If you’ve been looking around at online stores that sell home theater recliners, you’ve probably quickly come to realize that there are lots of features and functionalities out there for just about any piece of high-end multimedia room furniture. You might see a comfortable and classy home theater chaise lounge promising the best in lumbar support or a four-seater home theater sofa with built-in bass shakers that up the immersion tenfold.
There’s a plethora of options to choose from, each with their own merits. But like most things in today’s age, there are just so many options that it can feel dizzying trying to decide on which one to go with. And you almost certainly won’t want them all—too many features become the antithesis to reasonably-priced entertainment room chairs, and you’ll end up breaking the bank. Thankfully, we’re here to help you break down the essential and not-so essential features.
Back Support
This is kind of an obvious one, but back support is more or less crucial in your multimedia room reclining chairs. You’re going to be sitting in them for extended periods of time—the average movie time comes out to just around an hour and forty-seven minutes. If you’re deep in a TV binge session, that’s an entirely other story. With all that sitting, your back is going to need some kind of lumbar support. While you don’t need to go on a deep dive for the most ridiculously comfortable entertainment room seating for sale, you should think about what kind of lumbar support features you’ll want.
All recliners designed for home theater rooms in today’s age should include ergonomic design—when a seat is intended to contour to your back and provide support for your spine. If the description doesn’t mention ergonomic support, simply move on.
When it comes to the actual reclining capabilities of those leather-upholstered theater room seats for two that you might be looking at, they can come with power recline built in, or they could have a manual recliner. A manual recliner is the most analog option, having you do all of the cranking, but it can save you money on the seats you choose. Otherwise, power recline just can’t be beat—not only does it do it for you in the click of a button, but some models will have the ability to remember your favorite position, putting you in your favorite spot right away.
The Latest Theater Seating Technology
With rapid advancements in technology all across the board, it’s no surprise that they’ve found their way into recliners for entertainment rooms as well. There are dozens of features you can get that will fully customize your recliners. From multimedia room seats equipped with bass shakers, theater chairs with D-BOX integration, and even upscale leather entertainment room chairs with heated seats, there’s a lot to look at.
Bass shakers have been around for a bit now, and they’ve stuck around for good reason. Equip any of these bad boys onto the backing of your ginormous multimedia room sectional sofa or chairs, and you’ll instantly up the immersion you experience with the media you’re consuming. These powerful transducers provide instant haptic feedback in bass-heavy scenes in your favorite shows and movies. That haptic feedback travels through the entertainment room recliners you have set up, and they produce rumbles and vibrations to further immerse you. Basically, media room recliners set up with bass shakers out of the box are going to give you an added layer of appreciation for your movie nights.
Similarly, having a D-BOX-equipped home theater gives you immersion, but on a much grander scale. D-BOX uses haptic feedback and motion actuators to deliver an almost near-constant experience for the viewer. In extremely action-packed movies, you can expect to be feeling motions and rumbles during the entire showing, upping the immersion even more. However, D-BOX’s few drawbacks are the cost and the intensity of the rumbling. Not everyone is going to want to be strapped into a huge multimedia room couch that’s shaking and rumbling for almost two hours—while the settings can be adjusted to a lower intensity, the technology still isn’t for everyone. Similarly, being a relatively new technology, the price to set up D-BOX in your home theater can be an investment for some that you’ll want to plan ahead for.
Theater room chairs with seats that heat up to your desired temperature are another modern-day advent that can transform any chair into upscale entertainment room chairs that are irresistibly comfortable to relax in. It’s exactly what it sounds like—taking notes from luxury automobile seating, these chairs can reach your desired temperature quickly and efficiently, leaving you in a perpetual state of relaxation during the entire movie or show. If you have the budget for it, this feature is almost absolutely worth it.
Storage and Accessories
Some other features you’ll want to consider including in your hunt for entertainment room chairs for sale are the little features that can make your seating that much more inviting. Part of the thrill of having that decked out basement home theater is that it feels like an actual movie theater when it’s done right. Why not add to that experience? There are dozens of accessories to add to home theater seating like trays, tablet holders, and even wine caddies. These all allow you to bring the essentials for a successful movie night without having to constantly need to get up twenty times throughout the movie to go grab things.
Speaking of eliminating the need to get up multiple times throughout the course of the movie, you’ll want to think about choosing a chair that has extra storage—this usually resides inconspicuously in one or both of the arm rests, allowing you to keep things like remotes, phones, cables, and more on hand without cluttering up the room. The need for efficient storage in a home theater can’t be overstated, and what better place to keep things than within the arms of that microfiber-upholstered media room sofa?
While there are surely more features and options to consider when investing in a new, upscale pair of reclining entertainment room chairs, these cover the basics of what you can expect to see when shopping around.