New Home Theatre

[jarrods]

Hi,

I add this as people seem interested in the picture I posted in my thread SPL design levels for a new HT build.

I have placed some shots on http://imgur.com/a/O13gD

I have not had time to comment or organize them... plus I have many more on the build of the HT Audio and House Home Automation racks that I have not uploaded. Once I settle in new home maybe I will do another post.

Anyways this forum helped me no end to build my 4344 over Sub1500 and now they have a room that shows them off. I am so happy with the sound.

jarrod

[svollmer]

Great looking room! I like the use of acoustical treatments and how you integrated the look. Can you tell us more about the design?

[jarrods]

Can you tell us more about the design?

Design.. as in building specs? Well I’m just ramble off some notes; happy to respond to individual questions here or PM. Most of acoustic specs were driven by ideas from the Boral CinemaZone (Boral a leading building materials supplier here in OZ) http://www.boral.com.au/productcatalogue/product.aspx?product=2748

Room ended up being 6000 x 4625 x 2550.

Floor is concrete slab with power conduits for GPO under sofa for recliner motors.

The screen wall and wall to left of screen are completely underground. Construction is single SoundStop plaster, 30mm battens to allow for cables, solid brick, 200mm steel reinforced concrete, solid brick then all the water barrier layers.

The other two walls face rooms that are partially underground (a bedroom and a bathroom). These are double layer of SoundStop plaster, stud wall with Noise Control Batts, a 300mm airgap, another stud wall with Noise Control Batts, and then another double layer SoundStop plaster.

Ceiling is double layer of SoundStop plaster, battens with rubber dampers, a layer of Noise Control Batts, then the 300mm gap to the upper floor.

The doors are two solid wooden doors fitted with 4 different Raven acoustic seal products.

The room was plastered as a complete sealed shell, with absolute minimal penetrations for services. Bulkheads and the 4 vertical light pillars added later. Cables enter in one place then are dispersed in the bulkheads and light pillars.

There is a air-conditioner in the bulkhead that recycles air but it does have an adjustable fresh air inlet that is piped from the garage 2 rooms over. Given the room is underground and insulated through winter it sat at 18C and in the recent heat wave of 40C++ for a week it sky-rocketed up to 22C :). I have only had air-con on 2 or 3 times and that was for heating.

The acoustic treatments as all Vicoustic. I can wholeheartedly recommend their products. During this build I listened to before and after and there is no comparison at all. Also same time I built this I supplied some panels to a friend of mine and he is amazed at the difference to his HT and 2 channel listening rooms. Ceiling has some of their diffusers Pulsar Fuser DA which are just painted ceiling colour. Walls have the Cinema Round panels in Blue and Grey. Behind speakers are their SuperBass 90 bass traps. I put a couple of white Flexi Pol A50 on the side of the HT rack to stop direct reflection to the couch.

AV for the whole house comes from the rack in the HT which is a 42RU IT server rack. I am using an Atlona AT-PRO3HD44M switching matrix (HDMI and IR control). This matrix is absolutely fantastic in AV quality and IR remote control handling but total pile of crap when it comes to mechanical design. I had to strip it down and replace their fan cooling system and come up with improved rack mounts. The front panel looks to be designed by an electronics engineer rather that an industrial designer. They really have zero idea how to do aesthetics or quiet cooling.

There is a HA rack in the stairwell landing that has stuff like alarm system, intercom, tv antenna distribution, adsl modem, network switch, Synology NAS with 2 USB RAID for backups, and a little HP MediaSmart server as my torrent server. There is about 40TB of storage. The Dune and WD media players in the HT rack use these for media files.

Loudest equipment in the HT is the Panasonic PT-AE8000 projector fan but with the globe on ECO (else it is too bright) it is barely audible. Inside the room with both doors shut it is silent with any domestic noise from neighbours being totally blocked out (lawn mowers etc). Going the other way I decided to do a test. I have a mix of Insomnia by Faithless that has insane bass. I cranked it up to ‘11’ and you cannot be in the room. I shut both doors and the outer door was jumping but the sound level was very acceptable. Upstairs you could hear it but sounded like a TV in next room. Outside behind my house you could just hear it but this level of sound was easily drowned out by cars going by on a street some 30m-40m away. There is a different feeling in my mind now when I listen do something or crank bass in a movie as the nagging thought about annoying neighbours is gone. It is the first time in my life I can say I have really totally relaxed and enjoyed loud music at home.

[Mr. Widget]

Thanks for sharing... what are you using for system control? You mention the IR control of the Atlona piece. (I agree about their mechanical design BTW)

Did you do all of the AV and room design yourself?


Widget

[jarrods]

Thanks for sharing... what are you using for system control? You mention the IR control of the Atlona piece. (I agree about their mechanical design BTW)

Did you do all of the AV and room design yourself?


Widget

Just using the Atlona out of the box and a couple of IR repeaters for like Zone 3 audio control in the meals room.

Yeah did all the AV and room design myself. Electronics Engineer with lifetime interst in audio.

cheers, jarrod

[Fort Knox]

Just using the Atlona out of the box and a couple of IR repeaters for like Zone 3 audio control in the meals room.

Yeah did all the AV and room design myself. Electronics Engineer with lifetime interst in audio.

cheers, jarrod


Flush mtg sp. cabinets in walls..... used to be popular in the 60's...

[jarrods]

Flush mtg sp. cabinets in walls..... used to be popular in the 60's...

your point being?????

[Fort Knox]

your point being?????

Free standing sp. have always produced defraction effects, tranient issues and imaging stuff

that surface mts simply don't have.... plus ,,the room looks cleaner... this just constructive conversation

(don't you have equip. in a remote place already)

[Mr. Widget]

Free standing sp. have always produced defraction effects, tranient issues and imaging stuff

that surface mts simply don't have.... plus ,,the room looks cleaner... this just constructive conversation

(don't you have equip. in a remote place already)It makes the bass more predictable too... but then there are the issues caused by not properly decoupling the speakers. If you don't do it correctly you end up exciting the walls and they can really screw up the sound.

As for constructive... the room is built, it would be more helpful to bring that up before the walls go up. ;)


Widget

[jarrods]

Free standing sp. have always produced defraction effects, tranient issues and imaging stuff

that surface mts simply don't have.... plus ,,the room looks cleaner... this just constructive conversation

(don't you have equip. in a remote place already)

As i stated above... "The screen wall and wall to left of screen are completely underground. Construction is single SoundStop plaster, 30mm battens to allow for cables, solid brick, 200mm steel reinforced concrete, solid brick then all the water barrier layers."

It is impossible to flush mount speakers in the earth retaining wall and I certainly did not want to put in a false wall just to get speakers fitting flush, losing 1m of room length (screen is perfect viewing distance now).

[Fort Knox]

It makes the bass more predictable too... but then there are the issues caused by not properly decoupling the speakers. If you don't do it correctly you end up exciting the walls and they can really screw up the sound.

As for constructive... the room is built, it would be more helpful to bring that up before the walls go up. ;)


Widget

I got a stack of 4 x 8 ft sound pnls I move around....
sounds like the walls are talking....

[Fort Knox]

I certainly did not want to put in a false wall just to get speakers fitting flush, losing 1m of room length (screen is perfect viewing distance now).

In my exp. the false wall is worth it...the sound will appear to be coming from the screen....
(I don't think you'll need a whole meter anyway)