My HT Room

[RazorX]

Hey guys and gals,

Here's some information and pictures on my home theater room. We decided to convert a rarely used front/sitting room in our house to a dedicated home theater room a couple years ago. We went from a very open airy room to what you see here. The room was painted eggshell and all the furnishings were very light colors and whitewashed wood. We even had sheer curtains and zero electronics in the room. The back wall in this room was originally a half wall with a planter built into the top that opened into the foyer.

Here's how it looks now.












As you can see, I have limited placement issues for pretty much everything in the room. I can move the mains a little but not much. The two subs you see in the pictures will be replaced soon with an eD A5 - 350 so the placement options I have with the sub(s) will soon be restricted to the corner you see them in. I would love to move my sofa forward and get away from the rear wall but the windows on the right wall pretty much dictate it sits where it is...unless I want to sit right in front of the TV.

Here's the equipment list:

Speakers (all Paradigm):

• Mains: Monitor 7
• Center: CC-370
• Surrounds:4x ADP-370
• Subs: 2x PW-2100 (One in left front corner and one in right rear corner)

Receiver:[*]Yamaha RX-V2500

Sources:

• Oppo Oppo DV-970HD (I was using an Oppo OPDV971H for movies and a Yamaha DVD-S1500 for SACD and DVD-A but my TV suffers from the macroblocking enhance bug associated with the Faroudja processor so I swapped both out for the 970HD.)
• TW SA Explorer 8300 HD (HD Cable + PVR)

Other Electronics:

• ButtKicker BKA1000-4A power amplifier
• 2x ButtKicker LFE transducers - mounted to the floor joists directly in front of the sofa and evenly spaced across the floor
• Behringer FBQ2496

The room is acoustically treated with Auralex acoustic panels and bass traps.

• DST-112 panels on the front wall (the one behind all of the equipment, main speakers, and center channel speaker.
• DST-114 Studiofoam panels on the side walls for early/first reflection points.
• DST LENRD Bass Traps in the corners of the front/side walls

I plan on adding more panels to completely deaden the front wall and additional/other treatment to the room. I'm not sure what else I should do so I will be posting some graphs and other information in the Home Audio Acoustics forum seeking advice on the best approach from the experts.

[Sonnie]

Looks very functional... and I like the colors too... other than the ceiling, but I suppose with that texture it's not a big issue maybe.

Are you well pleased with the Paradigm's?

[RazorX]

Thanks for the comments Sonnie.

Yeah, the ceiling and the carpet don't really match and I would like to address them but they aren't a high enough priority yet. The carpet is like new so I am having a hard time convincing myself (and my wife) to replace it with a dark gray or black carpet. I can't really decide what I want to do with the ceiling. I have thought about painting it the same dark slate gray as the front wall, door, and trim but I'm not sure I would like the lighting in the room for anything other than movies watching.

I am happy with the Paradigm speakers. I auditioned so many speakers from so many manufacturers and decided the Paradigm's sounded the smoothest and most natural (if that makes any sense) of all the speakers in my budget. They seem to provide very good value as well. I did come close to going with Axioms but just couldn't pull the trigger on a set of loudspeakers without ever hearing them first.

The only component I have second guessed is the receiver. I also auditioned a large selection of receivers and it came down to the Yamaha and a Marantz receiver. I preferred the sound of the Marantz over the Yamaha but the features/inputs were better on the Yamaha. In the end I decided the sound quality of the Yamaha wasn't far enough below that of the Marantz to outweigh the features of the Yamaha. In retrospect, I haven't used all the inputs and additional features of the Yamaha as much as I thought I would so I should have probably gone with the Marantz. Oh well, live and learn and it isn't like I hate the Yamaha so all is good.

[Bob_99]

Rich,

Nice room but if I had a seat like that, I probably would fall asleep and never see the end of any movie . I'm curious to know though, how that window treatment works for you. I have to do some windows and was debating whether to go with something like that or go with wooden blinds.

Thanks

Bob

[RazorX]

Yes, I must admit I have been known to relax my eyelids from time to time while watching a football/basketball/baseball game but I don't believe I have ever nodded off during a movie other than when watching a kids' movie for the three billionth time... My wife did fall asleep while we were watching Rise of the Silver Surfer last week but I attribute that more the movie than the sofa.

I like these but in all honesty I went with these more for the ascetics rather than acoustics. I was debating between these and wood blinds and decided to go with these because they were supposed to do the best job of keeping the light out (they are blackout blinds), the outside sound out, and heat/cold out/in. They really seem to do a pretty good job at all the above but I haven't used wood blinds in this room so I can't comment on which would be better.

I had considered going with one of these on the front window and a wooden blind, in a similar color, on the rear but ended up going with both the same so it would look better. My logic for mixing them was these would do a better job of reducing the first reflections than a smooth hard wood blind while the wood on the rear window would do a better job of matching the drywall characteristics for the dipole on that side. This logic may be off but I can tell you I need to run the right surround speaker level a little bit higher (1.5) than the left one. All the other speakers measure about the same (Left front same as right front, right rear surround the same as the left rear surround).

I can also notice the sound is a little bit brighter if I raise the blinds while the windows are down. It's subtle but noticeable. Of course, it could just be that I am expecting it and therefore hear it in that case. I guess I could run the YPAO program to see what it sets the parametric EQ at with the blinds up vs down.

[Prof.]

A very nice neat setup you have..
A couple of suggestions...I would just put a darker rug in front of the seats up to the tv, rather than replace the whole carpet..
And with your level difference with the right di-pole, you could try temporarily covering the widow next to the speaker with some acoustic foam and then take your levels again..
That may bring it back into balance with the others..

[RazorX]

Thanks for the comments and tips Prof.

I like the idea of using a dark rug like you suggested. I'm going to need to float that one past my wife and see what she thinks.

I'm not sure I follow on the use of acoustic foam over the window though. Wouldn't that actually make it worse since it will have even better sound absorption than the blind has now?

[Prof.]

You may be getting some strange cancellations of the projected sound from an interaction between the glass of the widow and the blind..
It's just something I would try if I had a similar situation, but I'm no expert and I'm sure Bryan or Ethan will give you better explanation for it..

[RazorX]

Prof. wrote:

You may be getting some strange cancellations of the projected sound from an interaction between the glass of the widow and the blind..
It's just something I would try if I had a similar situation, but I'm no expert and I'm sure Bryan or Ethan will give you better explanation for it..

Ah, I get it now. I misunderstood what you were saying originally. I thought you were saying to put the foam over the blind on the room side instead of between the blind and the window. That is an interesting idea. I'm not sure if it would have any effect but it is certainly worth trying. It would only take a few minutes to do.

Thanks again,

[Big Worm]

Focker wrote:

That room is screaming for a projector!

I agree.

Very nice room!

[thxgoon]

Nice! Love the color scheme and the couch. er... especially the couch. Bet it sounds good with all of that acoustic treatment in there... way to go!

I just looked at your pics again... man I would kill for a room like that!

[RazorX]

Thanks for all the comments and complements.

A projector and big honkin' scree would be sweet but it probably isn't going to happen any time soon. I thought about going this route when I built the room but decided to go with the 61" LCOS instead. It gives me more functional uses as I can watch TV/sports in this room with the lights turned up. I have also thought about running both and dropping the screen down for movies but I don't think the additional cost would be worth it considering how close to the screen we would be sitting. I am only ~10' from the TV.

The acoustic treatments have helped a great deal. The sound was very harsh/bright in this room until I applied the panels. I was also getting some pretty serious standing waves on the low frequencies prior to the installation of the bass traps.

I just recently started playing around with REW and purchased a BFD to smooth my bass response out. The system sounds much better now that I have done this.

I am seeing some pretty big dips and spikes in the frequency response above the LFE crossover so I think I am still needing to do more on the treatment. I will be posting some graphs in the Home Audio Acoustics forum so I can tap the experts knowledge on what to do next. I have been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to do that yet though.

Thanks again,