5 home theater problems that are surprisingly cheap to fix

I love you, dear reader, so let’s be honest: far too many of you don’t have your living room home theater setup properly. Hardwood or laminate flooring is murdering your sound quality. The space is either perpetually too bright or too dark, with no relief for your eyes. And your speakers? They aren’t properly placed to give you the most immersive experience.

That all ends today! I’m going to help you get right with my top five “to-do” items to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth from your living room home theater purchases. Let’s get into it!

Give your level best!

See eye-to-eye with your audio

The height at which you place your soundbar, or front speakers, and your TV is actually pretty important. Let’s start with the TV first. When I visit some people’s homes, I’m amazed by how high up on their walls they mount their TVs. That’s bad ergonomics because it strains your neck. Think of it like this: which movie theater seats are the worst? Most movie-goers would likely say it’s those first few rows, where you’re so close to the screen that you’re almost lying back in your seat as much as possible and looking up. Especially in IMAX and other large-format auditoriums.

You want your TV as close to “eye-level” as possible. Much like the IMAX, that’s a mix of height and distance from your screen. Dolby says that when setting up a home theater, the ideal distance from a 55” is roughly seven feet. For a larger, 75”, you should be just under nine and a half feet away. How do you know what screen size to buy for the size of your room? They say the formula is this: divide your viewing distance (in inches) by 1.5 to get your optimal screen size to purchase.

Regarding height, you want to place the TV so you don’t have to bend your neck while seated for extended periods. The middle of the TV should ideally be at your eye level when seated. For wall mounting or furniture height, sit on your couch and measure the distance from the floor to your eyes. Now, measure the total height of your TV and divide by two. For a 55” TV, that’s approximately 13”. Now, if your eye line sits at 40”, for example, you just mount your TV 13” lower than that, at 27” above the floor.

If necessity dictates mounting it higher than ideal, and your budget allows, buy a high-quality tilting mount so you can angle your TV slightly downward. Seriously! Splurge a bit on the mount to protect your TV investment.

For your rear satellite speakers, they should also be mounted close to eye height. Specifically, ear height is ideal, slightly behind you, and forming a triangle by how you point them at your seating position. Even if you have to mount your rear speakers higher on a wall, you still want to point them toward your seating position, so be sure to buy mounts that allow you to tilt them down and toward your seating position, forming that triangle.

Building a solid bass

Where you place the bass is important!

Resonant, vibrational bass is a character in some movies, so if you don’t place the bass properly, you’re not getting the best performance from that “character.” Think about the jump scares in a horror flick, or the battlefield sound effects from Saving Private Ryan, or Dunkirk, or the slow, low droning sounds that Inception utilizes so effectively to help move time-bending slo-motion scenes along.

Bass is vibration. It’s a rumble, or a growl. To make the most of the “atmospheric disturbance” that is “bass,” you’ll want to place your subwoofer on the same wall as the TV, or in the back of the room, in the corner. Think of the placement like that WiFi symbol, with the smallest point facing directly into the corner and the waves emanating outward, blanketing the room.

Good subwoofers have rubber feet to absorb their vibrations, so you don’t hear unwanted noise from the box vibrating against the ground. If yours doesn’t have rubberized feet, consider buying some adhesive silicone or rubber “isolation feet.” Searching that phrase, you can find various options to fit your gear, on Amazon, for example.

“Noise canceling”

Ummmm, I thought we were talking home theater, not earbuds?!?

The movie theater you go to has likely spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on sound treatments and soundproofing for each auditorium. Those who have the money to build a dedicated home theater room will allocate a decent portion of their budget to sound treatments as well. In your living room, you may not have the space, inclination, or budget to do so, but there are some relatively inexpensive things you can do to improve and elevate your sonic experience.

First up, if you don’t have carpet in your living room, buy some large, plush, area rugs. Hardwood and laminate flooring act like sonic bumpers, allowing soundwaves to bounce around from surface-to-surface, creating echoes, and you don’t want that.

Second, and this is dual purpose: buy “blackout” curtains. They tend to be made of materials that are denser than your standard curtains, so they’ll act as a sound baffle and stop your audio from bouncing off the windows. Obviously, if you’re really trying to get into a movie in the middle of the day, they’ll also help control the light in your living space so you don’t wind up with glare on your TV.

Illuminating movies!

Backlight isn’t just for LEDS

Credit: Philips Hue

Looking at a bright screen in a dark room for extended periods of time is generally a bad idea. It can cause quite a bit of eye strain, and though you may not notice that in your youth, as you age, you may feel its effects. Fortunately, there is no shortage of TV backlight options on the market today.

Companies like Govee, Philips, and LIFX make some great TV-specific options that range in price, with some costing upwards of $100.

You can also do what I did: take an inexpensive smart RGB bulb (e.g., Govee, ~$20), plug it into an old, small tabletop lamp you already own and aren’t using, and place it behind your TV as pictured above. It’s how I handled that problem, and it works beautifully! Of course, you probably want to remember to remove the lampshade, so it fits in the compact space behind your TV.

The end of the beginning

There’s so much more to get into, but this is a great start

Of course, you can get deep into the weeds on this topic with discussions on cabling, specific TVs and their features, the TV or projector debate, and all manner of home theater minutiae, but this is a beginner primer for those likely to use a soundbar, so for most people, this is a great start for improving their living room movie consumption experience. Are there any hacks or shortcuts you’ve used to make your living room home theater experience the best it can be? Tell us in the comments below.