Home Theatre Room Advice/Selection

[mekky]

With the house rebuild currently finishing up now, time to do a sanity check on considerations for our Home Theatre room (a few things like budget pending as we have some post handover things to do, such as driveway/landscaping).

 

Room dimensions

Length: 4.54m

Width: 3.36m

Height: 2.70m

 

Initially got a consultation from a local Home Theatre builder (and am still considering going through them, but keeping my mind open to potentially DIY on this, so I can get pieces at a time and start to use the room instead of getting it all in one go through them) to get placement of speakers/cabling done with the project builder (unfortunately quite limited in what they can do, but should be 14AWG wire in the walls for speaker cables and RCA for subs).

 

Have attached a diagram of the room/notes on the current state of the room:

 

 

Initial speaker selection was to be Triad In Wall Bronze/4 speakers + Gold Sub with a few different options for projectors and receivers.

 

With the current state of the economy, pricing on these obviously have gone up a bit, and have been looking at Krix for a number of years as well (do need to demo them before I commit obviously).

 

Currently considering potentially the Krix MX-5 at the front, with Phonix Flat on Walls for the suround side/rears, with the Atmospherix A20 in ceiling to give a 7.2.4 setup. Or the Megaphonix in Room with the Volcanix Slim subs as an alternative (and to be able to use an existing SVS-SB1000 in the mean time whilst I add the Volcanix subs afterwards).

 

Projector choices I'm jumping between are the Epson TW9400, Sony 275ES, Benq X1200H, with the receiver likely a Denon or NAD. Sources are PC, Nvidia Shield, Apple TV, Panasonic 4K Blu Ray player and gaming consoles (probably a mix of 40% movies, 40% games, 20% TV).

 

Thinking of a 127" 2.35:1 or 120" 16:9 AT screen, which would be pushing the maximum comfortable space with the seating to be between the 4 ceiling speakers (3 seater wide, single row).

 

Electronics I was planning on having at the back of the room behind the couch as well. And do need to plan to storage for movies/games as well in the room, was considering cabinets on the side walls up to about 1m high from the floor, and below the AT screen, as we have probably in excess of a 1000 discs between the wife and me.

 

Overall budget would be about 20-30k (just for projector/screen/speakers/receiver and sound treatment) over time. Just thinking, am I going too big for this space and is it complet overkill and if anyone has advice/in a similar sized room.

[blybo]

2 things stand out to me.

 

• There's a huge chance the 2 subs behind the screen won't be the optimal position for the subs
• Even though solid core, sliding doors, especially double, are extremely hard to seal effectively. Do you need sound isolation?

Can you supply your own speaker cable or get them to run conduit with theirs so you can use it as a draw cable later?

I sit 3.5m from a 130" scope screen and find that excellent, but my wife still sometimes prefers our second row

 

[hopefullguy]

agree about the subs, why people think they must both be placed at the front?.. i find one front and one behind seating works well in my room anyway.

 

that room, sorry to say, is small/medium. while things might look nice on a drawing in real life, with sizing of furniture, A/T screen and people in the room it will be smaller than you think.

 

thats why you need clean lines in a smaller room, less clutter and nothing at the front stage such as movie racks etc.

[mekky]

15 minutes ago, blybo said:

There's a huge chance the 2 subs behind the screen won't be the optimal position for the subs

Just got the cables put in there (as back of room I can run directly from receiver), so was just the option of it being there/could be moved around at front.

 

15 minutes ago, blybo said:

Even though solid core, sliding doors, especially double, are extremely hard to seal effectively. Do you need sound isolation?

Was considering with putting a foam spacer/cover on the gaps. Idea of the sound isolation was to minimise noise to the rest of the house (our main bedroom is above the theatre room, and I often will be up later at night than the wife).

 

15 minutes ago, blybo said:

Can you supply your own speaker cable or get them to run conduit with theirs so you can use it as a draw cable later?

Cables have already been run. I had thought about conduit at the time, but given limited nature of conduit selection (it was either have conduit or not..), ended up getting them to do the wiring in wall.

 

15 minutes ago, blybo said:

I sit 3.5m from a 130" scope screen and find that excellent, but my wife still sometimes prefers our second row

I have a feeling my wife will be the same that distance (and the current screen size I'm thinking of may be at her limits, so might dial it down a touch size wise).

 

  

3 minutes ago, hopefullguy said:

agree about the subs, why people think they must both be placed at the front?.. i find one front and one behind seating works well in my room anyway.

As above, cabling was to have the option of 2 subs at the front of the room (but  likely be either one large either front or back or one front/one back).

 

 

1 minute ago, hopefullguy said:

thats why you need clean lines in a smaller room, less clutter and nothing at the front stage such as movie racks etc.

My idea of movie storage at the front would be a single blu ray case high, sliding out and would be otherwise flush at the front of the room when closed. Would also be considering having as part of the back of the room storage with the gear.

Edited May 4, 2020 by mekky

[hopefullguy]

once you get furniture in you will more than likely be close to 3m or less from eye to screen..

 

front speakers/AT screen, 1 meter rear of seat to rear wall to allow for rear speakers.

 

120" 16:9 screen should do it. hmm maybe 120" scoped screen which is 105"?? 16:9 at a guess

Edited May 4, 2020 by hopefullguy

[blybo]

2 minutes ago, mekky said:

Was considering with putting a foam spacer/cover on the gaps. Idea of the sound isolation was to minimise noise to the rest of the house (our main bedroom is above the theatre room, and I often will be up later at night than the wife).

I think @Sierra went to quite some lengths to seal a sliding door for his HT. I may have him mixed up with another long time member though.

 

If the plaster is not in yet I'd be looking to do a massive amount of ceiling insulation. You'll still get bass transference through the building frame regardless but will help with higher frequencies. My daughter is above my HT and and as she gets older and going to bed later it is making it increasingly difficult to use our HT at decent volume. I have to use compression and reduced my sub outputs by 5db. If I could do it again I'd put a shed load of insulation in the ceiling.

[blybo]

4 minutes ago, hopefullguy said:

hmm maybe 120" scoped screen which is 105"?? 16:9 at a guess

130" scope is 103" 16:9

[hopefullguy]

ok thanks... just thinking of the gaming and tv side of things with eye to screen at imo what could turn out to be sub 3m.

[mekky]

4 minutes ago, blybo said:

If the plaster is not in yet I'd be looking to do a massive amount of ceiling insulation

Plaster all done (we're doing our PCI tomorrow actually, so potentially keys this week).

 

We got them to put their highest available option (R3.1 110mm soundbreak accoustic glasswool batts) in the ceiling/walls, so just matter of it actually being done properly (never know with project builders till we're in).

 

4 minutes ago, blybo said:

130" scope is 103" 16:9

Yeh, the 127" scope was about 100" 16:9 in my calculations as well. Going into this, I was expecting 100" to 110" at the maximum for a 16:9 screen, however with the theatre builder, there was a price option for a 120" 16:9 that was "doable" in the room.

 

Seating will probably be 2.5-3m away from the screen.

[Sierra]

7 hours ago, blybo said:

I think @Sierra went to quite some lengths to seal a sliding door for his HT. I may have him mixed up with another long time member though.

 

Wasn't me this time @blybo ... alas I don't have a HT setup.

[Quark]

7 hours ago, blybo said:

I think @Sierra went to quite some lengths to seal a sliding door for his HT. I may have him mixed up with another long time member though.

 

2 minutes ago, Sierra said:

Wasn't me this time @blybo ... alas I don't have a HT setup.

It might be my efforts here you're thinking of @blybo Not as good an outcome as a solid hinged door, but much better than standard sliding doors.

 

 

[Guest DrSK]

You need to take a serious look at your ceiling design if there is a bedroom above it. 

 

People have mentioned insulation which is a secondary consideration. The main is how much mass and what gaps to the floor above. I have 2 layers of 16mm plaster board suspended on a frame (to decouple from the joists) with 450mm air gap (limited by joist dimensions and finished ceiling height) filled with insulation to 19mm timber floors. This still isn't enough to run a sub and get good isolation, my mains at 35Hz, with some output at 25Hz can still shake the couch in the lounge above in movies during LFE, very easy to get resonances unless you have concrete slab above you. This needs some design, otherwise you will have conflict between the HT and the bedroom. My walls are brick downstairs. 

 

This also assumes you don't cut holes in the ceiling for in ceiling speakers and downlights without further boxing. Downlights require acoustic rated covers, use LED for low heat and there are some UK import options. In ceiling speakers, boxing needs design for speaker response and also the high pressures you will get this close to the rear of a speaker and from boxing it.

 

You also need to consider flanking paths into your walls and transmitted up to your bedroom. Again mass and insulation is key. 

 

Sliding doors are not great, but if you have some other doors further down a hallway etc, shut these too. 

 

All junctions between plasterboard, floors etc need to be sealed to get a rated wall. Eg download CSR Redbook for detailing. 

 

If you are running ducted air, you will also need to consider sound travelling to the bedroom down ducting from the HT.  I'm running separate ducting that uses a break out subfloor space with flexiduct to dump the LF before it gets near the rest of the home AC. 

 

It is very unlikely the HT will be inaudible in the bedroom even with good design. At least make sure things don't resonate and are at a reasonable level.

 

I'd get some proper design for this. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by DrSK