TREND WATCH: WHY AUDIO ROOMS ARE THE MILLENNIAL MUSIC ROOM

WHAT ARE AUDIO ROOMS AND WHY YOU NEED ONE

Pinterest recently just saw an 800% increase in searches for Audio Rooms on their platforms. What the heck is an Audio Room, and why should you care? Let me break it down for you….

SO, WHAT ARE AUDIO ROOMS?

Audio rooms are rooms specifically designed for the listening of music, film, or other digital media. In larger, more expensive homes, you can think of this as a home theatre room, or even a recording studio. We all know that most people don’t have means for something of this scale. So, why did Pinterest see such a spike in searches for audio rooms?

We are all spending so much more time enjoying media at home. This may be just your binge watch of Netflix, or seeing a movie meant to release in theaters from the comfort of your sofa. There is a real chance that movie theaters might not come back after quarantine, and I think a lot of people are realizing this.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN - ON A BUDGET

With movie theaters, live concerts, and live shows on the brink of (hopefully temporary) extinction, we all still want to enjoy the same level of audio that comes from a movie theatre or live performance. Now more than ever people are looking to upgrade their audio and visual at home experience. I don’t blame them either! Who wants to watch the best 4k movie without awesome speakers. Here is how you can create your own Audio Room right within your existing living room set up.

Custom Speakers from Parts Express // Subwoofer from Bic Audio // Record Player

Upgrade the Audio Experience

NO, you don’t have to splurge for really expensive surround sound speakers. The speaker quality out there right now is actually really great. We recently invested in a sound bar for our bedroom, and it really makes a huge difference! Matt and his dad are really into building speakers and other wooden pieces. So, all of the speakers in our home are actually hand made by Matt and his dad. They made these speakers from a kit from Parts Express. Because of this, we choose to showcase our speakers both in our office, and in our living room as almost an art piece or family heirloom.

So, you don’t want to spend a fortune speakers? Here are some less expensive speakers that will still deliver on the sound quality without breaking the bank.

No matter what speaker you end up getting, make sure you form a sound triangle, and keep your speakers at least 10” off the wall. (yes, the only way I know this is because Matt yelled at me for pushing the speakers too close to the wall….) The sound triangle is where you are the point of the triangle and your speakers are placed at each “base” of the triangle equal distances apart.

2. Upgrade your Visual Experience

Upgrading your TV is definitely a bigger investment. You know what isn’t a big investment? A projector wall. These handheld and mobile projector walls are seriously a game changer if you are wanting to upgrade the size of your tv on a budget.

Looking for a nice TV without spending a lot of money? Go to best buy and look for their “out of the box sale”. Trust me. This sounds sketchy, but I promise it’s not! This is actually how we got our tv! It is an OLED tv that was over $2,000. We went to best buy looking for something completely different and saw this tv on sale for fractions of the original cost. They were selling the floor model! It was as good as new, and waaaay out of our budget for full price. So, heck yes we bought the floor model tv, and it’s the best purchase we’ve ever made!

3. Conversation Pieces

I knew that I wouldn’t win the battle of visually hiding our audio equipment. So, instead of trying to hide these pieces, we decided to display each item of the audio set up almost as a conversation starter. Since the speakers were all custo, we were able to pick the color of the face of the speakers. Of course we went with red. I also wanted to have a record player on display in our living room (check out reasons why audio corners are great below…). Not only are record players beautiful, but they are great conversation pieces and allow you to display your record collection (i know, we have a long way to go on growing ours).

affordable record players

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MORE SPECIAL? CREATE AN AUDIO CORNER

We decided to do this in our living room with our new record player. We found the perfect console to showcase the speakers and subwoofer in our living room as well as rest the record player on top of it! This is such an awesome use for this awkward corner, and it also is a great conversation piece! We obviously need to grow our record collection, but I’m so glad we have this little corner where we can easily throw on a record and have a little dance party.

Even if concerts and movie theaters come back after quarantine, I don’t think they’ll be back for a while! SO, why not invest in your home audio or theater setup! Plus this way you’ll always have a more elevated home viewing and listening experience.