Tommy's HT In-Progress

Here's a view of the front wall. I did frame a box roughly the size of a 60" tv and hung it on the wall to get an idea of what it would look like.

You may see (I'll put up some close up pics of the duct work) the screen is centered to the room but it is very close to the right hand side soffit. If I did move to a project screen as suggested instead of a flat screen, it is going to be wider and hence partially wind up under this soffit. I'm not sure if that will be an obstruction as far as viewing it, just the difference in ceiling.

Behind the front wall is going to be the utility room that will remain unfinished. So this will be another wall I can always do stuff behind it but I will be very close to the heaters and also I'd rather not put much on the front wall besides the screen and speakers.

I dont have my own forum and there doesnt seem to be sub-threads so this thread is gonna get long and disorganized quick (pages 20+ etc) if it lasts through out the whole project. I know I should probably go ask each individual question in each specific forum but I'd also like to keep everything together in one spot for a full review project review if anyone else is interested in the future. Just to show how many different questions etc come up during a project.

Alright to start the day, I posted the pics of the framing I have so far. Still waiting on some comments and advice from this point. As for work I know I still gotta finish the soffit, reserves this weekend killed me from getting any work done, and was thinking on a couple more things.

I pointed out that the one wall was done with the staggered stud method but I dont think I stressed that the others are not, there regular 2x4 framming. Out of those 3 walls, 2 are back to the foundation and one back to the utility room.

Not sure how crazy I need to get with sound proofing and acoustic stuff, my goals are having it sound decent but I'm not fantical as far as it goes as long as it works properly and second is making sure the sound doesnt overwhelm the upstairs. The 1st floor, the room above is hard wood floors.

So suggestions on finishing off the walls are welcome.


I found an article and some pics of someone elses HT room and love how it looks. It won some type of award for a home theater. The walls were completely carpeted which I thought was a big no no as far as sound?

So the wife and I are still discussing how the walls should be finished but I do like how this guys walls are structured. Columns break up the room and wall sconces and speakers are inside the columns. In between each column is room to hang a poster and recessed lights are pointed on each poster.

As I said I really like how this looks, still not sure if I should do the full carpet thing though or not though but besides looking nice I think it would also help sound proof the room. I do like the columns and posters in between each column it breaks up the room great. I'd like to hear others comments on the carpeted walls.

I'd like to take 2 spots that he has for carpets though and use one spot to make a recessed section in the wall for a component rack, and another section to make a recessed shelving section to hold DVD's. I'll start another post about the component rack though because I'm defintely seeking advice about this. Just wanted to give an overall picture I'm what I'm thinking about so far.

In addition to what I just mentioned the other differences would be, mine would be 2 rows instead of three (shorter room then his) Also I'm not sure how I'm going to do the front wall. I cant believe he went thru all the trouble to put inwall speakers for the sides and rear and for the front there sitting right out exposed. I'd like to put everything in the walls speakers and component rack etc... also i dont think I have enough room for a front stage.

Ok heres the pics

I may just have to break my questions up and go put them seperatly, I think I may just be asking to much here and gonna wind up getting things skipped over.

Alright the component rack is really concerning me. I'm going thru all the trouble to put in-wall speakers so I dont want to have a visibile component rack either. I ordered one of those slim rack 5 things and I'm still waiting for it to come but I'm not sure it is what I want.

What I'd like to do is make some sort of recessed in the wall type shelves on the first 5' section of the right wall. The right wall has about 20" behind it and the foundation wall.

I'd have more accessibility to the front wall but I dont want to look and the component rack while watching a movie.

My problem though, if I'm going thru all the trouble to sound proof the room theres gonna wind up being some type of opening in the wall if the component rack is built into it, right?

I'm gonna have to start on this, this week so suggestions on this would be greatly appriecated.

Don't leave me already guys... :sarcastic:

Ok I complained to the wife I was getting flamed online about the flat screen, well besides bitching at me for caring about message boards she did cave and I got the "do whatever... go ahead" to go with the projector instead of the flat screen.

So I'm gonna have a bunch of questions about this but starting with how is this gonna look on my front wall with that soffit on the right? Do you think that will block the view at all or should I soffit the whole front of the wall down to that height?

So lets start with that, what to do about that wall and what size screen and how it will go on the wall?

Also I'm still desperate to do something about that component rack. Now I'm not so much worried about how to build it but where to place it. Front wall? Side wall (only has 20" depth but is accessibile) or back wall which will have plenty of room but may be to far to wire things, what do you think?

One more question, does a riser 7' in depth seem to long? I'm trying to figure out my speaker and columns placement and gotta figure out where my back row riser will start. Thinking of running it from the back wall out 7', is that ok or to much?

I'd leave the comments about the framing and sound proofing to N.Dawg -- much more of an expert than I.
That being said, I think if you put regular old pink fiberglass between all the walls and sheetrock the frames you'll be pretty good. The low end stuff is going to pass through the walls, but with distance, that sound will peter our pretty quickly. I don't know what it would take to creat a sound proof room and still have it sound reasonably good.

Re: the carpet thing: I don't think it's a good idea either. I could be wrong, but I think there are some serious issues with that strategy. An alternative would be cloth coverings on the wall (think movie theater). In particular, one made of natural fibers and an open weave. That's what I plan on doing in my listening room. This might give you the same kind of look that the carpet did.

re: Front Speakers: IMO, the front 3 speakers are the most important for sound, especially for music. With in-wall speakers, there is generally some sonic tradeoff for the ability to put the speakers in wall. It could be that he wanted the stand alones because he liked the sound better and didn't mind having them out.

re: Component Rack: I think if you put the components at the front of the room in a recessed section you'd be ok. I'm sure that if you put some sort door in front of them you'd be fine -- maybe one that is covered by some sort of cloth over a cut out so you can still get the remote control to work. And as long as there is some sort of ventilation and access (again, with a door?) you can box up the equipment rack to stop sound from leaking through. Again, I'd defer to N.Dawg on this one.
As for the 20" depth -- I don't know.. it looked like you had an open room behind there, so maybe I have the room mixed up in my head. I'm not sure if 20" would be enough or not. Your receiver is probabbly the only thing that will REALLY REALLY need venitlation, so if I'd check the dimensions of that first. You're going to want some space for the air to move around.
As far as putting the rack in the closet -- I'm sure you can run a cable that long, but it'll probably cost you a bit more (naturally). Also, running speaker wire that long will require a higher gauge and will degrade to some extent. Conventional wisdom says that you should have the shortest speaker wire possible for the best signal to the speaker. The most important speakers are going to be your front three, so ideally, I'd put the equipment as close as possible to the front. That's the ideal, but we always have to compromise in the world of audio, so a long speaker wire run isn't gonna ruin your system, but I would suggest a higher gauge of wire -- 12 gauge?.

Again, I'd defer to N.Dawg on all of this..

JCD

lol... my HT construction thread was 117 posts long in the forum I was hangin' out in a couple years ago. Keep in mind though that I may have made a post and it may have been the next day before I got much response.

I can tell ya a little of what I did. I stagger studded just like you and as JC stated... just use the pink stuff for insulation. I did double 5/8" sheetrock by inside walls and ceiling and single 5/8" the outside walls. On the inside I overlapped the seams and siliconed between layers... more or less running a bead in an X and a couple lines around the edges. This simply to stop any vibrating between sheets. If you look at my HT Construction pics in my Cedar Creek Cinema sig link you'll get some ideas of what all I did... and I pretty much went to the extremes.

On this component rack situation... you got that utility room there behind your front wall. No reason not to take advantage of that. In the utility room you can build a closet to keep closed so that you can access the rear of your equipment. You can fix that closet door where it will seal pretty good. Here's something like what I'm talking about...



This is merely an example... location and design would be to your expectations obviously.

I'll also defer to E (N-dawg) on 99% of this since he does it for a living. Okay... I've done a few, but he's mo-betta wrapped than I am.

Thanks guy, I know I'm jumping around at the moment just trying to get everything planned out before doing to much else. Thanks for keepin up. I'll try to limit it as I go for here out but I do have a couple subjects to jump still.

As for the 20" space maybe there is some confusion. The side wall (left wall as your facing the screen) is the wall that has 20" space between it and the foundation wall. I was hoping I could put the rack here but I dont know if there's enough space.

The front wall does have a utility room behind it with plenty of room but I'd prefer to not put the component rack where I'm staring at the rack and the screen at the same time specially when I paid extra for the in-wall speakers.

If the rack did go on the front wall, wires would still need to be run to the back of the room right. Wouldnt it work the same if I put the rack on the back wall where I still have a closet behind it for access?

Also I got the speakers delivered today but I'll create anoter post for it.