Albert's Home Theater!

I can vividly remember siting in a Business class in college, daydreaming as usually, and looking up at the Dell projector on the ceiling my professor was using for his lecture PowerPoint and thinking "You know if that thing can take the VGA out from the computer I bet it can handle video via RCA too?"

I didn't know it right away but in that instance I had got "The Sickness". I started trolling online A/V forums and blogs to see if such was possible and it was! and people were doing it! At that point i stood up and like John Belushi in the Blues Brothers standing in the church with Elwood, divine light from heaven shining down I began screaming "I HAVE SEEEEEN THE LIIIIGGGHHHTTTT!

Well that was about six years ago. Two years ago after years of waiting and knowing the possibilities my wife and I bought an Optima HD70 from Best Buy and hooked it up to and an old Bose system from my xbox. An extra bedroom we had became Projector Central and the need for a dedicated room became evident. So work on my bonus room above my garage began.

These pics are from around Christmas 06.

Front wall. Some old sony towers helping to pass the time. Green tape tentative screen location


Rear of room. Da-Lite Perma-wall frame laying on floor.


Rear corner. Green tape is tentative media cabinet location. Green tape on floor is possible bar location.


Stairwell leading to rest of home.


Future mini door to access rest of attic and rear of media cabinet.


I've been trolling these forums for a while now picking up great information. Thanks everyone! Thought it was time to start letting everyone know what I'd been doing. Allot has been slowly happening over the last two years up there. My wife and I have been doing everything ourselves on the weekends. I'll get some new pics up on the next post in a little bit.

Ok just took these photos this morning. I'm really close. All thats left is finish the stage, put down carpet, and stain the steps to finish the room.

Front of the room. The black curtains are just pinned up to be out of my way. they will lay down to the floor.


better shot of unfiniished stage


Rear


Riser for the second row of seats


Mini door to attic with 5/8 sheet rock on back to help with sound isolation.


Projector Optima HD70


Finished component cabinet. Little bit of stone age tech in there but hey it works until I get the real stuff.


Da-Lite screen in Da-Mat finish

Ramsond 24,000 BTU Mini Split Heat Pump. Its about 30 db. when it runs but its very efficient and the room is well insulated so it doesn't run much. Might kick on for 5 minutes an hour.


IR Lutron Light switch. going to add more lights and modes in the future.


Few wiring shots of speaker runs. Monoprice 14 AWG


Ladder to above the ceiling for future upgrades


This is the carpet swatch. It looks brighter in the pic than it really is. Its Royal Plum, I think. Maggie the Basset Hound Helped pic it.

The insanity! Harmony 1000 to eventually take over.


Got a box of goodies from Monoprice Thursday.


And a box of more goodies from Sounds Unlimited in Danville, VA on Friday.

And now to the good stuff

Wife and I made many trips to many retailers over the past few months. We listened to a lot of speakers and spoke to a lot of salesmen. One of our last stops was to Sounds Unlimited in Danville, VA to tryout some Klipsch RF-82's which we had already auditioned once at Crutchfield's store in Charlottesville, VA. For the record Crutchfield online is great the store sux big time! The room they had all the speakers in was a triangle. Most of which the walls were glass. The two speakers i wanted to hear Klipsch and Polk's were hooked up but one speaker from each set was in the middle of the room and other was in a far corner of this triangle room. Yeah you can only image. I asked the guy there about hearing some surround and a sub to which i was informed none of the subs sitting around the room where hooked up he didn't know how to do it. After some tunes i asked to see some blue ray to hear the movie sound to which i was then shown an animated disney movie. Not one of the good Pixar movies one of the old school disney cartoons. Not the experience i was hoping for.

Then finally to Sounds Unlimited and wow this place has it together. Everyone was friendly and knowledgeable. The guy i worked with was Chad and he was on the ball. Anything i asked about he knew exactly what i was talking about. One of my pet peeves is knowing more about a product than the guy trying to sell it to me. Anything i asked to see or hear within a few button pushes or switching a couple of wires was up and running. They have an excellent custom theater to audition the big stuff in. Chad had no problem loading my CD I brought into the player and handing me the remote and saying "Go at it." oh and I did. Employees and customers alike started moving to far ends of the building as the theater began to shake and quake as I pushed the RF-82 as high as i could stand it and I could tell they weren't even close to quitting.

An hour and half later of brain rattling sound my wife and i were swiping the credit card.

Heres what we got:
Klipsch References RF-82's L/R
RC-64 center, 1.25 tweeter, 4 - 6.5 inch cerametallic woofers, 61 POUNDS!
RS-62 surrounds
RB-61 rear 7.1
RSW-10D Sub one front firing and one rear passive 10 inch woofer

And heres the most amazing Christmas tree I have ever had my life.


What is not pictured under the tree is the Onkyo TX-SR876 we got to run those bad boys and the Panamax 5300 EX power conditioner.

When we went back to pick up all the speakers employees from all over the store came out to help load everything and the stores owner even came out to introduce himself and say "Thank you for shopping here". I was thoroughly impressed. They far surpassed the customer service and product knowledge of any other store I've ever been to, Best Buy, Circuit City, Crutchfield, Tweeter, not even comparable. Anyone buying audio or video within a few hours of Sounds Unlimited in Danville, VA its worth the drive to check em' out.

Oh! if my christmas tree only looked like that before I bought my speakers.

Got the front stage finished this evening. I filled the corners where the mains and sub would sit with play sand wrapped in 6 mill plastic. Regular insulation was used everywhere else double stuffed. I would have rather used sand everywhere but the room is on the second floor and sand to fill the whole stage is a lot of static load. Especially since my double garage doors are below on the same wall with an LVL spanning the gap.

A little resonating from the stage i can handle, explaining to my wife why the theater fell on her car.... err

i like the ribboned speaker packages

that's a christmas i'd like to have!

Beautiful thread, thanks for sharing your progress!!

Great implementation on the whole design, great job. Are you still putting the bar in?

If you are I'm looking forward to seeing how you tie it all in.

Nice, can't wait to see the final product. That's going to be one heck of a movie room.

I think I will be using some of this for my future plans. Fantastic job!

ThA tRiXtA said:

Great implementation on the whole design, great job. Are you still putting the bar in?

Click to expand...

yes i am. The bar will probably be one of the last pieces of the puzzle. Still got to shell out to buy the berber carpet and theater seating. So I'll have to wait for the bank account to heal up for a while.

... also i find it usefull to spread out my purchases. Wife see me spending money like its free and I might start an a trend I can't stop.

abjonesiii said:

yes i am. The bar will probably be one of the last pieces of the puzzle. Still got to shell out to buy the berber carpet and theater seating. So I'll have to wait for the bank account to heal up for a while.

... also i find it usefull to spread out my purchases. Wife see me spending money like its free and I might start an a trend I can't stop.

Click to expand...

That's where I am at right now on my dedicated room. The carpet installer is backed up on jobs till almost Feb 2009 so I am in the lurch right now with all my gear and stuff. I have 3 couches, a load of tools and supplies, 2 MFW-15's, a whole 7.1 theater setup in my living room and my onkyo TX-SR875 sitting on my kitchen table.

My wife wants to wring my neck lol... it's good for her though. Suffering builds character

Keep us posted with lots of pictures... I only wish I had the room for a bar in my theater build.

Got something else in mail today! Can't forget to protect the sub.

Very very nice... Great work. I remember the "seeing the light" experience. Indeed a disease of sorts. I like the equipment you picked as well... Will make a great theater. Oh, and the RC64... its a beast and one of the best centers i've had the pleasure of owning/listening to. I'm sure you've got this in the plans, but those horns will greatly greatly greatly benefit from some room treatments.

adwilk said:

I'm sure you've got this in the plans, but those horns will greatly greatly greatly benefit from some room treatments.

Click to expand...

Actually, the controlled dispersion of horn loaded speakers greatly reduce the effects of room interactions than that of conventional direct radiating speakers. Keep this in mind when placing acoustical treatments for primary reflection points. They tend to be far further into the room than direct radiating designs. The mirror method is not accurate with horns.

Nice work. Keep us posted on your progress. I am anxious to see the finished product and where the speakers finally land. Placement is everything, especiall the subwoofer.

I would wish you a Happy Holiday Season but I can see that you are going to without any well wishes from me!!!!

westcott said:

Actually, the controlled dispersion of horn loaded speakers greatly reduce the effects of room interactions than that of conventional direct radiating speakers. Keep this in mind when placing acoustical treatments for primary reflection points. They tend to be far further into the room than direct radiating designs. The mirror method is not accurate with horns.!

Click to expand...

Hey now thats good information, thanks!

A couple new things

Alright so Christmas has finally come and gone. I had planned on posting some updates before now but forgive me i've been in audio bliss for the last week and incpable of leaving my reciever.

Quick couple of pics from Christmas morning.

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and the aftermath...


The painter came and staind the steps on Wensday. I ordered the carpet Friday, it should be here in a week and the installer said he could get to me in about 2 weeks.

so what to do for 2 more weeks... what to do? hmmm.... Oh I know HOOK EVERYTHING UP!

Fornt Stage Klipsch RF-82 towers, RC-64 center, and RSW-10 sub.

Right wall RS-62 and component cabinet.


A few shoots on the stage looking back. I build my own custom mounting blocks on the ceiling to hang the 30 pound RB-61 rears. Excuse all the junk in the back still work in progress.


I mounted the 61s' upside down to try and get the horns closer to ear level. I read somewhere its suppose to make a difference when ceiling moutneing speakers so I tried it. Sounds good.