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Good: Dolby Atmos-Enabled Soundbar

The simplest way to bring Dolby Atmos audio to your media room is with a Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar. If you want a quick and budget-friendly solution that doesn’t require placing speakers all around your media room but still offers immersive sound, then you may consider this option.

Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbars have upward-firing drivers that help create a multidimensional soundstage. Of course, the performance will also depend on the quality of the soundbar.

The Sonos Arc is a great contender, packing 11 high-performance drivers for impressive clarity and detail. It also features Sonos’ Trueplay technology, which automatically optimizes the sound for the acoustics of your media room. For more booming bass, pair it with the Sonos wireless Sub.

Better: Dolby Atmos-Enabled Surround Speakers

For a more accurate and immersive surround sound experience, choose a conventional 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound setup featuring Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers. A nice alternative to installing speakers in your ceiling, Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers have traditional, forward-firing drivers but also direct audio upward so that it reflects off the ceiling and produces a realistic overhead sound.

SEE ALSO: Bring Movies to Life with MartinLogan Architectural Speakers

Audiophile Quality without the Audiophile Price

Electrostatic speakers are a rare breed of speaker, capable of extraordinary realistic reproduction of sound based on their meticulous and unconventional design. Anyone who’s heard the sonic purity of a MartinLogan electrostatic speaker can conclude that there’s simply nothing else like it.

As the top purveyor of luxury electrostatic speakers, MartinLogan set out to provide this same sound quality for audiophiles on a limited budget by introducing the Motion Series in 2010. Today, the Motion Series line delivers a richly detailed musical and cinematic experience at an unrivaled price.

MartinLogan achieved this through their unique Folded Motion tweeter technology. This thin-film transducer design packs the same accuracy and delicacy of an electrostatic panel into a small space by crimping the lightweight film transducer into an accordion-like structure to increase the tweeter surface area. The result is higher levels of sonic accuracy, extended bandwidth, and higher output capability, all with a faster and more efficient transient response and almost zero distortion.

This Folded Motion tweeter design paired with high-performance mid-frequency and bass drivers and hand-built, custom-tuned crossovers makes it possible to extend the signature MartinLogan sound beyond electrostatic speakers to a more traditional and affordable speaker line.

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Receive Real-Time Alerts & Notifications

When you’re on vacation, you likely want to avoid checking your smartphone all the time unless it’s an emergency. To reduce how often you check surveillance footage or the status of other smart home devices, set up personalized alerts and notifications that ping you when an event occurs.

Did the pet sitter enter the front door? Was the garage door left ajar? Perhaps there’s a small water leak in the guest bathroom, or maybe someone broke a window. Whether you want alerts for significant events or simple status updates, your Control4 system will let you know right away.

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Revolutionized User Experience

Crestron believes that the heart of control is the user experience. Through their development of Crestron OS 3, the operating system behind Crestron Home, they put the user first and designed a revolutionized app that’s more responsive, beautiful, and user-friendly than ever before.

From your smartphone or a dedicated Crestron touchscreen, you’ll enjoy a seamless room-based experience, with all devices in that room available at your fingertips. See the status of every room at a glance, tap on a room to make changes, or access custom room and whole-home scenes at the top of the screen to quickly set everything the way you want it at any time.

More Personalization

Add a personal touch to your system by using photos of your home to represent every room—and edit their names and photos when needed. Do you have a lot of rooms in your house but mainly use four or five of them? Room Favorites allows you to select your most frequently used rooms to display at the top of your rooms list for quick and convenient access. The app also features Quick Action items at the top of every room to display what you use most so there’s no need to drill through a bunch of menus.

Crestron Home makes it easier than ever to create and modify smart home scenes, with no programming experience required. You can also seamlessly manage and control multiple properties from the same app. Want to check the status of your vacation home or guest house? Just swipe to your property in the app and adjust the thermostat, check that the security system is armed, and more.

SEE ALSO: What Do You Need for an Epic Media Room?

Retractable TV Mount for Better Views

While it’s best to install your TV so that the center of the display is at eye level, some rooms don’t allow this because of impeding structures like fireplaces. If your TV is installed above a mantel, it may be too high for comfortable viewing. In this case, consider a TV mount, which allows you to pull down the screen manually or with a remote and swivel it to your desired position so that your TV is in perfect alignment with your eye level. When you’re done, a quick button tap puts your TV back in place.

Hidden Display to Keep Eyes on Décor

If your media room also serves as the dedicated space in the house for hosting friends and family, you may not like having a big black wall-mounted screen distracting from your interior design when you’re not watching TV. Instead, consider a TV that transforms into beautifully framed artwork when turned off, like the Samsung Frame. Or conceal the display entirely by opting for a motorized projection screen that hides in a discreet cassette in the ceiling and reveals itself when you’re ready to use it.

Custom Media Furniture to Store Components

AV components stack up fast, causing unwanted clutter and wiring beneath your display. What’s the point of choosing a hidden display if your cable box, Blu-ray player, media server, and streaming device are in plain sight? Media cabinets solve this problem by storing and supporting your gear in a modular, ventilated cabinet that features sliding or removable rear panels for easy access to components and wiring. All that’s left to see is a beautiful, custom-finished credenza.