Slaughter House Cinemas (Project Thread)

[carls64]

Time for an update. I received my Deep Burgundy GOM (Thanks bpape!) so I can get started on my wall treatments.

I found some 4'x8'x1/2" Birch hardwood plywood and a guy at Home Depot cut it into 2" strips for me so I have enough to make about 10 or so absorption panels 2'x'4'.

I have been pondering on beveling the edges or just leaving the cut, but I am afraid it will look funky so I am thinking of using a 45 degree router bit on the edge about 1/4 or simply rounding the edges with a router bit. Not sure. I think I will definitely paint them the same color as the wall, which is close to the color of the GOM as while testing the stretch over the frame I can see through the fabric and the wood color comes through, not sure what they would do at any distance, maybe not see it at all but want to be sure.

I will assemble them with 1" crown staples, and use 2" OC703. I will take pictures when I begin assembling them.

Lastly I have decided to get a dedicated amp for the front and surround speakers, I found a good deal on a used Emotiva LPA-1 7 Channel amp, at 125W Per channel that should power my ED Towers and center channel speakers. I hope I will get a better sound than using the internal Yamaha 663 at 95 Watts.

Ed is building some Dipole surround speakers too, I may pick up a pair of those soon, but the waiting list is out in January for those.

[carls64]

Well I ended up NOT painting the frames and rounding the edges of the frame rather then beveling them,, made up two 2'x4' panels and they look pretty good. I have some pictures to post soon.

[carls64]

I needed some interconnects for my new amp and receiver and I had been pricing them at a number of places. I was going to buy the Monoprice interconnects then I spotted Tartan Cable (in the ad section at the top of the forum) and decided to try them.

First of many may already know this but some may not but Tartan is a sister company of Blue Jeans cables. So they use some of the same quality cable and connectors but they are pre-made in china.

I have to say the build quality is outstanding and the material quality is amazing. The price is a little higher than Monoprice but i thing the product is a lot better. I have some monoprice cables and I like these better. So if your shopping for cables and do not want to spend a fortune give Tartan a try.

[carls64]

I have my new (bought it 2nd had, new to me ;-)) Emotiva LPA1 7 Channel Amplifier, and got it hooked up last night in time for some friends to come out and watch a movie. I was not able to definitive tell a difference with the new amp, but I will say the dialog and ambient sound was much more defined.

Also while checking through my calibration of the receiver, the distance that the auto calibration showed for the subs was 1ft! I changed to toe the same distance as the LCR as they are all close to the same location, not sure if that helped or hurt anything.

I am going to take some more photos soon and post.

[bpape]

Sounds to me like maybe there's a phase issue with the subs. Try adjusting it and see if that changes the distance it perceives.

Bryan

[carls64]

Ok here we go new photos, now that I have all my photo equipment back ;-)
(Full size and the rest of the build can be found HERE)

New projector location and mounting. Emotiva LPA-1 7 Channel Amplifier (That thing is HUGE!)


Screen wall from front row seats. eD Speakers all hidden inside.


Screen wall from 2nd row seats


First reflection point (1) mounting right side


First reflection point (1) mounting left side


Closeup detail of screen wall.






Another shot of projector mounting


Back side of projector mounting


Right side back of projector mounting.


Back of Emotiva amp, did I mention that this thing is BIG!


Extra brace for amp shelf, it weighs in at around 70lbs!


Another angle from back of room to the front screen wall.

[carls64]

bpape wrote:

Sounds to me like maybe there's a phase issue with the subs. Try adjusting it and see if that changes the distance it perceives.

Bryan

You know now that you say that the calibration resulted in the back surrounds saying they were out of phase, strange. I never checked before what the subs distance was being calibrated at I just assumed that it knew the correct place ;-) I may just need to manualy set everything and forgo the auto calibration

[carls64]

Well I decided to purchase some new surround speakers, hope they will get here by the weekend, in the mean time I updated the first post of my project thread with new pictures and system details. I also added links to most of the products used as well as some key links within the thread showing details of the build.

Direct link

Enjoy!

[carls64]

Well I am having trouble figuring out exactly where to place the wall treatments. I don;t really have anyone t o help me (with the patients) to use the mirror method of finding FRP so I used the calculation method found HERE Figure 4 and I came up with the First Reflection points for all the seating locations. I used masking tape to mark the location on the floor next to the wall and then did my best to locate the panels in the middle of the locations for the best coverage.

The problem I am running in to is I am not sure about where to place the panels vertically, Should they be placed at the ear level or the location (level) where the speaker tweeters are?

In the following photos I have placed all the panels at the location of the tweeters it just so happens the at the L/R speakers are at ear level putting the panels at ear level for both rows of seating while the center channel is under the screen so that panels is placed at its tweeter level.

Should I place the panels all at ear level? If I do I can get better coverage as the panels are 4' long and I would get a better dispersion and cover the whole area of reflection points.

[bpape]

Mount the panels vertically starting about 2' off the floor. If the sconce is causing an issue, you can go a bit lower.

Bryan

[carls64]

I have the new Emotiva surrounds up, took me a while to get some photos up, they have been up for about a week now. I still have some touch up work to do on the wall, I want to fill in the holes in the wall where the original surround cable boxes were as the cable no is just ran through a hole in the wall to the back of the speakers.
These do not stick out from the wall as far as the eD's did and now that frees them up to be my rear surrounds and I can final get rid of the rest of the HTIB Polks I have there now. Just have to figure out the best way to mount them as they are bigger than the Polks and the one on the right (rear) is just above the entry door. I may have to move them both closer inward toward the middle of the room to make them work. Anyhow here are some pictures of the unboxing and mounting.

[carls64]

Last night we had my wife's nephue and his wife along with the wife's daughter and boyfriend over so that filled all but two of the seats up, not sure why no one wanted to sit in the middle though LOL those are the best seats. We screened Wanted. The only comment I got was, "It was LOUD!"

[salvasol]

Nice work .

[carls64]

Thank you!

I had a half day of work today, so I spent the afternoon building a couple more acoustical panels and temporarily hanging them to see what the results were, I have not done any definitive mesurements or listening yet, but hopefully will do that tomorrow.

I took bpape's advice and hung 4 of the vertically on each side wall. I am out of 703 so I can't make any more for the rear (not that I have room) and I may make a few for the ceiling, have to cover those in black GOM though. I will take some more pictures tomorrow.

Next project is to take down the polk audio rear surrounds and put up the eD Bookshelf's in their place. I have to move the closer to the center of the wall as currently the pols are very close to the corners and the one on the left rear is right above where the entry door swings open so I do not have the room between the ceiling and the door to mount the bigger eD speakers. Be nice to get those Polk's down ans they are hung with white mounting brackets and they stick out like a sore thumb

[Sonnie]

Yes indeed... very nice work.

Makes me want to get started on my new dedicated theater... but I ain't got the funds.

I am jealous!

[carls64]

I am starting to wish that I had not built the equipment rack inside the wall. I am finding that I now have more equipment than I have room. I have an old rack at the office that I am thinking of bringing home and using that to install the equipment. Leaving just a opening for the projector. This will allow me to place some acoustical treatment on the back wall, the treatment will also (or can) cover the opening of the in wall rack.

Not sure yet if I want to move the equipment to the outside of the room. If I do I will have to extend my cabling (Speakers, Sub cable, Projector) but If I move it to just outside of the room I will only have to extend about 8-10 feet.

I need to get rid of that couch that is in there against the wall, it serves no purpose and is just in my way when I want to use the equipment LOL.

[salvasol]

carls64 wrote:

Not sure yet if I want to move the equipment to the outside of the room. If I do I will have to extend my cabling (Speakers, Sub cable, Projector) but If I move it to just outside of the room I will only have to extend about 8-10 feet.

Why don't you leave the equipment that you need access in the rack (ie: DVD player, BR) then place the others (amps, AVR, etc. inside the room ...I'm sure you just use the remote to control them, RIght???, you need access to DVD to drop the disc, so that can stay on the shelf

By the way??? ...Where do you have all your DVD's??? ...I don' see it in the pictures???

[carls64]

All the Blu-Ray and DVD's are up stairs in a closet, my plans are to move them all to a CD case to minimize space. I use a catalog program to keep track of what I have and where they are at.

[Space]

carls64 wrote:

I use a catalog program to keep track of what I have and where they are at.

I developed a speadsheet to do this, but it is somewhat clunky and a bit linear:0 What brand do you use?


Brien

[carls64]

Space wrote:

I developed a speadsheet to do this, but it is somewhat clunky and a bit linear:0 What brand do you use?


Brien

I am using Delicious Library 2 for the Mac

[carls64]

Well I finaly was able to finish up the rear surround speakers, I now have the eD bookshelf speakers in place. I also ahve cleaned up the wiring in the rack/equipment room (pictures to follow). I think I am not pretty much done (at least if I know what's good for me that is) so now is the time to start watching movies! OH! I have to get the Logitech Harmony 890 remote set up and working, so I suppose that is one more then yet to do. Anyhow here are the rear surround photos. I had to add on the the wall on the right rear wall our the speakers would be way to close together. As it is they are not within Dolby or DTS specs of 30 degrees but I don;t think I am going to have that much 7.1 surround that I will need to worry too much about it, probably put more effort into that than I needed

[carls64]

Just realized I never posted the final view of the acoustical treatments on the side walls. I took bpape's suggestion and placed them 2' from the floor and spaced them the best way I could to cover the walls. I now need to take some measurements and setup the BFD.

[bpape]

Nicely done. Very clean looking.

Take some time and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Put on a couple torture movies

Bryan

[Prof.]

Now that's looking good!!..

[thewire]

Looks really nice. The panels and the new screen wall turned out great.