The principles of home cinema: clean

In our ‘What goes into a home cinema?’ article we outlined four key home cinema principles. 

No matter what size or style it is, a home cinema should be: 

• Immersive

• Quiet

• Clean 

• Comfortable 

We’ve covered what immersive and quiet home cinemas look like. Today, we’re covering what it means for a home cinema to be clean.

Now before you sigh with frustration, we don’t mean the spick-and-span kind of clean. We won’t be running a finger along your coffee table and tutting when we come back for routine maintenance. 

What we mean is visually and acoustically clean. 

Commercial cinemas have seating, a screen, and black walls - that’s it. And there’s a reason why. 

Your home cinema doesn’t have to take the same stark approach as a commercial cinema (that quite defeats the purpose), but from where you’re seated to the screen, there should be very little visual clutter.

Home cinemas are designed to accurately reproduce the quality of the content you’re viewing as it was created to be consumed. What you don’t want is a room that distracts from that intention. 

We’re all used to watching content on our phones, the size and quality of which can’t possibly present content in cinemascope. The beauty of a home cinema is that our favourite shows and movies can be enjoyed as they were intended to be. If your room is too visually busy, you’re doing yourself a disservice, and you won’t be getting the experience you should out of your system. 

Hidden equipment helps

A clean home cinema goes hand in hand with a quiet home cinema when it comes to acoustic performance. We’ve already covered why a quiet environment is so important here. The acoustic treatments you choose to manage audio in your home cinema will also play a part in the visual cleanliness of your space. 

In-wall or in-ceiling speakers (or a combination of both) hide your home cinema technology from sight whilst still delivering top-quality audio. Sound can travel through acoustically transparent material without distortion, so you won’t be able to see your speakers, but you will be able to hear your content clearly.

Acoustically transparent materials come in colours and textures to match any aesthetic (we like to use Cinema Build Systems). To maintain clean visuals in a home cinema, we recommend sticking with darker, matte fabrics. These are less reflective than lighter colours and glossy materials, so they keep your focus on the screen ahead rather than on the light bouncing around the room. They also allow the colours on screen to stand out as they should.

Projectors can also be hidden in home cinemas, either in the ceiling, the room next door, or by retracting when not in use. When a projector is hidden, the impact of noise from its internal fan is also reduced.

It might seem pedantic to fixate on a trivial thing like the fan noise from a projector, but these small details are more important than you first think for creating the clean environment needed to create the best home cinema impact. 

You might not notice the fan during the most dramatic parts of a movie, but you will notice it when things get intentionally quiet. The fact that we’re pedantic about small aspects of your home cinema means you’ll have a better immersive experience when it’s built. We’ll always advocate for projectors to be positioned outside the room if it’s possible - trust us on this one. 

A visually clean home cinema isn’t primarily about reducing clutter. Its purpose is to complement the technical brilliance of what your space is designed for. 

Business at the front, party at the back

Home cinemas can be mullets. Restrained at the front, with as much as you want going on at the back. 

You naturally want to be close to snacks when you’re in a home cinema. You could achieve this by building your home cinema in a room near the kitchen. Or, you could build a bar at the back of the room. Even a small fridge works as treat storage.

As long as the visual zone in front of your seating is clean, the rest of the room can be designed however you wish. This is where the room can show off your personality. 

Dust-free zone

Whilst we’re on the topic of cleaning, how do you clean a home cinema?

A dry microfibre cloth can be used to dust hardware like your projector and speakers. 

Ventilation is extremely important in confined spaces like home cinemas. We’ll cover ventilation in greater detail in our next article on why home cinemas should be comfortable. 

And of course, you should always follow the instructions of your equipment’s manufacturer when you’re cleaning your home cinema. 

When it comes to maintaining your software and servicing your hardware, that’s our responsibility. Once your cinema’s installed you can sign up for our aftercare package that includes an annual service of your system, remote monitoring of your system throughout the year, and priority access to us if something goes wrong. 

But to do that, we need to get started. You can contact us at info@epitomeliving.com to kick off your home cinema project with Epitome Living.