Slaughter House Cinemas (Project Thread)

**carls64** · **08-11-08, 10:31 AM**

Well spent the weekend painting and preparing my baseboards, my wife came in to the room one day and sat on the couch when it was against the south side wall, and was talking then she cried out, "why did you cut that hole in the wall down by the floor!, Oh and it goes all the way across!" After explaining to here about not putting the drywall on the floor, that there needed to be a gap between the bottom of the drywall and the floor, she agreed that we needed baseboard ;-)

I found a deal for wood pine baseboard, 10x12' for $53 at Home Depot, and I had enough "Garnet" color I used on the walls to paint the baseboards. I am going to wait to put them down until I decide what I am going to do about the front wall around the screen, and what I will do with the riser for the 2nd row.

My thoughts are to make an island in the center 4'x8' this should give adequate area to mount the seats to and provided enough leg/walk room for the second row. Has anyone else done this? how do you like it? my original plan was to extend the riser all the way back to the rear wall, but I do not think it is necessary and may make the room look smaller. That end I will still have plenty of head room there, but a tall person may clock their head. It will be bad enough that the 2nd row will extend slightly to the soffet area close to the projector, but if I don't have to go much about 10" for the riser there will still be about 3' before the projector becomes an obstacle for viewing from the second row.

I also hooked up the 2nd sub woofer, that one is a Polk 8" front firing, the DCM is a 10" bottom fire, can I sit the DCM on its side and fire it to the front as well, or does that matter? I have the DCM on the left between the center channel and left front speaker, and the Polk is between the center channel and right speaker, as recommenced.

We watched a couple more movies over the weekend, Superman Returns and Ai (Artificial Intelligence), and We were blown away by the picture and the sound, couple times my wife said to turn it down, but that was the bass playing into it making it seem VERY loud in spots, but there you go, the difference between listing to a pair of speakers in a TV, and having to turn up the volume at different points in a movie because you can't hear the dialog, and down in others because there is too much LOUD sound. other than turning it down a little bit on the very loud scenes we never had to turn it up, and the dialog was always CLEAR and just the right volume. I am so very impressed with the results, and my grandson can't wait for the next movie night ;-)

**bpape** · **08-11-08, 10:41 AM**

You can use your ears or you can use a RadioShack meter. If you run sweeps from 20-80Hz, you'll be able to hear pretty easily whether or not you have big peaks and nulls.

Bryan

**carls64** · **08-11-08, 10:43 AM**

Forgot to say that the theater seats will be in tomorrow, I am hoping the will be more comfortable that the old couch we have down there now, about 30 min and we are having to shift around as there is absolutely no back support in it, at least the theater chairs will offer some back support that the couch does not. Then I have to decide if I am going to anchor them down the the floor (front row) or mount them on a sheet of plywood. They recommend 2 sheets for a 1 1/2" thickness. I will do that on the riser.

I think my calculations are right correct me if I am wrong. bpape said he came up with 9 3/4 for my riser, but I don;t think I can get there easily, but if I do 2x8's that should be 7 1/2 + 2x3/4 = 9" so say add for the carpet of about 1/8 maybe I can put in a couple shims under the legs to get another 1/2, or place a third sheet of 3/4" that will give me 9 3/4" ?

Or I can do the 2x8 and then fir it up with 1x2" then 2 sheets of plywood?

**carls64** · **08-11-08, 10:51 AM**

Quote:

bpape wrote:

You can use your ears or you can use a RadioShack meter. If you run sweeps from 20-80Hz, you'll be able to hear pretty easily whether or not you have big peaks and nulls.

Bryan

Is there some freeware/GPL software I can use on my MacBook that I can use to measure too?

**bpape** · **08-11-08, 10:55 AM**

You can download Room EQ Wizard from this site. There is a dedicated forum area for the BFD and REW. I believe it'll run on the Mac.

Bryan

**smile711** · **08-11-08, 04:48 PM**

Sir,

I am really learning alot from your responses to various questions, so thank you for that.

Question: At one time I had a CD player that would scan the disc, find the "loudest passage," and play if for about 3 seconds (Sony, as I recall). That's hardware, though.

Is there anything out there that will let you play the DVD, and likewise scan for the "loudest" passage, and allow you to set the preamp volume control? At present, my "normal" listening level is set at about -8 to -10 db from what is supposed to be "theater level/original" based on how it was calibrated/room shaped with the microphone and the test tones (forget the exact terminology).

Thanks.

**bpape** · **08-11-08, 09:03 PM**

Not that I'm aware of. Sorry.

Bryan

**carls64** · **08-12-08, 04:53 PM**

Just got confirmation that my seats were deliverd, I knew about it before my wife did, and I was at work LOL

I will shoot some photos tonight and get them posted, after I start assembling them. I will hopefully at lest get the front row set up, and then working deciding what to do about the riser for the back row.

**carls64** · **08-12-08, 05:09 PM**

Quote:

bpape wrote:

You can use your ears or you can use a RadioShack meter. If you run sweeps from 20-80Hz, you'll be able to hear pretty easily whether or not you have big peaks and nulls.

Bryan

I picked up the digital one from RS as they did not have the analog version, now what do I do with it ;-)

**bpape** · **08-13-08, 06:52 AM**

run the sweeps from 20-80 (slowly) and watch the variation in level. When you find a place that has the least variation, you've found your spot.

Bryan

**carls64** · **08-13-08, 03:48 PM**

Ok started mounting my seats, however I started thinking, if I mount 4 in a row, I do not have a seat exactly center on the room (my seat!) I bought 8 seats, enough for 2 rows of 4, but I am questioning if I should use all 8 of them.

Should I do 2 rows of 3? Or a row of 3 and a row of 5, this way I have two seats centered on the screen? opinions?

Anyhow more pictures!:

Tuesday, August 5th
Wednesday, August 6th
Friday, August 8th
New (used) Theater seats ! Tuesday, August 12th

**carls64** · **08-13-08, 05:39 PM**

ok a couple diagrams of what I am thinking here, first one is 2 rows of 4, off center. The second is 2 rows of 4, centered on the 2nd seat moving the 4th seat more toward the wall. Opinions?

**carls64** · **08-13-08, 05:54 PM**

I think I like this option best, what do you think. This give mes 3 centered front row, and 5 centerd on the back row, and I believe if I measured right 20 1/2" walk way on either side of the 2nd row.

**salvasol** · **08-13-08, 06:19 PM**

Quote:

carls64 wrote:

I think I like this option best, what do you think. This give mes 3 centered front row, and 5 centerd on the back row, and I believe if I measured right 20 1/2" walk way on either side of the 2nd row.

Is there any way you can get two more seats to make two rows of five??? ... That will be excellent

What about using five in the front and three in the back??? ... if I recall correctly you have a post on the left side; if you do as your diagram that post will be an obstruction between rows... and maybe doing the five in the front the seat will be against that post

Doing the three in the back, you'll have the space to add more chairs (in case of extra guests)

... you can do the same in the front, but HT will look much better with the extra seats hidden in the back row

**carls64** · **08-13-08, 07:44 PM**

Quote:

salvasol wrote:

Is there any way you can get two more seats to make two rows of five??? ... That will be excellent

I think my wife would not be happy to spend more money ;-) I will however have two extra seat bottoms as the sent me the wrong ones by mistake I would have to get two more standards and two more backs

Quote:

salvasol wrote:

What about using five in the front and three in the back??? ... if I recall correctly you have a post on the left side; if you do as your diagram that post will be an obstruction between rows... and maybe doing the five in the front the seat will be against that post

I will mesure that and see, that might be good

Quote:

salvasol wrote:

Doing the three in the back, you'll have the space to add more chairs (in case of extra guests)

... you can do the same in the front, but HT will look much better with the extra seats hidden in the back row

I will do some measuring and let you know, Thanks! The pol is about 17" out, so that may put that seat up against the pole

**salvasol** · **08-13-08, 08:21 PM**

Quote:

carls64 wrote:

I think my wife would not be happy to spend more money ;-) I will however have two extra seat bottoms as the sent me the wrong ones by mistake I would have to get two more standards and two more backs

...

Did you make the complaint??? ... maybe they can give you a good deal for that mistake

Quote:

... The pol is about 17" out, so that may put that seat up against the pole

Let's cross fingers ... I remember you mentioned 20 1/2" before, so this will be close

(and what I like is that you wont have that pole in the middle of the rows

); but you'll be the judge of what looks better

**carls64** · **08-13-08, 08:55 PM**

I have about 3 inches to spare next to the pol so 5 in the first row it is, three in the second, I can always add two more ;-)

Ya they are sending me 2 extra seats and I get the keep these, but I would need two more arms and two more backs ;-) I got a good deal as it was at $99 each shipped ;-)

**carls64** · **08-14-08, 01:46 AM**

The front row is in, photos tomorrow. 5 seats. Then 3 in the second row. I will probably go ahead and order 2 more for a complete row of 5 there. That will make 10 seats ;-) Seriously doubt that I would ever have that many over at one time, but it offers a place where people can spread out if they want ;-)

Tomorrow (today I suppose) I will go get my lumber to make the riser. I am going with a 2x8 with a 1x2 (3/4") furring strip around the top and with the 2 layers of OSB. I measure right at 9 3/4 although the tape measure says 10" That clears the top of a 6'5" head!

Well off to bed now!

**carls64** · **08-14-08, 09:30 AM**

Here are the photos from last nights seat install! As you can see 5 of them fit very nicely in the front row, now I am trying to figure out a way to sneak 2 more in the house

**carls64** · **08-14-08, 09:35 AM**

I did a mock up of the rear seat riser and based on this it looks like a 2x8 (7 1/2") with a 1x2 (3/4") with 2 layers of OSB is going to make it calculated 9 3/4" but the tape measure says 10" so who am I to argue with the tape measure

Here a a couple shots from the seats, the first one is from the front row center, the second is from the 2nd row center as you can see I do do see the top of the front row. I also half way measured the top of my head in the front row, and placed the tape measure in its locked position so I could see where the top of my head (5'7") would be and I can easaly see over that with a couple of inches to spare so I think this height will be good, and I don't see the projector or the ceiling from that position either. I kinda like sitting the back seat

**salvasol** · **08-14-08, 04:30 PM**

Quote:

carls64 wrote:

... I kinda like sitting the back seat

You'll have a better view

My sweet spot is in the middle of second row ... but for sound, the best seat is in the middle of front row

What I did is to save a setting on my AVR for each seat ... they both sound good, but the flattest response is in the front seat; but I'm happy in my sweet spot ...

By the way, dont forget to use roofing paper (black paper) to avoid the moisture ... specially because your HT is in a basement, Right???

**carls64** · **08-14-08, 04:55 PM**

Quote:

salvasol wrote:

By the way, dont forget to use roofing paper (black paper) to avoid the moisture ... specially because your HT is in a basement, Right???

You are correct, but I planned on using pressure treated lumber for the 2x8's and also going to place it on top of the carpet. Its a very thin felt (1/8") unbacked. I thought about cutting it out, but I planned for a 3/4" lip all the way around the "island" riser (Not sure why

) I have no way of getting power to the riser so no lights

and I saw no reason to build the riser all the way back to the wall.

The riser will be 4'x9'6" enough to accommodate a row of 5 seats. I will use 3 to begin with mounted in the center, and if I can negotiate 2 more seats I will add them as well.

**salvasol** · **08-14-08, 05:16 PM**

I know is your money ... but I'm helping you to save some

Quote:

carls64 wrote:

... but I planned on using pressure treated lumber for the 2x8's ...

Isn't the treated lumber more expensive??? ... you can use regular lumber (specially because it won't be in contact with the concrete subfloor) ... or maybe it will be cheap to use pieces of ruber or something if you want to lift it a little (I remember that I read that somebody used pieces of a car water hose)

Quote:

... I have no way of getting power to the riser so no lights

and I saw no reason to build the riser all the way back to the wall...

Why??? ... can you extend one of the outlets??? ... or run an extension there???

You have to find a way to get electricity there ... I see in the future a popcorn machine at the back of the room