked one that will give you some room to grow with more speakers.
Double as great music playing systems
We also picked systems we felt not only did a great job for home theater, but also sounded great playing music, because we all like to spin vinyl or stream music from time to time.
Easy Room Calibration
Finally, we tried to recommend systems that included a great, and easy-to-use room calibration system. This can make a world of difference in how things sound!
DIY Install
Our speaker picks, since we think this section may appeal to those of you who like to do things yourself, are all freestanding and will not require you to run any wires inside your walls. As you get into more serious home theaters, we do feel wall and ceiling mounted speakers can offer you some better options, but we stuck to simple solutions that you could either put on a stand, table, or hang on the wall. If you're looking for a custom home theater, we offer a full suite of Home Theater Design Services.
Quick and Easy Receiver Set Up
Keeping the DIY individual in mind, we know there is nothing worse than spending an entire weekend trying to figure out how to get sound out of all your speakers - you know you’ve been there! This led us to pick receivers we felt were pretty straight forward to quickly set up and get great performance out of.
For those of you who are looking for a more custom solution, have some room challenges, or need more help with design, feel free to contact us. We can design a custom solution to fit your needs and give you some great installation guidance. We’ve been doing home theaters since they first came into the market over 30 years ago.
If you are lucky enough to live near our Raleigh and Charlotte North Carolina Audio Advice stores, we highly recommend you contact one of our local theater designers to help with your project. We can help you build the theater of your dreams from start to finish including installation.
Ok, we’ve rambled on long enough, so let’s get to the best home theaters in each class and see who graduated at the top!
This is our only system with an all-in-one powered soundbar, but we felt we had to include this one as it is one of our most popular combinations, sounds great for the money and set up is a snap. The heart of the system is the Dolby Atmos enabled popular Sonos Arc Playbar. This system works especially well with a “smart tv”. There are two ways to connect things up. If you have a TV that is less than 5 years old, you can use the HDMI ARC connection to connect up to the Arc. If your TV is even newer and has eARC, you’ll have full Dolby Atmos. If you have an older TV with an optical out, you can use the adapter in the box with the Arc for connecting things up.
If you use the HDMI method, the Arc will automatically respond to your TV remote commands or if you go the optical connection route, it only takes about 30 seconds to teach the Arc your TV remote. The Sonos Sub rivals some much more expensive subwoofers on the market and adding it and the two Sonos One SL’s for rears only takes about 2 minutes. Be sure to run Sonos TruPlay which will play a bunch of test tones while you walk around the room and make things sound even better. The only wires you will need are power cords and a connection cable (which is included)one optical cable (which is included). The really smart thing about this system is that with just a few button clicks on the Sonos app you can change the rear Sonos One SL’s to regular speakers and move them into your kitchen and porch when it’s party time at your house!
Read our full review of the Sonos Arc here.
Sonos Arc- $799
Sonos Sub- $699
2 Sonos One SL’s $358 ($179 ea)
Total Price $1856
This one was easy! The team at Focal makes speakers that cost over $100K so their speaker experience really shows off with these super small, but amazing sounding speakers found in the Sib Evo Dolby Atmos System. Yes, you got it right, you even get Dolby Atmos with this system because the main left and right speakers have upward firing speakers for the Atmos track. We just could not believe how good this system sounded for the money, plus it is small enough to blend into almost any environment. The Denon receiver gives you an extra set of channels for future expansion and includes Audyssey, a great room equalization system. It also had Heos on board, which is a great streaming music system.
For over 50 years, British based Cambridge Audio has been making audio lovers smile with their great value for the money. No one does a better job of getting the most for the least spent than Cambridge. We used their great little bookshelf speakers here for the front and rear, coupled with their center channel and powered subwoofer. The entire speaker package is only $880 and will fill a good sized room with big sound that is not only great for movies but super musical for your tunes. Sony’s STR-DN1080 is one of the best value receivers out there. It has a great room EQ system that does everything automatically and is ready for Dolby Atmos when you are. We picked it for its extra power, which will make the Cambridge package happier and it has extra amp channels for when you move the front bookshelves to the second surround output and get a big pair of towers to make things more exciting.
Cambridge SX-50 Fronts - $199.99
Cambridge SX-70 Center - $179.99
Cambridge SX-50 Surrounds $199.99
Cambridge SX-120 Subwoofer $299.99
Sony STR-DN1080 Receiver -$598.00
Total Price- $1,477.96
Value is a wide ranging term, but in the home theater world where you can spend hundreds of thousands on a dedicated room, putting together a package for around $3000 that could really perform seemed to fit the value bill! Paradigm is a Canadian speaker maker who has made their mark for many years by creating great value products. They do have a secret weapon in the NRC, which is a Canadian government sponsored facility that has a huge acoustics division to help Canadian electronics companies. By using science and blind testing, they have always made some incredible speakers for the money. This system highlights their new, large tower speakers that are dynamic as all get out. We finish it off with the matching center channel and surrounds that use the exact same speaker drivers for perfectly matched sound. For the subwoofer, we chose a MartinLogan Dynamo 600X. MartinLogan is a sister company to Paradigm and includes some very cool room EQ with the 600X sub. It works really well to help your sub have more even bass response. We decided to spend a little more on the receiver for this system to give room for future expansion and to get some really clean power. Marantz is all about great sound along with home theater. The SR5014 Dolby Atmos receiver will give you everything you need for this system power wise and gives you lots of future expansion options. We love that their Audyssey system offers room EQ, and the Marantz set up on screen menu will quickly walk you through how to get the best from this system.
Paradigm Monitor SE6000F Fronts- $998/pr
Paradigm Monitor SE2000C Center- $219
Paradigm Monitor SE Atom Surrounds- $318/pr
MartinLogan Dynamo 600X Subwoofer- $649
Marantz SR5014 Receiver- $999
Total Price- $3,183.95
For over 70 years, the team at Klipsch has been making large scale speakers that give you the feeling of a live concert.. We’ve used their new Reference Premiere series of speakers for this Dolby Atmos package. This one will need a decent sized room as these speakers will give you the full impact of a well-done commercial cinema, and probably even better without the sticky floors and only your friends and family! We are using their big towers for the fronts, and to make Atmos easy, putting their upward firing Atmos speakers right on top of them. For the surrounds, we used a slightly smaller tower which gives you the option of adding another Atmos height channel the same way. The center is their large scale model 504C with 5 drivers. It will have no trouble handling the dynamics of a great movie. We wrap things up with the Klipsch 12” sub. Make no mistake, these speakers are all big and powerful, so we think this one will need a room at least 12’ by 15’ or bigger. To drive and control everything, we picked the Marantz SR6014 9.2 channel receiver. It has 9 amp channels so you can easily add those second Atmos speakers later.. The Marantz sound is hard to beat, plus when you couple it with their great Audyssey room EQ and super simple set up menu, it makes for a great receiver to compliment this powerful speaker package.
Klipsch RP-6000F Fronts- $1148/pr
Klipsch RP-504C Center- $749
Klipsch RP-5000F Surrounds- $868/pr
Klipsch RP-500SA Atmos- $574/pr
Klipsch SPL-120SW Subwoofer- $649
Marantz SR6014 Receiver- $1,499
Total Price $5,527
Music lovers like home theater too, but usually put more emphasis on quality over quantity so our music lovers system uses 5 channels, but boy are they all very good! Revel, like only a handful of other speakers companies, uses science and blind listening tests to design their speakers. They have appealed to music lovers for years, but this new series of speakers from them really raises the bar in performance! The F208s are large towers capable of giving you the full power of a live performance, yet they can reveal all those subtle nuances that make a great music speaker. We couple them with their matching center channel and bookshelves for rears. The way all of these match up will give you a seamless theater experience and will also sound amazing for multi channel music listening. We went with two subwoofers for more balanced bass, and we love the room EQ built into the new Martin Logan subs. At Audio Advice, there is no question on one thing, we all feel Anthem makes the best sounding receivers out there for under $4,000 so it's no wonder we picked our best selling MRX 1120 for the job here. It has a massive power supply capable of driving the big Revels, plus Anthem’s room EQ called “ARC” is the best we have heard, aside from Dirac. The MRX 1120 also has 11 channels of amps on board when you are ready to add 2 Dolby Atmos pairs and another surround. This system will please both your musical and home theater tastes. We do recommend a decent sized room with this one as the towers alone are quite substantial, as well as a real pleasure to look at with their Italian design in a walnut finish.
Revel F208 Fronts- $5,000/pr
Revel C208 Center- $2,000
Revel M106 Surrounds- $2,000/pr
Martin Logan Dynamo 1100X Subwoofers (2)- $2,199.90/pr
Anthem MRX 1120- $3,499
Total Price $14,698.90
We have focused on all of these systems on free standing speakers, but what about the person who does not have any floor space, yet wants great sound and beautiful aesthetics to match their new flat panel TV? MartinLogan comes to the rescue with their Motion SLM series of ultra thin wall mount speakers. These use their famous Motion Folded tweeter coupled with carbon fiber woofers for a pure and silky sound that can also fill up a big room. There are two sizes for under 65” (the SLM) and 65”+ (the SLMXL). We use three of these across the front with two flanking the TV and one under it. We then use two of the SLMs for surrounds. We couple MartinLogan’s small but powerful 600X sub with it. For the receiver, we chose another discrete but powerful model, the Marantz NR1510. This is a slim sized receiver but it features the latest in HDMI connectivity and delivers high-resolution surround sound from Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. All in all these discrete components will compliment your new TV and keep the look of your room super clean!
MartinLogan SLM or SLMXL- Fronts $1100/pr or $1398/pr
MartinLogan SLM or SLMXL- Center $499 or $699
MartinLogan SLM- Surrounds- $998/pr
MartinLogan Dynamo 600X Subwoofer $599.95
Marantz NR1510- Receiver $600
Total Price $3,999.95 or $4,294.95
We hope these suggested systems will help get you started on a wonderful fun journey towards a great home theater experience in your home. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us as we might suggest some minor changes based upon your room and how you would like your dream home theater to perform.
The term “Home Theater” or “Home Cinema” can cover a wide variety of options depending upon your budget, room size, how many people you want to entertain, and the way your room is constructed. In our “Best Home Theater Systems” section we have put together some options to help give you an idea of what you might expect at various price ranges. We asked many of the experts at Audio Advice for their opinions on what might be the best package for the categories here and came up with some great options for you to consider.
