[Spine Guy]

I am trying to find some decent home theater seating for my HT. I went to a local A/V store and they wanted 12,000 for seven chairs. Thats is crazy, after getting online I found seats at 4seating.com that seemed a little bit more reasonable but still it would cost me about 4000.00 for oversize chairs.


Question: Should I just go to a furniture store and look for some lazy-boys with cup holders or does the theater seating really offer any advantage?


I would like to hear some ideas and what you guys have done to make your theater successful on this topic. Thanks


Jason

 

[chs4]

Jason,


If you haven't already, do a search for "Berkline", Lane" and/or "Jaymar" to see some of the more popular recliner-style options many forum members have elected to purchase.


If you opt for the Berklines make sure you contact AVS for pricing as they seem to be *very* competitive.

 

[jeeper]

Jason,


I spent quite a bit of time looking a different seats at furniture stores and home theater stores and also reading the opinions from others here on this forum. The seats that seemed the most comfortable to me and fit my decor (and budget), were the Berkline 090s. I ordered a curved row of 5 power recliners in burgandy leather.


Good luck in your search,


Steve

 

[Phil_Johnson]

Jeeper


How wide are 4 or those 090's


thanks

Phil

 

[BurkeLaShell]

Phil,


Depends if you arrange them in a straight line or in an arc.

http://www.av-outlet.com/media/090.pdf


Spec sheets for the other Berklines are here in case you would like to see them.


--Burke

 

[jeeper]

Phil,


Burke beat me to it....but basically a curved row of 4 would be just over 137", a straight row of 4 is about 148". That's with a single arm rest between each seat. The curved row of 5 is 183".


Steve

 

[carlosrojas-pdx]

Check Flexsteel, their local dealer (Broadway Furniture) has some great prices.

http://www.flexsteel.com/home/3090.shtml


Also, check their "Oslo" sofa line, I like them because when you recline, you look straight ahead, rather to the ceiling.

http://www.flexsteel.com/home/3344-62.shtml


I'm still in the shopping wagon, so if anyone has experience with these seats, please let us know.


Thank you


Carlos

 

[sandbagger]

I went with the lazyboys they have a new line of chairs called Matinee


I have a few pics of them at my gallery over at av123



I have found them to be very comfortable


Kevin

 

[dwightrahl]

AV Science isn't selling the Berklines any longer. I was pretty disapointed when Jason told me this, as the prices he'd quoted were WAY lower than any I'd found in local B&M stores...


Dwight

 

[BurkeLaShell]

I heard that Leather-Direct has great prices.


If anyone checks 'em out, let us know.


--Burke

 

[Toxarch]

I bought some nice Berkline recliners from Sam's Wholesale Club. They weren't exactly what I wanted, but the price was too nice to pass up. We bought seven of them and they are soooo comfortable. We also managed to buy old theater style seats from the local high school renovation. They had a bunch of reupholstered seats being removed so we bought a bunch of them for cheap. They are the eight extra seats in the back of the theater. Surprisingly, a lot of guests prefer those over the recliners.

 

[JATWolf]

Quote:

Originally posted by jeeper Phil, Burke beat me to it....but basically a curved row of 4 would be just over 137", a straight row of 4 is about 148". That's with a single arm rest between each seat. The curved row of 5 is 183". Steve

Just FYI: The curved row is actually 148" and the straight row is 137.5". Just in case someone needed these sizes to fit into a room with limited size. I ordered a curved row of 4 and remember sizing them.

 

[Spine Guy]

Hey guys, thanks alot for the help this is the info I needed.

 

[sandbagger]

Spine..... figured I would reply here since the info might help others....

thanks for the compliment


Yes the seats in my theater are the lazboy matinee seats. They are in black microfiber "G grade " its the better microfiber, but I have a hard time calling it black.... didnt look that bad in the store but in the room its not black BUT it looks even better with the colors in the room. All the local dealers didn't have them and I wouldn't buy unless I could set in them as after hearing how much everyone loved the berks and after setting the the 099's and not fitting in them and unable to find the 090's. Heard on here that a store in Lansing had them called yep sure did ..... local store had said they wouldn't be in production for another month or 2 !!! called a Toledo store and they had them for almost 2 months. drove the 1hr and sat in them drove to the local store and they matched the Toledo price after I threatend them with going down there to get them, something about a truck and inclosed race car trailer got there attention ...... got them for like 609 each I think and the stand alone chair was like 700. these chairs do not come as a seat and then separate arms ...... they must be ordered with one arm. or as a stand alone chair ie. 2 arms. I couldn't build the exact set up I wanted with the big console but at the price ....


If anyone wants the exact prices to try and get a match just let me know.

 

[mavromatis]

Sandbagger... please send me the info... these are the Layzboy Matinee seats, right?


I can't believe how much they want for theater recliner chairs! The recliner industry was going down the drain until us HT nuts started making this stuff popular. I've gotten prices ranging from $799 to $2000 a chair... what are they smoking?


Danny

 

[LenVP]

Jason....

Take a trip into Grand Rapids, and go to Watson's on 29th St. between the Beltline and East Paris Ave. They are a Hot tub/Pool Table entertaining type of store that has about a dozen theater chair displays. I don't recall all the brand names of what they carry, but they do carry a line called Silver Screen (I think...) that supposedly is rebadged Berklines for Watson's. Prices where outstanding, and lots of style choices. Otherwise, Classic Stereo has a number of chairs, Klingman's carries the Lane, LaZBoy has the Matinee, and another furniture place on 29th st. carries a chair from Klaussner. Bekins in Grand Haven has Accoustic Innovations displayed in their Theater room.

Hope this helps!

 

[Spine Guy]

Len,


I forgot about Watson's, thanks. I like the Matinee's in sandbagger's ht and I would like to try those out as well. Looks like I got a nice little Saturday planned thanks to you guys. Hopefully, I can get this put to bed quickly. Thanks again


Jason

 

[sandbagger]

Ok here is the deal I got.....

first these were purchased in canton Mi and was a price matched from a store in toledo, also the store was running a deal for $50.00/ chair special and the prices that I was origonaly quoted didnt include the 50 off so....


with the 50 off each chair


it was 579.95 each in the G microFiber + 30.00 for the guardsman lifetime fabric protection...... so each chair was 609.95 now the 2 arm chair ie stand alone they made a mistake on the price and I got it for 659.95+30 I think that was like a $20 screw up that he caught right at the last min and said he didnt feel like fixing it !!!!


hope this helps.....

 

[Crescent]

The chair topic is an interesting one and not as straight forward as it seems. I purchased some Berkline 090s from AVScience. It's a great chair. The problem is that any chair where the back height is higher than ear level will disrupt the soundfield from the rear channels. I had read this in one of Russ Herschelmann's articles and thought it was baloney. It's not. Still, my wife loves them.


A second disadvantage is that the chairs are so comfortable that I've had people fall asleep. Snoring is not conducive to good movie watching, however there is still some high entertainment because people laugh like hell. That usually awakens the offender.


My back row consists of Irwin movie chairs I purchased from Kustom Ken. If you're a purist either for audio or movies, stick with these or a similar chair that doesn't recline or rise above ear height.


The Berklines do have some WOW factor.

 

[RadDoc]

At CES in Vegas last month, my derriere sampled every chair in sight. In its opinion, the most comfortable were recliners by Douglas Furniture of California, LLC http://www.douglasfurniture.com/products_home.html


While Douglas doesn't sell directly to consumers, they are an old and large furniture manufacturer with an extensive national network of distributors. The pricing is almost too good to believe! But, don't look for gimmics like motorized recliners.


I actually bought eight seats, in two radiused arrays of four.


Check out the e-Bay auctions (Item # 2375252938 and # 2375255707) by "soundood" = The Sound Broker of Oxnard, CA. Kevin Enderle can even incorporate Buttkicker2's.