5.5m x 4.1m Theatre room construction

[dreamz]

Hi Guys,

 

Finally we are about to start our new build which has a dedicated room for theatre. Room size is 5.5m long and 4.1m wide. Concrete floor and 3 of the sides has concrete walls as its a basement. only one side is gyproack, room height 2.5m. 

I would need some help with bulkhead design, speaker, sub, equipment placement, riser design(height, lenght) for the second row etc. I am looking to put a 130" screen. 

There is a cabinet at the back corner which i am thinking to put the audio equipment to have a seemless look at the front. 

 

[hopefullguy]

some very basic thoughts, remember just thoughts

 

1. sliding doors are a no go. 1 single door, can be bigger than normal, opening out not into the room. where will the surround speaker sit with 2 rows and a sliding door?

 

2. 2 rows of what sort of seating in a 5.5m room. if those silly huge soft theatre chairs it wont work, back row will be against the back wall. you could do recliners for the front and a long couch on a riser. this allows for laying down, kids who dont care about sound etc. etc.

 

3. allow space for 1 of your subs to go behind 2nd row, works well from my use.

 

4. A/T diy screen for the centre speaker. the front 2 can sit on the outside and that way you wont get sucked into the "place the speaker under the screen and use wedges to aim it at your seated ear level" it is not effective as behind the screen tweeter in line with the fronts. most likely due to 2nd row the fronts will be raised off ground to get tweeter higher than bottom 1/4 of screen.

 

5. what speaker set up are you running? 5.2/7.2? i see bose cubes ?

 

6. i would shelf mount the pj but not sure you have a place for the shelf. easier to physically set up and usually quieter.

 

7. riser at about 330mm total, wood,top,underlay,carpet. one step up on each side if possible. remember to allow enough space to walk on the riser across the front row.

 

anyway some basic thoughts

 

 

[dreamz]

Sorry, it will be a 11.2 speaker setups. all paradigm floorstanding, book shelves, ceiling, subs etc. 

[hopefullguy]

oh ok, it gets a bit confusing as these days with atmos its normal to see a system such as a 7.2.4. i see your yammy is the original style set up so the 11.2 would apply.

 

i feel it will be a bit tight trying for those 2 rear surround speakers with 5.5m and 2 rows of seating. mine is 6.5 and i just get them in but not much value to the front row i would think ( i sit in the back row)

 

but there are many many rooms with a full surround set up and the 2nd row is on or close to the back wall. avs forums is worth a search.

[dreamz]

decided to just use 1 row. i think thats better for better audio experience. if kids wants they can put some bean bags at the front

[dreamz]

and doing a 7.2.4 setup. prep pro will be upgraded

[hopefullguy]

i agree the one row will be good, can i suggest you still do a riser as it will help give that cinema feel and you can look down on those kids in bean bags haha.

 

as a 1 rower i would also suggest researching near field location for that 2nd sub. i know many place 2 at the front but placing that 2nd,  facing the back of your seated torso and within the size of the woofer ie: 12" woofer place sub 12" or less, can be a good experience. (from my use anyway)

 

an A/T screen might still work best even if 1 row as sometimes speakers based on normal height position in relation to a large screen may be better slightly raised. but this comes down to experimentation, something an A/T screen can allow. but of course it does take away space from the room length so that needs to be factored in.

 

i would also suggest researching furnishings and colour schemes as not everyone likes a bat cave yet not that many HT rooms actually do that (it seems mostly single people get away with it haha)

 

also room acoustics will need consideration. this can come in many forms but personally i tried diy panels and gave up. not due to their usefulness but i found i had no need. once my 4x6.5x3m solid rendered brick walled room got underlay, carpet, seating and wall/full height thick lined curtains all around it didnt need any other treatment. i did paint and spent a fair bit of coin on it only to find that paint for me wasnt theatre like, not the "feel" i was looking for. so work out your HT theme is important, old, new,minimalist, clean lines,themed etc etc.

 

but i would still do the riser no matter what

[dreamz]

thats a good idea to have a small riser may be one step 190mm high and about 1800mm deep riser. i have some corner bass traps and foams i will be putting in from my old theatre. No AT screen and it kills room depth. centre will be angled. subs will be from the front as i need 4-5 seats minimum at the back. 

[Hilltop Hippy]

I'd put the rack in that storage room with its own AC. Put a hush box in that too for the projector

[cdave]

1 hour ago, Hilltop Hippy said:

I'd put the rack in that storage room with its own AC. Put a hush box in that too for the projector

Ditto 

I'd have the electronics accessible from both side so you can easily walk into the store room to wire the back of the electronics and access the front of the electronics in the cinema room. The projector projects from the store room through a window keeping  the noise and heat out of the cinema.

Ventilation to both the cinema and store will be important.

[cdave]

You may find this home  theater design tool very useful 

 

https://www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/how-to-use-the-audio-advice-home-theater-design-tool

Edited November 6, 2022 by cdave

[almikel]

On 02/11/2022 at 9:22 AM, dreamz said:

Concrete floor and 3 of the sides has concrete walls as its a basement. only one side is gyproack, room height 2.5m. 

You'll need to build in some compliance to the rigid room boundaries to prevent having an echo chamber at low frequencies.

Likely multiple options:

• furring channel on whisper clips with fluffy insulation behind ordinary Gyprock may provide enough compliance to soak up low bass
• 2 layers of Gyprock with Greenglue with the same furring channel on whisper clips with fluffy insulation behind will soak up more low bass

IME rigid walled rooms are a nightmare to treat from a bass perspective with "in room" treatment.

 

It's much better to make rigid rooms more compliant during the build phase, so the room boundaries soak up/absorb low bass rather than reflect it back into the room.

 

Mike