3 Tricks to Make Any Room a Home Theater

Many of us haven’t been in a movie theater since the pandemic began in early 2020, and depending on your point of view, that may or may not be a good thing. Most of us probably don’t miss the crowds, lines, or overpriced concessions, but for those without a great home theater, you may miss the experience of watching a movie with great sound and on a big screen. But just because your home doesn’t have a dedicated cinema doesn’t mean you can’t have a theater experience in your home.

While most theater equipment, like projectors and tower speakers, are made for dedicated rooms, there are a bunch of great products to help you enjoy a cinema-quality experience in any room of your home. Three of our favorites are invisible speakers, power-pipe subwoofers, and short-throw projectors; read on to learn how each can help turn any room into your own private cinema.

Invisible Speakers

Invisible speakers are just that, they are truly invisible once installed. They are installed in the wall or ceiling, flush with the drywall, and then covered in texture and paint, wallpaper, or even laminate. While they have been around for years, they weren’t something we would consider for a theater until recently, when Sonance introduced their newest invisible speakers. Now they sound fantastic, but they add ZERO clutter to your ceiling, wall, or floor. Even better, you can put them exactly where you want them without worrying about how they will look, which is especially important in the more public areas of a home.

Above: Invisible Series Speaker. Image provided by Sonance.

PowerPipe Subwoofers

Subwoofers create an issue when trying to deliver a theater-quality experience in your home. Physics dictates that you need a big subwoofer to create big bass, but most people don’t want that big box in their beautiful room. The James PowerPipe subwoofer allows us to hide a subwoofer away while delivering the sound directly into the room. It does this by attaching a flexible tube to the subwoofer, which can be vented into the room in dozens of ways. We can make the PowerPipe look like an AC vent, a tiny ceiling speaker, or even a custom vent routed into millwork. This means that we can put a PowerPipe into a cabinet, an attic, or even a closet without an impact on the sound.

Above: Hidden PowerPipe subwoofer. Image provided by James Loudspeaker.

Ultra Short Throw Projector

One of the compromises most people make when attempting to combine their home theater with a living space is the size of the screen. We typically see people using a TV, but a 65” TV is simply no replacement for a large projection screen. This is where the ultra short throw (UST) projector saves the day. A UST projector, like the Epson LS500, can be mounted inside a piece of furniture directly below the space where you want the image shown. This entirely replaces the need for a projector to be hung in a room, meaning no complicated wiring or ugly eyesore. Check out the video below by Epson for more details.

A UST projector allows you to enjoy a 120” picture with no more complication than hanging a TV on your wall. When you combine an image of that size, with invisible surround sound and powerful bass, the only reason you will have to go back to a theater is the popcorn (which I hear you can make at home too.)

If this sounds like a solution you might want to investigate for your home, an experienced home theater company like BRAVAS Indianapolis can help. Contact us today. We would love to help make your home the perfect place for that family movie night.