Music: A Billiard & Game Room Necessity

In order to gain the full experience of a billiard or game room, music is a must. No matter what form it comes in, music adds a certain fulfilling atmosphere not felt with its absence. But it does much more than provide ambiance to your game room. Best of all, aside from adding excitement, music provides great memories, as well.

Music is special in so many different ways to many different individuals. And with so many different decades, musical genres, and musical styles from which to choose, there is really no excuse to not like some type of music. From classical Beethoven or Bach to current hip hop and techno, music has always made the world go around.  It is all around us...in our cars, on our televisions, and constantly running through our minds.  So why not have it in your billiard or rec room, as well?

Whatever musical system you decide to go with to musically equip your billiard or game room, keep in mind you are going to want to provide a wide variety of musical styles. After all, you might not know from day to day who will be using your home game room.  You want to have a selection for every type of person, whether it is friends, colleagues, children, adults, women, men, etc. Each individual has their own musical preference, as well, and it is best to have a variety of music from which to choose.

Many ways exist to bring music into your billiard or game room, each providing advantages over others. Some more popular musical outlets for your billiard or game room, accompanied by some of their more common advantages and disadvantages, include:

• AM/FM Radio – Free and easy to install, decent array to choose, but full of commercials and rather repetitive
• Satellite Radio – Probably the widest variety of selections, very few repeats, and almost no commercials and advertisements, but involves a monthly fee, and setup and installation is a bit involved
• Internet Radio (Pandora©, etc.) – A wide array of music is available and can be narrowed down by search. Sometimes fees are involved, but not usually. The major downside is that you must have internet access or a sound system in your billiard room with internet connections, and streamability could be an issue, especially in a basement game room or with a slow internet speed connection.
• CDs or Pre-Recorded Songs – Very easy to change musical selections, but variety usually depends on the extent of game room owner’s CD collection, and might be limited to one or two specific genres. And unless you play a CD in its entirety, you are constantly having breaks in the music and interruptions in your billiard game or other activity.
• Jukebox – Provides perhaps the most control over musical selections being added to your game room experience. A jukebox can be filled with whatever vinyls or songs that the owner desires, and many selections can be chosen at once, avoiding “dead air” time you may experience with CDs or other manual musical outlets. Also, it arguably provides the most nostalgic value of any game room musical device. However, it can be expensive, considering the initial purchase and constant new musical selections you may choose to fill it with. Changing records and labels is also rather time consuming, not to mention that any jukebox can only hold a limited number of selections.
• Karaoke Machine – One of the more fun musical devices for a game room or recreation area. It provides hours of entertainment, and can actually even be “a game” in a home game room. Some karaoke machines allow you to play the real songs without actually singing along, but some do not, providing nothing more than personal entertainment. Also, musical selections are limited and usually preprogrammed into the machine, not allowing for much, if any, musical expansion.