Start the design process by addressing the room dimensions of your chosen location, as this determines how sounds react, particularly at low frequencies.

Your heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system is often overlooked when building a home theatre, but this produces a significant source of ambient noise. It is extremely important to end up with an extremely quite air system, so there is no annoying background noise that takes away from the cinema experience. The main concept is that velocity creates noise. Less velocity but more quantity (i.e. more ducts that move the air slowly) will create less noise in the system. Place the HVAC machinery as far away from the room as possible and isolate the equipment.

Doors and windows are two essential aspects of a house, but you can’t afford to overlook them during the design process. If your home theatre is located in an area that has open archways to other parts of the house, consider adding a door. Enclosing the room will improve noise isolation and also improve bass output, as the subwoofer will not end up pressurising the air throughout the entire house. Also take a look at where the windows are in the room and where you plan to set up your television or projector. Sunlight is notorious for washing out a picture, so it’s important that you know how the placement of windows will affect the visual quality of your home theatre.

Finally, you have to make sure that your home theatre is comfortable as well as technologically impressive. To make sure there are enough seats to accommodate your guests and also provide the best cinematic feel, you might want to look into installing authentic home theatre seat. Also take into account their placement in regards to the screen, as there is nothing worse that having someone’s head in the way while you’re trying to watch a movie, or being so close to the screen that it cranes your neck and hurts your eyes. Make it your goal to ensure that every one of your home theatre seats will offer the “best seat in the house”.