There are some who would say that a 65-inch television is overkill in the bedroom. That you don’t need a subwoofer or rear speakers. That it’s not like you’re going to be spending as much time in there as you would, say, in the living room.
Those people are half-wrong, particularly given that you can get a bigger TV for less money as part of a Prime Day TV deal. One in particular that we’re waiting on is a 50-inch Amazon Fire TV 4-Series , which Amazon already has discounted to a mere $99.
And, look, I thought the exact same thing years ago when I ended up with a 50-inch TV in the bedroom. At the time, it was the biggest screen we’d had in there, replacing an aging CRT. It wasn’t the biggest TV in the house, but it was fairly close.
A few years later, I upgraded to a 65-inch set in the bedroom, and even smarter was that I decided to wall-mount the sucker. That I also did this on a weekend that found my wife not just out of town, but out state, is neither here nor there. But it probably didn’t hurt.
I should mention that we don’t have a particularly palatial bedroom. It’s big enough for our lives, and really, it mostly belongs to our bed and our dog, if I stop to think about it. But the wall opposite the bed is plenty big enough for a large TV, and there’s something about moving it from the dresser just below up onto the wall that really seemed to open the room up that much more.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some things you need to consider. First is that a larger TV, generally speaking, means more artificial light in a room that probably is dark a lot of the time. I’ve actually lowered the brightness a little so that it’s just not so harsh all the time, but particularly at night. There’s also the matter of what other light sources you have in the room. If the light is on in our connected bathroom, it casts a harsh glare over about one-third of the screen — but only from my angle of the bed. It took me a while to realize I needed to show my wife what it looked like from just a foot or two away from where she’s usually watching, and it was a stark difference.
And then there’s the matter of audio. Look, having a full 5.1 surround sound system in the bedroom is overkill. I freely admit that. It’s also way cool. A big TV with bad TV sound just doesn’t feel right. If you can do it, at least go for a soundbar and subwoofer. (The latter can be shoved in any corner of the room.) If you’ve got the extra dough, spring for something with wireless rear speakers, too.
The basics of home entertainment haven’t changed. Bigger is better. Louder is better — and not just for movies, but for things like sports, too. If someone else is watching something in the living room, I can still go watch a soccer match in the bedroom without having to squint into a too-small set or put up with sub-par audio, just because I’m in my own bed.
And during an event like Prime Day, which sees some pretty great deals on some pretty good larger TVs, there’s almost no excuse for not upping your game in the master suite.
