The personal home theater room is also called by many as a media room. Typically you will have to spend somewhere between $10,000 to $50,000 to create your home theater room. The room will quickly become your favorite place to hang out both for your family and your friends. Considering the typical cost of a kitchen renovation, i.e., $30,000 on average, creating a media room is a pretty reasonable investment. If you can invest a little more, you can get a desirable home theater room for yourself, which will not only increase your movie experience but will also increase the value of your house.
What is the Cost of Setting Up of a Personal Home Theater Room in the USA? For a decent installation, a personal home theater room along with all the equipment will cost you between $10,000 and $20,000. For a high-end facility, building a home theater room will cost yours over $50,000.
Here are the top things you need to create your home theater and media room
A personal home theater is a dedicated room designed to give you a theater-like cinematic experience at your home. It will serve the purpose of a TV to provide you with a fully immersive experience of movies, games, sports and TV shows.
Creating the Room
Creating a real theater experience takes a bit of science to build your room. It’s not about how much you can spend, but how well designed is your room for the cinematic experience. You will have to hire a professional who will determine the placement of other equipment depending on the size and shape of the room.
Building a room from scratch will cost you up to $250 per square foot. If you are planning to have multiple rows of seating, you should expect to spend more up to $3000. The room design will include placement of your screen and projector, seating configuration, and installation of the speaker system.
Room Acoustics
Acoustic treatment is the first step into immersing into the cinematic experience. With the procedure, you would only be bombarded with loud booming sound where dialogues are heavy and loud. This will quickly turn your home theater into a disastrous experience. Acoustics will cost from a necessary $500 panels to high-end panels that can cost up to $10,000. Next, you have to hire a professional who will design your room, where you should expect to spend between $500 to $3000.
Home Theater Equipment
Looking for a cheap option is out of the question here. All low-end home theater system would not only give you an undesirable experience but also reduce the ROI of your investment. Even for a decent home theater system, you should expect to spend up to $9,000. This will cost, even more, up to $30,000 to $50,000 for more high-end equipment installation.
The Projector
Projectors come in various price points, depending on its technology. For a basic front projector, you can expect to spend around $2000, and for high-end projectors, you could be paying over $20,000. Low end, projects are more suitable for the business application, typically used in meeting rooms. For movie viewing experience you need a high-end projector, which will cost yours over $10,000. You can splurge more up to $50,000 for a widescreen, 4K projector. Next, you have to consider the cost of the lamp; for a high-quality projector lamp, the life expectancy is nearly 7000 hours.
The Projector Screen
Having a high-quality projector screen is a must for a good movie viewing experience. For a typical 120 inches 16:9 display, you should expect to spend around $2000. For a high-end projector screen, you should wait to pay over $3000.
Speaker System
You can never spend enough on a good surround sound speaker system! Having a great sound system is at the center of a movie experience. You can choose a traditional 5.1 system or 9.2 system like the Dolby Atmos.
Center Channel Speakers
The front and center channel speakers are the essential part of the speaker system; this will produce over 80% of all movie dialogues and acoustics. We suggest you spend at least $450 per speakers for the front channels. If you can spend up to $1500 per speaker, you will get the sound effects that you were missing in the low-end front speakers.
Side and Surround Speakers
The side and surround speakers are what produces various sound effects. It is not as expensive as the front speakers, but you should expect to spend nearly $500 per pair. Then you can have the addition Atmos in the ceiling.
Subwoofers
Decent home-theater subwoofers will cost your nearly $500 to $600 each. We suggest you to have two subs to produce an even bass in the room.
Receivers
The home theater receiver is the brain of the system. This is where surround sound processing, video switching, sound amplification, and other effects happen. You can get an all in one home theater receiver for just $150, but it will have a poor amplifier, and you will not be able to experience the full acoustic dynamics of the expensive speakers you will install. To get decent sound processing, you should expect to spend at least $900 or more.
If you want to splurge more, you can purchase a separate home theater processor and multi-channel amplifier, which will cost yours over $3000. This is an excellent option if you want to scale your speaker system when new technology arrives.
Home Theater Seating
The seating should be arranged and well-planned during the design stage of your home theater room. If you want multiple rows of seating, you don’t want someone’s head blocking your view; moreover, it should be comfortable and should leave a neck pain or back pain after watching a movie. In this aspect, you have the option to choose home theater chairs to even couches. For decent quality seating, you should expect to spend around $800 per chair. For a comfortable room, it should cost you nearly $1500 to $2000 per chair. On the other hand, if you have a high-budget, you can spend up to $7000 per seat.
Calibration from a Professional
Now that you have all the equipment, you need a professional who will install the equipment and fine-tune it to give you the best experience. In general, people spend a lot on home theater system and then leave it to its factory defaults, which doesn’t have the full dynamics that it can produce. Proper calibration of the equipment will get the best out of your investment. The cost of hiring a professional will largely depend on the size of the room, the type of stuff you have and also your overall home theater design.
Bringing it all Together
When all is set, some minor details will work wonders on your investment. Things like the type of carper, interior paint, lighting, electrical work, curtains, soundproofing, etc. are as important as the equipment itself.
Related Questions
What should be the size of the room? There’s no particular size for a home theater as it will depend on what you want. In general, a 20 square feet room should be enough.
What should be the height of the home theater riser? In general, one foot per row is the standard for the height of the riser.
How far should be the seats from the screen? In general, the seating should be nearly 9 feet away from the screen.
Conclusion
Considering the cost of other rooms, which can cost up to $30,000 to $40,000, it is a pretty decent investment to create a home theater at $20,000. Although high-end installation will require more, then again, you should consider the quality of the movie you will be bringing home. If you plan to watch your videos on Netflix, you shouldn’t be spending a lot. If you are willing to purchase records, you should be spending more on the system. In the end, it all depends on what you want from your home theater room!
