Build the Perfect Home Theater (Dolby Atmos Optional)

Home theaters are a hit for GUYs! We love ours!

The last two houses we've owned we've installed a theater. In the first house, we set up a low budget system. It got used all the time. When we sold the house, it sold to the first couple who came to see it. The wife was all excited about the kitchen and master bedroom. Once the husband saw the theater system, he didn't leave that room. He didn't even look at the bedrooms. He was sold!

In our current house we spent a bit more and it made a HUGE difference. The room gets used for movies, video games, and sports events. Our son invites his buddies over and they set up 3 XBoxes with 12 total screens (4 on the projector and 2 big screen TVs with 4 players each. They turn up the surround sound and it's INTENSE! They like Halo so the game is loud and the boys are screaming as they coordinate or take each other out.

We love listening to music in the room. It's set up so you feel like you're in a speaker. The surround sound and the Dolby Atmos envelops you in the best sound.

Since our friends and our family love it so much we thought we'd share the components we have and what we did to put it together.

Home Theater Budget

Too Little

Our first system cost about $2,000. It had an 8 foot wide screen, affordable projector and small wall hanging speakers with a 10 inch subwoofer. It was effective but the version we have now is so much more!

Too Much

We have a friend who built a system in their dedicated theater room. His projector alone was $10,000. I think they're $18,000 into the whole system. In my opinion, that's over kill. Our sound is as good or better than his because of the room size and the 4k projector doesn't make much of a difference because his screen is about 10 feet wide. For a large room and large screen a 4k projector would be appreciated but for most of our homes the results of 4k don't justify the heavy pricetag. Maybe in the future...

Just Right

We spent about $3,500 on our system. The screen is 8 feet wide, the receiver easily powers all of the drivers and our sound is so perfect for the room.

Recommended Home Theater Components

Here are the components we added to our home theater. They include the center channel, front right and left, surround left and right, Dolby Atmos left and right (Atmos speakers are in the ceiling), a 12 inch subwoofer, receiver, projector, and screen.

Projector

We like the Benq projector. It has great ratings and reviews and the pricetag won't break the bank. You'll spend around $700-800 or so. It's 1080p but at the distance ours is to the screen we can't justify the price for 4k. Prices will drop and we'll update our review once it makes sense. For now, most home theaters will do great with 1080p.

We've had ours for years without changing the bulb and we use it all the time. It's remained bright, clear and fairly quiet - even with the fan blowing.

Set Up

I think ours is mounted to the ceiling at 12 feet or so. We ran a long (30ft) HDMI cable from the receiver to the projector. We decided to build box beams in the theater room so we didn't have to pull too much wire through the wall. The HDMI and speaker wires run through the box beams.

Screen

Elite screens are very highly rated. They are a great bang for the buck. We opted for the electric retractable screen. We have a flat screen behind it in the built in entertainment center. The kids watch TV and play solo video games on the TV and then put down the screen for bigger events.

Blacks and colors show great. While it's not a highend screen, you never think about it when watching. We watched a movie on a high end screen at a friend's house recently. The kids had no idea they were watching the movie on a $2,500 screen and $10,000 projector. I could tell, but I was looking for the difference. It's not enough to justify the cost.

Set Up

We made the built-in entertainment center exactly 8 feet wide. We put holes near the ceiling for the ends of the screen to mount in. The screen itself is just short of 8 feet so it fits perfectly. 

Receiver

The receiver is the brain and power of the home theater system. We elected for a Dolby Atmos ready receiver. Traditional receivers have a 5:1 speaker count - 5 speakers (center, front left and right, surround left and right) and 1 subwoofer. Dolby Atmos adds 2 to the ceiling and the sound is object oriented. Atmos is worth every penny!

We'll be watching a scene and all of the sudden the dog will look at the ceiling as it follows the sound overhead. You're totally immersed in sound and can hear from every direction. My son claims he has an advantage when playing Apex or Fortnite because he can hear players from all over when most players just use stereo headsets.

Set Up

The receiver is placed under the center channel at the front of the room so you can control everything with the receiver.

Center Channel

SVS makes an awesome speaker. Their center channel has 4 drivers of differing sizes. The sound is accurate, clear, and we never found a limit to the volume without hurting our ears. For the price you get great sound.

Set Up

We placed ours on the shelf just above our receiver at ear level when sitting on the couch. It is responsible for dialog and a lot of movie sounds so it gets a strong percentage of the volume.

Front Left and Right Channels

We went with SVS bookshelf speakers for the size of room we have. You could select the towers but the bookshelf speakers have more than enough sound to fill our space. The sound is clear and accurate.

Set Up

We placed the speakers near ear level on each end of the screen. They handle a significant portion of surround sounds so they have a pretty high volume.

Surround Left and Right Channels - In Wall

We used Klipsch in wall surround speakers. With the light gray covers they are hidden (required by my wife). They have 2 drivers: tweeter and woofer. While the Klipsch are a minor step down from the SVS speakers, we opted for them because of the in-wall option. 

Set Up

We turn our surround sound speakers up compared to recommended levels. We like to hear the sound more clearly. I know when I have it up right when we do the Dolby Atmos sound tests and the dog is whipping her head around to follow bird sounds, wind, and other outdoor sounds.

Dolby Atmos - In Ceiling

We used Klipsch in wall surround speakers for the Dolby Atmos in-ceiling speakers. With the light gray covers they are hidden (required by my wife). They have 2 drivers: tweeter and woofer. While the Klipsch are a minor step down from the SVS speakers, we opted for them because of the in-ceiling option. 

Set Up

We turn our Atmos speakers up compared to recommended levels. We like to hear the sound more clearly. I know when I have it up right when we do the Dolby Atmos sound tests and the dog is whipping her head around to follow bird sounds, wind, and other outdoor sounds.

Subwoofer

We love our SVS 12 inch subwoofer. We chose the sealed instead of ported option because of the size of our room. We like the crisp sub sound for movies and games. Our big screen sound system upstairs has a ported sub and you get more of a whomp, whomp, whomp sound instead of the pop, pop, pop sound - if that makes sense.

Set Up

We hid the sub in a cabinet of the built in entertainment center which sits on 2x4s right on the concrete floor (no carpet). The sub sounds are felt throughout the whole room.

Home Theater Love

I don't know if I'll ever live in a house without a home theater now. :)

We love ours and it's great for attracting the friends to our place for movies, sports, and games. In fact, now that this article is done...think I might go put a flick on...

Warnings

We've learned a few things over the years. There are probably more items for this list but you'll want to at least be aware of these warnings:

1. Don't ruin your hearing! - my daughter and I love louder music. After we set up this system we wanted to see what it could do. Problem is that it can produce more clear sound than our ears can stand. We turned it up too loud one day and after we turned it off we couldn't hear well for a couple of hours. I quickly looked up the loudest healthy levels in decibels and immediately set the max volume on the receiver to that level. It was spooky!
2. Don't start a fire - low voltage is pretty easy to work with. However, with all of the components you can end up with a lot of outlet connections. Make sure your circuits can handle it and you don't make a heat trap. Everything should be well ventilated.
3. Have a life - after we installed the theater we found ourselves watching A LOT of movies and listening to A LOT of music. We had to change our habits.