What to Look for in Home Theater Seats

Amy Miller

Home theater seats are a relatively new creation that is in demand for people's home theaters. Home theater installations have been accelerating as people are budgeting from the recent downturn in the economy and have been limiting their vacations. Since housing prices are also under water, more people are deciding on sprucing up their basement or extra rooms by installing a home theater and then purchasing comfortable home theater seats to relax in. Home theater seats are one of those purchases where you only make the decision one or two times in your life so you have to work with very little information and the merchant has most of the advantage in the transaction unless you do some research ahead of time. In our experience you need to look for the following: type of materials, type of construction and ease of installation to set home theater seats apart from each other.

The type of materials varies for both the frame and seat coverings for home theater seats. For the frame, most manufacturers are going to use a hardwood or softwood frame and either are fine. The lower quality manufacturers mix in a lot of plywood and MDF board into the frame. If you are in a store, you can typically tilt the seat back and look underneath and see what type of wood they use. If there are two options present, take the one with the solid wood frame. Solid wood is generally more sturdy than plywood and costs a bit more, so all other things being equal, opt for solid. The material used on the seats varies from full leather, half leather half vinyl and full vinyl. The most expensive should be full leather than lower prices as you go down the list. If you can get a full leather home theater seat at the lowest price, grab it. Generally you will see that you can get half vinyl half leather for the same price as full vinyl is you shop around. Our suggestion is that since leather is more expensive than vinyl, shop till you get the half and half instead of just settling for the cheapest model right off the bat.

For the type of construction the key is to look at how well the item is finished from underneath. The more complete the finish is, the more care that probably went into the entire piece. If you can, flip the item on it is back and see if there is a black cloth coating the underbelly of the chair and each piece of wood is wrapped individually. This cloth is going to look like the cloth that you see underneath your mattress. Opt for the chair that looks more like it's diminished underneath, all other things being equal.

For installation, there are a few different types of connectors that are available on theater seats. The first type, and I think the worst type, is a bar that runs underneath your row of seats. The assembly is more difficult to handle and the bar is tricky to thread. A better installation technology used is the male and female connectors. All you need to do with the connectors is lift one chair slightly and slide the connectors together on top of each other. Simple and effective installation.

If you keep in mind your materials, construction and installation technologies, you should have a pleasant purchasing experience of your new home theater seats.

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