Another Brit....

[Alaric]

Hi There,

Found this place via the REW website, though i've lurked arround on lots. Active on the uk avforums, ocasionaly Avtalk and still dip my toe into AVS though boy has that grown scince when i fist started there.

Been into Home Cinema since my first wage cheque which was tax free due to starting work so late in the year was blown at Richer Sound on an Yamaha receiver and some Gale speakers. I had a DPL 5 speaker set-up with a 14" wide portable TV and still prefered widescreen movies

Now moved on a little more and am in the middle of building a mad but fun dedicated home cinema with a full width DIY acoustic screen and a Barco BG808 and a 7.1 set-up with all the trimmings. HTPC as main source and was an early pioneer for this starting very early on DVD with a Creative Labs Dx2R and early geforce mx2 cards/ATI Radeons.

Have been using REW with a BFD for sub purposes, but also have a couple of RANE equialisers (THX44 for front and an SSE35 for rears) that i need to scope in at some point, though as the paneling on the room is still being built the acoustics are probably still in flux.

Cya,
Lee

[Exocer]

Alaric, welome aboard! Nice to have you here at the shack.
when your HT is done feel free to post pics for us to gaga over

How much were the Rane EQ's? and are your current HT pc specs/plans?

[Sonnie]

Hello Lee... welcome to the Shack!

Don't know of anything else mo funner than building an HT room. By all means... please share your HT construction with us in the Gallery | Custom Installation area.

[Alaric]

Hi There,

The Cinema is up and running and films are very watchable, however the design has the left and right walls paneled and we're only part way through it. All the boxing is done, but routering the panels and painting them takes time....oh and the wife keeps on improving the design !

The Ranes were picked up second hand via a lot of meticulus searching of ebay, as such i only payed a couple of hundered pounds each from what i recalled. They are on bypass at the moment.

The PC is a 146 opteron on a asus A8R-MVP Crossfire board, gig of memory and curently a single ATI x1300. I built it to be expandable for the future but usable now. Its got a 20% overclock as normal, cos it can Because its stored it a kit rack outside the room i'm not so interested in the quiet side as i used to be at my previous house where the install was in the lounge...You learn a lot from having a previous set-up and hence when we bought the house we are in now, we got one with space to turn into a dedicated home cinema as the wife wanted her lounge to look pretty, not have a 10' white screen, a huge monolith in the centre of the room, the curtains perminantly closed or cables all over the place !

Details are on http://www.the-dreaming.com though i probably need to add some new pics as we have carpets and some of the wall pictures up.

cya,
Lee

[Ayreonaut]

Very nice! I like the LotR murals. I can't wait to see the finished project.

[Sonnie]

Wow... that is nice Lee. I wasn't sure what to think when I first noticed you started on this back in November 2002, but then I also noticed you took a long break. Looks like you are going all out and will have one heck of a nice room when finished.

[JCD]

Wow.. truly inspiring.
I also LOVE the details of the process.

Like most others, I can't wait to see the final result.

Welcome!

JCD

[Phil M]

Welcome Lee from a fellow Brit.
I see you guys are getting HD on Sky soon, you should check it out if you get the chance.
My satellite provider, Dish, is transmitting the World Cup in High Def - I think I'll sell package tours to my fellow countrymen!

[Alaric]

Hi There,

HD would be nice, but it seems like Sky will charge the earth for it, and i'm not interested in most thier content. Heck i probably manage a whole 2-3hr TV watching a month

I tend to watch films (hence the 680+ DVD collection) and series on DVD. Can't stand the Adverts on TV generaly and after being bored the other evening and flicking through Freeview they seem to be getting worse. Even the BBC are putting adverts in for other programs and the radio....me i say, get on with the show i'm watching rather than telling me every few minutes how good the next show is !

As for being slow, we are doing up an old house from the inside out and doing a lot of the work ouselves, along with a busy normal work load of running a small business and ocasionaly needing a break, things take time. In the 4 years we've had the place we have a Lovely Bedroom (1st priority) and a stunning bathroom and change the main staircase shape (2 floors, straight to a rectangular winder) which has sorted the flow through the house as it previously bisected 6 rooms !!!

Thankfuly i can watch a picture on the cinema screen and have a 7.1 set-up with all the speakers in the right position. I've fiddled with Sub EQ (hence here) and also have some room EQ to play with but its rudimentary at the moment as the room need finishing first as that will affect the accoustics. I've just cailibrated the PJ for grey scales as that is room independant. I also wish i could do something more for the Buttkickers, but so far i haven't found a DVD analysis program which will give me the lowest bass frequancy and the maximum level...another project !

Cya,
Lee