Back in March 1997, when I started to equip my brand new home theater addition to my home, I picked up 6 Classic Lifestyles leather recliners at a great price (then MSRP $3200 each, EGADS!) through a designer friend.
Over the years, the leather hasn't worn all. Recliners feel like new, except -
the manual reclining mechanisms. A few broke. A few work some. I've had them repaired over the years but the problem has long been that the company went out of business, and no parts available to repair the reclining part properly.
A few years back my wife got her way in family room and put in a few leather Lazy Boy recliners. They are nice. The manual recliners work fine. I don't use that room that much, and now at age 59 and a right problematic hip I really don't care to use my legs to push the reclining part back in when I get off.
Though its much easier with the Lazy Boys than the ones in my theater room.
A good thing about Lazy Boy is they've been around forever, they give a lifetime warranty on the frame and reclining part, which if I recall correctly they pay parts and you pay labor. The power mechanism is belt drive,cheap nd easy to repair if needed. Shouldn't have a problem getting their recliners repaired if need be. For me this is important after my last experience.
We have had those Copenhagen recliners which I once thought were so darn comfortable. I used on in my old theater downstairs. They do not compare to my current leather recliners in my theater, but read on, for Lasy Boy is a real surprise.
Recently I decided to explore new theater chairs. I thought I'd look up Lazy Boy to see if they have anything for home theater, with cup holders, etc.
A few years ago when we bought some stuff from them I don't recall any specific home theater stuff.
Online I saw their theater Legends collection,which uses a console between each set of two leather recliners. Each console has two cupholders side by side. The recliners may come with a power mechanism for about $300 per recliner extra at MSRP. Power part is only a 3 year warranty, again, belt driver easy to repair.
I noticed onlinen that this theater Legends recliners are pretty high in the back. I typically don't like that because often I want to have my head and ears above the back of the recliner/chair to best hear all the music and surround sound. But I thought I'd go demo them anyway.
How I was so surprised. First of all, I can easily adjust how I sit and recline so that I sit up a bit, while reclining, so that my head and ears are above the back leather top of the recliner - which I do in my current recliners. The power control, a large flat circular on the side, is easy to use, just press to very top to start reclining, the very bottom to go back towards to the unreclined position. you can pause it anywhere you like, infinitely, its not steps. Damn they are so comfortable. No more fumbling to get the reclining mechanism to come out like my current theater recliners.No more kicking with my feet to get the mechansim to retract, a real pain in the - hip!
I brought my wife in and - presto, she was convinced quick! she was all against me getting new recliners, until she sat in one.
I think the power recliners are quite new for Lazy Boy. the Sales Manager told me that the company was reluctant to go this route on the home theater chairs, as the very nature of using power reclining necessitated giving a lesser warranty (discussed above) of only 3 years on the power mechanism (vs life warranty otherwise). Now I have sat is some other power recliners, even at lazy Boy. Let me tell you. This power recliner kicks ass.
Ordered them a month ago. Should be here in the next month or two.
If you order three recliners, with two cupholder consoles in between each pair, then the center recliner will work only by pulling a string and is not power. That was almost a deal breaker for me. Its so much easier doing everythiing (sex included for you young studs) when you have POWER!
For my front two, three recliners and two consoles were too wide,
What we did is we got three recliners and one console. The "solo" recliner will simply sit next to one of the other recliners directly and there simply will be no cupholder there, but the two recliners will share the same armrest
"inbetween" them. The other two recliners wil share the two cupholder console between them. Also, I measured, and this permits my center recliner to be direct in front of the center speaker (I have full range Aerial 9s at 2, 4, 8 and 10 o'clock, with Aerial CC5 center directly in front of me). My back row is elevated 8" on a riser/platform. I often like listening to two channel music
(whether i synthesize multi-channel with my Thehta CB3 HD - Gen VIII Series 3 DAC combo or just listen in stereo) in the center back. To do this,
I am only going to have two recliners with one console in the back row,
as this permits the far left recliner to place me directly in center! So I ordered five recliners and two consoles, black leather. I got the lowest grade black leather, its the cheapest, but all leathers wear well, and frankly, unless you are a conosseur you will not know the difference. I know I won't.
Here's a photo from the Lazy Boy website!
