Home theaters finding solid foothold in Billings

By SAM WOMACK
Of the Gazette Staff

Imagine watching your favorite football team or cooking show in a movie theater, complete with reclining chairs and strategically placed lighting.

You would be able to hear every tackle, every crack of an egg. You would see with startling clarity the pulsing vein on the irate coach's forehead.

Now, imagine all that without leaving your home.

The owners of Home Theaters and More, Darrin and Clay Brun, want to make that possible for everyone, and the first step of their plan includes opening an extended showroom in the next two months. Home Theaters and More is located at 960 S. 24th Street West Suite B, and now it spreads into Suite M, adding about 1,000 square feet.

The new showroom will include many new products and more furniture, seating arrangements and flat-panel displays to show the many possibilities available. To fill a room that size will cost between $50,000 and $100,000.

"We're bringing a lot more high-end stuff to Billings," Darrin Brun said. "Other places do more generic stuff, but we don't want people to have to settle for something inadequate."

Home Theaters and More opened a little more than a year ago with an office and a small demo room, but Brun said that Billings residents are starting to come around to the new world of home theater systems.

"Home theaters are really big in other markets, other parts of the country, and Billings is just picking up on that," Brun said. He added that builders and contractors are hearing from buyers looking for a house with a home theater already installed.

"Once people get into it, they're really just happier having their own theater," Brun said. "To go to the movies with your family could easily cost you a hundred bucks, and then you've got people talking, you can't see over the person in front of you and the floor is sticky. To be able to hit the pause button makes the whole experience a lot nicer."

Brun said home theaters are not just for the rich. "You could get started with the screen and then build on to your home theater later with surround sound and lighting," he said.

Also, home theaters are not the half-million dollar jobs they were years ago. "You can get a projector and surround sound for about $5,000," Brun said.

And the adage "quality over quantity" applies here as well. "When you put in a quality home system the picture is better, it's more comfortable and the sound is better," he said.

Brun attributes most the store's success to personalized service. "We work with customers personally to make sure everything is perfect," Brun said. "I love to see a job well done and the customer's happiness."

Another reason for the home theater craze and the Bruns' business success is the move to high-definition channels.

"DVDs, BluRay, HD DVD and HD channels make it amazing to watch and feel a part of the movie or TV show," Brun said. "And you can get your whole family in the same room at once, which isn't so easy."

Brun's love of high-quality movie viewing started with "Top Gun" on VHS, and he knew people would come along to his way of thinking.

"They say to find something you love, right?" he said.

Published in the Billings Gazette