Posts tagged technology

Contemporary houses are smaller than contemporary houses used to be. Households are not so big, land is expensive and building costs are high.

Modern spare rooms are tiny, exactly what used to be known as box rooms. Frequently it is these tiny rooms that people want to convert to games rooms or home theatres.

This need not be difficult, but it does mean that more thought has to be given to planning than would normally have been the case in a larger bedroom in a house from an era gone by.

When we are thinking about room, in essence we are considering floor area. You want the floor space to get used as wisely as it can.

The difficulty is that big, heavy, floor-standing speakers have always supplied the best sound for the money. The heavier structure allows the manufacturers to make a better bass sound before the speaker either shakes itself to pieces or starts shuffling out of the room.

Manufacturers of speakers do realize the problem of smaller accommodation and less room and there are great wall speakers on the market, but they are dearer and still rattle apart more easily than their larger cousins.

The difficulty with floor standing surround sound speakers is not only the square foot print, but also the wires running everywhere if you are using seven or eight speakers in your set up. The chances of tripping up are high, especially if you need to leave the room mid-film.

So, there are three answers to this problem of having lots of surround sound speakers:

1] you could buy lighter speakers and stand them on shelves or screw them to the wall, but the wires look ugly or you could chase the wires into the wall, but that makes it harder to expand your system or change the layout of them.

This option is fine if you live in an apartment where you do not like to trouble other members of your family or your neighbours. This system works well if you have numerous speakers.

2] you could design cabinets, a counter and a fridge around the walls like a built-in kitchen and stand your heavier speakers on this with the wiring hanging below and behind the worktop. The cabinets could contain your film, game and music library and a collection of memorabilia.

This is the most stylish way of solving the problem and it allows you to create a display case and a hobby out of your pleasure in films, games and music.

If the worktops are made of toughened glass, people will be easily able to inspect your exhibits and subtle lighting in the compartments would provide ambient lighting.

3] you could use floor standing wireless speakers. This is the easiest and most expensive option, but it allows you to use the best floor standing, heavy speakers and still save you floor space in your home movie theatre. It is also the most flexible option.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on numerous subjects, but is at present concerned with Mortal Kombat demo 360. If you have an interest in gaming, please go over to our website now at Mortal Kombat 4.