DIY Network

Seat and Screen Placement Create the perfect seating arrangement for your new home theater. From "Home Theater" episode DHTW-102

Host Corey Greenberg (right) and engineer Mark Midyett discuss the best locations for the seats in your new home theater in this segment.

In the first segment of this second episode of Home Theater Workshop, host Corey Greenberg, engineer Mark Midyett and homeowner Peter Moore decided on the layout of the home theater room, and now it's time for the seat and screen placement.

Before you even lift one hammer you must decide where to put the chairs for your home theater. It seems nearly everyone talks about where to put the speakers in the room for the best sound, but almost nobody pays attention to where to put the listening position. For example, Mark said, "I'll walk into a lot of rooms and I'll find the couch on the very back wall or a chair right in the middle of the room, and those are the two worst seating positions in the room. What happens is that bass frequencies tend to build up at the walls and disappear in the middle."

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Seating Rules of Thumb

• Mark says to take the room dimensions, divide them by three and draw the lines on the floor and find where they intersect (figure A). Those seating positions will enjoy the best sound.

• Our homeowner wanted only two chairs in his home theater, but if you want more you should consider building a multi-level seating area (figure B) to provide a better view of the screen from all viewing positions.

Figure A

Figure B

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