8 Mistakes You Must Avoid When Setting Up Your Home Theatre

Last Updated on 6 April, 2023 by Darshan Chana

When setting up a home theatre, you have to be careful and avoid making mistakes. Mistakes, like buying a cheap TV and watching movies in SD quality or not considering space, can be detrimental to your experience when you sit down to watch your favourite movie on your new home theatre system.

Things aren’t as simple as buying the best home theatre system out there, even though that does help. I’ve made this post about some of the common mistakes to avoid when setting up a home theatre so that you don’t end up facing any discomfort later down the road. Let’s jump right in!

1. Getting A Low-Quality TV

The best TV to buy is the one that displays in HD. If you have a cheap SDTV, watching movies or sports will be an unsatisfactory experience. You can watch movies on such a TV, but you’ll miss out on all the beautiful details. Plus, with a low-quality TV, you’ll always face restrictions when sitting down to watch anything with company- after all, these TVs rarely have decent viewing angles.

2. Getting A System Without Surround Sound

If you go for a system that doesn’t have good surround audio, you will be facing a less than ideal experience. Your audio is just as important as the video being displayed on your screen! Make sure that you get it right.

I recommend going for a 5.1 surround system at least. This system consists of a single centre speaker, two speakers beside your TV or projector screen, and three speakers set up behind you to provide an immersive experience. However, if money isn’t an issue and you can go bigger, consider getting the best 7.1 system you can afford. The more sound channels you have, the better your immersion will be!

And please, never skimp out when buying extra speakers – put some money into them and make sure they have clear highs, mids, and lows.

Recommended Reading: Top 10 Best home theatre systems in India: Expert Picks

3. Having Inadequate Space In The Room

Always make sure you have enough space in case anyone comes over to enjoy a good movie with you. The point of building a home theatre is to enjoy the experience with friends and family. So, always remember to consider sitting space!

4. Spending Majority Of Budget On Video Equipment

As I said earlier, your sound is just as important, if not more important, than the video being displayed on your screen. A great video display paired with a mediocre soundbar or home theatre system won’t provide an immersive experience.

If you spend ₹40,000 on your TV but only ₹20,000 on your sound system, then you won’t get a proper movie watching experience. Sure, you might be able to watch videos with headphones or get an expensive subwoofer for better low-end audio if needed.

However, these are temporary solutions to the problem at hand, and they will merely mask the issue rather than fix it for good. If worse comes to worst, these solutions can potentially make things less pleasant by introducing more noise into the mix. If you have a tight budget, avoid getting an expensive TV and instead invest in the best home theatre system or a top soundbar.

Recommended Reading: 9 Best Soundbars in India (2023)- Reviews & Buying Guide

5. Picking An Inappropriate Screen Size

The size of your TV is a big consideration when building your home theatre. Too small, and you won’t have enough detail or sharpness. Too large, and you’ll end up straining your eyes. You might feel overwhelmed too. That’s why it’s important to measure out the space you’re going to put the screen in before deciding on size.

You should also consider other factors like how far away from the screen each person will be sitting (so they don’t strain their eyes) and physical limitations (like mounting height). These can affect your decision on getting the size that fits best for you. For instance, if you don’t have a lot of space and will be watching while sitting closer to your TV, getting a small screen is a much better way to go.

6. Not Considering The Room Size When Setting Up Sound System

Most people will slap in a surround sound system into their living room and watch movies. However, you need to spend some time considering the size of the room to determine if your current setup is suitable for it or not.

If the room’s a small one, it’s going to be filled with sound. That can cause even the most advanced speakers to produce distorted, annoying sounds that almost seem as if they’re coming from multiple directions instead of from your left or right channel.

So, I’d highly suggest that you research how room size affects audio before moving forward with setting up your home theatre system.

7. Making The Speaker Arrangement Too Complicated

When setting up your home theatre, it’s important to keep things as simple as possible. While there are many different ways to set up speakers, there’s no need to look too deep into that. One of the most important things to remember is that there are no concrete rules for speaker arrangement.

You can only follow what you see as a reference. It’s all about what works for you, so don’t try to go cool with super complicated speaker arrangements just because someone told you it was a thing on Reddit. A simple setup will do wonders for your experience at home.

8. Not Ensuring Proper Calibration

Calibration is when you make sure that the settings on your TV are optimized for home theatre. If you don’t calibrate your TV, it will be much more difficult to get an immersive picture quality, especially in 3D, because without proper calibration, there’s a good chance that everything could look blurry and all-around fuzzy.

Calibrating also includes making sure your sound system is properly calibrated – this means getting the right balance between the audio speakers in the room so that everyone can hear what they need to.

Conclusion

I hope that this post has given you some insight into the common mistakes to avoid when setting up your home theatre. You can prevent discomfort and save money in the long term by avoiding as many of these mistakes as possible. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below in the comments.

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Abir B.

Product Analyst at Homeliness

Abir is an expert with electronics that more frequently used and interacted with. Computers and Smartphones, to be more specific. However, his expertise also extends to categories like Audio Equipment, which are some of the things he’s done jobs for over the years. In fact, at 34 years old now, he’s been working professionally for the earlier fields for plenty of years and has built up a large repertoire of knowledge.