Home Theaters
Home Theater Acoustics
A home theater has two jobs: keep the sound in the room, and make it sound right at every seat. We design both, build the treatment in our North Los Angeles shop, install it and tune the room.
Above: the listening room in the Calabasas studio we designed, with tiered risers and built-in lighting.
How a Theater Differs From a Studio
A studio has to be accurate at one seat, the mix position. A theater plays back content that has already been mixed, and it has to sound clear and consistent across several seats. A theater usually carries less total absorption and less deep bass trapping than a studio, and more of its budget goes into finish: fabric walls, curtains and lighting. More in home theater vs. recording studio acoustics.
What We Design
- Seating: Rows kept off the back wall, with a riser for the second row where the room allows it.
- Screen Wall: Left, center and right speakers placed around the screen, with dark surfaces near the screen so light doesn't bounce back onto the picture.
- Surrounds and Height Speakers: Side and rear surrounds and ceiling height speakers for Dolby Atmos layouts.
- Bass at Every Seat: Bass changes from seat to seat. Subwoofer placement and calibration do much of the work of evening it out, alongside bass trapping in the corners.
- Isolation: Decoupled walls and ceilings, sealed doors and quiet air, planned so movie night doesn't wake up the rest of the house. See soundproofing design.
Treatment Options
- Panels and Bass Traps: Broadband panels with a 4" core for reflections and low end, and bass traps in the corners.
- Clouds With Lights: Ceiling clouds with two recessed 6" lights, an LED uplight strip or both, in standard white or color-changing smart lighting. They treat the ceiling and light the room at the same time. Wiring to power is done by a licensed electrician, and we bring ours when we install.
- Fabric Track: Stretched fabric on the walls and ceiling, with absorption behind it only where it's needed. The fabric can be replaced later without rebuilding. See fabric track walls.
- Wood Finishes: Wood framed panels in red oak or painted pine, plus paneling and custom millwork built in our shop.
Every panel and cloud comes in any of our 50 fabric colors, so the treatment matches the room.
Above: fabric-wrapped walls in a control room and a writing room. The Dolby Atmos music room we did in South Carolina has tuned membrane bass traps across the back wall and a full fabric track system with integrated lighting. See the South Carolina case study and Dolby Atmos room design.
Tuning and Calibration
Once the treatment is in, we measure the room at the seats, check speaker and seat placement, and calibrate the speakers where it's part of the scope, including immersive systems. See room measurement and speaker calibration.
What a Theater Costs
Panels and bass traps run about $4,000 to $18,500 installed, depending on room size. Fabric track on the side and rear walls runs about $9,000 to $34,000 installed. A large theater with a built-out front wall and velour curtains has come in around $40,000. More in how much acoustic treatment costs and real budgets by project type.
See how a project runs. We work nationwide; see where we work.