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109K views 212 replies 32 participants last post by  fitzwaddle 
#1 ·
Hi all - thought I'd post some info on the dedicated HT I'm building. If you visit AVS Forums, the title might sound familiar. :clap:

Our house has a 4 car detached garage - has mostly been used as storage (er piles of junk), and for a workshop, and sometimes a car even managed to get in there, but not that often. Since we only have two cars, and after completing our modest remodel, I still didn't have a good space for a dedicated HT, I decided to convert half of the garage into that HT. Have been planning this since before the remodel actually, back in mid/late 2006, but finally swallowed hard and started spending I mean building in earnest a few months ago.

I hired out the basic room construction (new ceiling joists, framing, electrical, insulation, drywall, mud, and even construction of the stage and riser); I'm responsible for paint, screen wall, soffit/rope light tray, columns, acoustic treatments, fabric wall panels, low voltage wiring.

SketchUp model I did some time ago - doesn't reflect a few changes: double door entry, addition of soffit/light tray, rear column location will be in corners:



floorplan (room dimensions: 23' deep to front wall, 21' to false wall/screen; 17' wide; 9' ceilings (except soffit, which drops down 8 inches; seating at 11.5' and 17' approximately):



Here's where is stands at the moment (well almost up to date pics, not quite - finished the basic soffit framing and started screen wall framing) - from the outside (stone circle is a planter box / seating wall, we haven't picked a tree yet):



A few inside pics - before starting the soffit (stage is sand filled, 8" high):



after getting most of the soffit framing done (the soffit in front over the stage will be extended to have a curve matching the stage, and the screen lights will be relocated into that extension):



riser (12", fiberglass filled) - before drywall mudding was done:



entry doors - up over the stone steps on the outside, to the level of the rear riser):



My awesome rack - will upgrade that I think :innocent: - all the gear will be in the closet:



Equipment list / plans:

Pioneer AVX-1120-K - got it
Toshiba HD DVD Player - got it
Blu ray player - TBD, Oppo please? (crossing fingers on the contest) and/or PS3
power conditioner - TBD
XBOX 360 - TBD
speakers - currently B&W DM602 fronts, DM601 side surrounds, CC6 center; will be upgraded, currently thinking of TCA Pro-10s for LCR, Hsu HIW-1s for side / rear surrounds (wired for 7.1)
subwoofer: Velodyne VA-1210 or whatever its called, old - will be upgraded, planning THT LP
projector: Panasonic PT-AE4000U planned
screen: Seymour A/V DIY planned, 136" 2.35:1 or thereabouts
Lighting control: 4 zone Grafik Eye - got it
Seating: row of 4 curved Berklines on riser; row of 3 curved Berklines in front - ordered, waiting until I have carpet in to take delivery.
A/C - split A/C, either LG ArtCool or Mitsubishi Mr. Slim.

Surround speakers will be buried in columns on the side and rear corners.
LCR & subwoofer will be behind acoustically transparent screen on false wall (24" from front wall).
Walls will be fabric covered frames with rigid fiberglass panels (OC 703 or similar) to ear level and below.
Soffit will be stuffed with pink insulation and covered with kraft paper or similar, to add some midbass trapping.
Superchunk midbass traps will be placed in the front corners behind the screen; and in the rear corners within rear surround columns.

That's about all I can think of the moment - let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, etc.

Brad
 
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#2 ·
Looks to be a nice setup in a nice spot. One thing I would invest in and it may slip most minds is a smoke detector in the theatre tied in directly to the house smoke detector system. The reason I say this is a freind of mine had a small electrical fire in a setup similar to yours in the garage and had no idea till you guessed it...... it was to late, small fire ===== lots of damage. When the smokes are all together, one sences smoke they all go off.
 
#3 ·
Very nice theater! It is coming along great! Keep us posted on with updates.
 
#10 ·
Nice Brad, very nice.

What do you have planned for the room treatments and placement of the surrounds and subs?

Have you plugged the room dimensions into a mode calculator yet to possible ID potential problems before you start testing/cal?

What kind of wall is it in between the HT and garage? Not that it will matter that much for sound leakage (unless you have someone living in your garage!) just that it will be acoustically different from the opposite wall (which means the calculators will be slightly out).

I bet your already thinking of what the first movie will be!
 
#11 ·
Nice Brad, very nice.

What do you have planned for the room treatments and placement of the surrounds and subs?
Thanks! Surrounds will be inside columns on the sides and in the rear near the corners. Subwoofer (THT LP planned) will be behind the false wall, either firing toward one of the side corners, or firing up to the ceiling.

Room treatments, here's my tentative plan: linacoustic on the entire front wall; superchunk traps in the front wall corners; superchunk traps buried inside rear corner speaker columns (except for the middle piece where the rear surrounds will be); pink faced fiberglass inside the soffit for more bass trapping; fabric covered 1" fiberglass panels (OC 703 or whatever similar I can find at a good price locally) either up to and slightly above ear level on the side walls and back wall, or just at reflection points, depending on what my measurements (RT60) show once I've got the carpet, furniture, bass traps, soffit traps in.

Have you plugged the room dimensions into a mode calculator yet to possible ID potential problems before you start testing/cal?
I created a spreadsheet with "good" room ratios from various publications I could find (Everest book I think? it was a while ago), and ended up fairly close to one of the favorable ratios. Just plugged my room dimensions into Bob Gold's calculator, got a few yellows down low, and green otherwise, so I think I'm in not too bad shape.

What kind of wall is it in between the HT and garage? Not that it will matter that much for sound leakage (unless you have someone living in your garage!) just that it will be acoustically different from the opposite wall (which means the calculators will be slightly out).
The wall was supposed to be a double wall, but the contractor got cute and used 2x8 framing instead of double 2x4, thinking it would be the same thing - I got a little moo, but got over it, and asked him to DD/GG that wall as compensation for his screw up, which he did. The closet door is there though, so not sure that the extra mass/damping will do much of anything (nor would the double wall actually) unless I seriously beef up the door (its a Safe N Sound door). And of course having the door there will also present some challenges vis symmetry and room treatments.

I bet your already thinking of what the first movie will be!
Not really yet - too much in front of me still! Although after framing in my screen wall yesterday, I sat and looked at it and caught myself mouthing explosion sounds, visualizing some sort of fantasy / epic / whatever film. :laugh:
 
#12 ·
A bit of progress the last couple weeks, not as much as I would have liked to have accomplished, but still progress.

Framed screen wall. No screen yet. The opening is the approximate size of the planned screen, but may have to mount it a little higher than that, in order to keep the PJ ceiling mount from hanging down too low, since I want to due the poor man's CIH, which means the lens can be no lower than the top of the screen. Current eye height is at 1/3 of screen height, so moving it up would be a bit of a compromise, grumble.



Added the curved front of the soffit to match the curve of the stage. The whole soffit was a bit of an afterthought, so I had to relocate the screen lights down into the soffit. Getting that thing up onto the ceiling was a bear with no help, but I managed to figure out a way to do it.



Close up of one of the "old" screen light holes that I plugged.



View of the bracing I created to support the front edge of the soffit.



Added two layers of 1x2s for stage lip, will route a curve on the top edge.

 
#16 ·
Looks great. I have a garage that is basically used for storage/junk also. I wonder what the wife would think about me doing something like that.:foottap: I think if I show her your setup she might go for it. :heehee: I look forward to more pics...:T
 
#20 ·
Looking like a great plan Brad, and you are off to a very good start too. I just had a thought when I saw you were thinking about changing your speakers... what about building some DIY speakers into the columns? It's probably another complicated project on top of everything else you're doing, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Thanks Owen! I looked into doing some DIY speakers - the 4pi's look very nice - but I'm planning on getting PRO-10s, which to me are a great value, to the point where I don't think I could build something better for less $$. I did build my own sub though, completed a couple weeks ago - in that case, I felt the $ vs. time worked in my favor. I built a THT LP (folded horn), here's a few pictures:













:D

Edit: checked your sig links, great looking work! nice job on the router circle jig too! - but the first link (GeoCities) seems to be dead?
 
#24 ·
Kind of slow going here - but I *think* I might be done with the drywall dust everywhere phase - at least I hope so, sick of cleaning up and inhaling that stuff. Here's the soffit (again), ready for priming and painting the ceiling / cove, installation of rope light, installation of soffit lights, installing rest of fiberglass insulation, and fabric covering.

Front over the screen - curved:





rear - the soffit is open on the bottom to hold fiberglass for bass trapping - some in place, some still to buy. I better keep the little halogen lights well away from the fiberglass, due to flammable facing.



Behind the screen wall, with fiberglass in:



I wasn't sure on the front whether to (1) keep all the same level, (2) add a ledge, with a curve matching the curve of the front, or (3) add a more angular ledge, which is what I ended up doing. Will be covered with fabric - and a little trim piece next to that ledge.





I'm waffling on the color scheme - want to have the soffit contrast with the walls and the ceiling, with either an olive green or mocha color scheme - black ceiling / dark shade soffit / lighter shade walls? Any suggestions?

Also, how well does rope lighting light up a black ceiling? Vs. say an olive green or mocha ceiling (so I could do black soffit, and green/mocha walls, and still have a contrast there).

The sub is great fun - I'm expecting to get my new speakers in this week, which means I better get cracking on setting up a shelf behind the screen to support the LCRs at proper height, and work on columns for the side and rear surrounds.

Anyone happen to know off the top of their head what the distance from floor to eyes is for a 5'10" guy in a Berkline 13175? And the distance from the bottom of cabinet to center of tweeter on a PRO-10 / SHO-10? :p

Hopefully Bryan is watching to keep me honest, in case I've missed something entirely in my attempt at bass trapping within the soffit.
 
#28 ·
Here's some updates...

New speakers - CHT (Chase Home Theater, formerly Tweak City Audio) - 6x Pro-10, 1x SHO-10 (center) - they were returns (scratches here and there), and Chris gave me a smoking hot deal on them - thanks Chris!













Did the fan mod on my QSC power amp that drives the THT LP - huge difference, the old fan was a turbo prop:



















Painted the trims for the 3" recessed lights that are going in the soffits:



Cut the holes for the lights:





Pile of debris, and cans ready to go (tomorrow):



 
#31 ·
Thanks Simon - I'm subbed to yours as well, and will be following along, there's always room to see something someone else just did and add another change order. :T

For example, I didn't originally plan on having a soffit, but after seeing several other builds, I decided to bite the bullet and add one, just to give a little visual appeal that seemed missing. Shot about two months on it as a result. :scratch:
 
#32 ·
Here's a picture of the painted ceiling - also used the same paint to cover the soffit wood and the screen wall framing, so no wood will show through the fabric once covered. The color is Behr "Espresso Beans" - the darkest shade of brown that I could find, looks near black in the picture (and with the lights off, yay).



Rope light with the lights off.







I had been planning on just building a cheap rack to save some money - but I read someone else's thread mentioning they got a good deal on craigslist, so I checked, and whaddya know, there was one waiting for me - $180 for a 37U Slim 5 with casters, 3 2U shelves, 8 1U vent panels, and 9 horizontal lacing bars. It was part of a huge pile of gear pulled from a mansion in Chatsworth that was being sold by an NFL player who was moving - an estimated $500K I was told, 6 racks total, saw a stack of Anthem amps and a Titan projector among the pile.

The rack is total overkill as far as what I really needed - but hey, sure has plenty of room for expansion. =) My plan is to house both my A/V gear and music gear in the single rack.



Still debating whether to just roll it into the closet, or cut a hole to poke the face into the room. The latter would make for easier access both front and back - back, since the closet is only 27" wide, rack is 19" - 8" isn't even enough to be able to rotate the rack to access the wiring. If I poked the hole, I'll have to figure out how to reroute electrical - the rack would stick through the framing shown here - note the romex running horizontally that I would have to relocate - move it above the rack and add a junction box I guess? Would the junction box need to be accessible?

 
#37 ·
I decided to keep the equipment fully enclosed in the closet - the way I got off the wall was by finding a nice deal on an MA Slim5 on craigslist - $180 for 37U rack, with 3 2U shelves, casters, lacing bars, and 1U vented spacers. Shame to waste the nice casters, so I will just roll it into the HT closet. Because the closet is pretty narrow, I'll need to disconnect the rack and roll it out to do anything major or rack wiring - I can live with that - I think.

Also bought a Hot Link XL IR-over-cat5 extender, haven't installed it yet though.

Catching up with some pics:

Mini Coopers, even Clubmans, are not optimal insulation transport vehicles - not an inch to spare in this load:



Inside of the entry doors painted satin black:



Right rear surround column / bass trap - used Roxul AFB, great stuff - cheap and super easy to work with with an electric carving knife. Framing is 2x2s, and 1/2" plywood speaker shelf. I plan on filling the bottom part with more AFB, but need to discuss the outlets buried in there with the building inspector - can I leave them and bury them, or move into the columns, or move outside columns. Same issue with all column locations.



Left surround speaker column:



Right surround column, right rear column:



Right screen wall superchunk:



Screen wall - L/R superchunks, 1" OC 703, Rubbermaid shelving for LCRs (THT will either be upright in the corners, or slide under the LCR shelf on its side:



1.5" OC 703 FRK/FSK in the soffits, covering pink fiberglass filling. Boy sure is shiny, wish me luck not having that show through fabric. May have to paint it or use two layers of cloth, not sure.



Left side of room, showing rear column, side column, and side front (dummy) column.



Right side of the room, showing columns and miscellaneous mess.



Still thinking through color schemes - for the soffit, columns, and wall panels. Going to have an earth tone scheme for sure - the ceiling is very dark brown, the front faces of the columns will be black speaker cloth - so need to decide on soffit, rest of columns, and walls. Some combination of contrasting brown colors, olive greens, or deep wine reds. Any suggestions?? Kinda leaning towards a mid tan for wall panels, black speaker cloth in the middle front of the speakers, maybe deep burgundy accent on the column sides, black on the soffits.
 
#42 ·
Thanks. :bigsmile:

If you have any other pictures or comments regarding your soffit fabrication, I would love to see/hear them. Very envious of your space. I have a 15x20 room and I thought it was plenty big enough. Would love to have your dimensions.
I have quite a few pics earlier in the thread as it was going together - let me know if there's something specific that you need clarification / detail on.

Nice job..:T It's all coming together nicely..
My suggestion for your wall colour would be a dark olive/grey green..That would go well with the dark brown ceiling..
Oh come on! That was the color combo I've had in my head since I started planning in 2006, and I just started changing my mind! You're not making this any easier lol. :crying:

haha love the shot of the clubman ;) My 300ZX is even more useless at carrying anything bigger than an overnight bag ;) Lucky my dad has a van that I can borrow whenever I need it :T

The front wall and soffit treatments look fantastic and I really like the shape of your columns :T :T

Were you going to paint the walls? Or were you going to cover with GOM?


Cheers,
Simon
Thanks Simon! I can't wait to get a column fabric covered so I can see what it will really end up looking like.

I'll be covering the walls (and soffit) with fabric - looking for budget friendly alternatives to GOM though, too rich for my blood. Found some possibilities at Rose Brand which are fire retardant - are they breathable enough though, I'm not sure.
 
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