It is thought that small cinema rooms do not perform well, this is not the case. It is often assumed that to create a world-class home cinema or audio-visual system you need lots of space. There is no doubt that having a large room to work with can be an advantage, but that does not mean we can’t create impressive projects in smaller spaces too.
In today’s market we are often working in more compact urban spaces where apartment living is the norm, or we may have customers that want their audio-visual experiences to expand right across their property including the smaller spaces. We also work in holiday homes which often are chosen for their location rather than their size, again customers do not want to leave their life enriching audio-visual experiences behind them, but rather create an extension of what they experience at home when they are away. No problem.
Small Cinema rooms can be great cinemas
The first point to make is that with today’s technology and the ability to fully integrate and hide our systems away, we can create multi-use spaces so that a home cinema can be woven into the fabric of a compact living space which also serves many other uses. In this way we avoid having to use one of the dwellings’ rooms for a dedicated home cinema saving space whilst still delivering world class performance.
All our audio-visual experiences are created with extreme dedication and careful planning, Small Cinema rooms are no different as we assess the acoustic challenges each space may present. More compact rooms present a particular challenge as the sound can be more difficult to control than in larger spaces. Limited spaces can cause complex ‘room modes’ where sound bounces around inside a space making the performance less clear than we require. However, with careful choice of the equipment, some tasteful and integrated acoustic treatment and expert calibration once the system is completed, we can deal with all these challenges.
It’s also worth noting that creating a world class home cinema experience is all about ratios. There are industry standard ratios that for example control how far away from a screen a person should be sitting compared to the size of the screen to create the ideal experience. In smaller spaces the equipment such as the screen can logically be downsized and still have the same impact needed to reach industry standard parameters if the correct ratios are respected. Understanding how all these ratios work in detail, means small spaces can still create fantastic impact.
In compact spaces equipment choice is particularly key. Instead of a complete surround sound system we may opt for less speakers that when configured correctly will deliver the performance that suits the space. When space is really constrained, we can look at options such as high-performance sound bars which sit directly below any screen or TV being used. In the past perhaps the speciality of more modest performance brands, however today some of the world’s best speaker makers now produce products in this category.
Options in terms of delivering high performance visuals have also expanded in recent years as the performance of short throw projector systems has improved. These systems do not need the normal space between the projector and the screen to create a high-performance image but can do it from very close to the screen often integrated in a bespoke cabinet just below the screen itself.
The industry has also continued to advance in its ability to hide high performance equipment into the fabric of any type of space meaning that more compact rooms can enjoy high-performance audio-visual experiences whilst still maintaining the aesthetic ambitions for the space.
Many years of experience has taught us that rooms are just like people, they all have their own characteristics, and our team is expert at identifying and then delivering the right system to sui your Small Cinema room.