Placing a home theater in an asymmetrical room

[kuru]

I need help placing a home theater in an asymmetrical room with a wall on one side, and an open space opposite to it.

Here's a plan of the room with the system's information.

I'd rather not build a wall on the left as the window is the only source of natural light to the rest of the room. Can I mitigate the difference by placing absorbing or reflective materials on the right wall? Do I need to push the system further to left away from the wall? I can't really push that further as I need space for a workstation between the home theater and the kitchen. I'm not sure what to do.

I still haven't moved in all of of my furniture so unfortunately I can't live test it. But it'll be easier for me to make and propose changes now while I still have the help of a couple of builders.

Thanks!

 

[XEagleDriver]

Kuru,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for providing the diagram.
Your Denon AVR has Audyssey MultEQ XT32 which should be able to adequately adjust for the wall vs no-wall configuration to the room.
- IMHO, your room is not that sonically challenging and after running Audyssey it should sound quite good.
Cheers,
XEagleDriver

 

[kuru]

Kuru,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for providing the diagram.
Your Denon AVR has Audyssey MultEQ XT32 which should be able to adequately adjust for the wall vs no-wall configuration to the room.
- IMHO, your room is not that sonically challenging and after running Audyssey it should sound quite good.
Cheers,
XEagleDriver

Thank you very much! This is my first AV system setup and I wouldn't be able to test it until I complete the moving process and the builders leave.

You made life much easier for me thanks again!

Cheers

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

Your current placement looks fine, but I think I’d center everything on the wall where the screen is instead of having everything pushed leftward. The sub will probably perform much better closer to the corner.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[kuru]

Your current placement looks fine, but I think I’d center everything on the wall where the screen is instead of having everything pushed leftward. The sub will probably perform much better closer to the corner.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Hi Wayne,

I'm trying to understand your comment. You mean by centering everything on bottom wall as in reshuffling the workstation and kitchen to be facing the bottom wall, or did you mean moving the AV system itself to the center of the wall.

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

I meant the system itself. Just noticed that you can’t move it over because of the work station. If that’s the case, don’t worry about it. All of us who don’t have dedicated rooms have to make some compromises. You might get some extra lows from the left front speaker (the one near the corner), but Audyssey should be able to take care of that.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[kuru]

Good to hear, hopefully it all works out!

Have a nice day, and thanks again.

 

[j_garcia]

Put it in there first and see how it goes. I've had plenty of odd rooms and it just takes some experimentation usually to dial it in for a given room.

 

[BMXTRIX]

What projector are you intending to use?

There is no issue with the window as long as you get some decent curtains/shades for it that can completely block out light when you want the best image on screen.

It looks like your viewing distance is only about 9' or so from eyes to screen in that room. I'm not entirely sure, that in such a space, I would go with a projector (and I love projectors) due to the shorter room design and the single window that I probably wouldn't really want to close the shades on.

A 80" flat panel or similar would give a very good impression in such a space and would be enjoyable as well.

That said, if you are going front projection, what type of projector do you intend to use? Do you have wiring in place already? Power at the ceiling, and HDMI run? How about conduit for when you need a different cable or the one you have breaks?

 

[Montucky]

A 80" flat panel or similar would give a very good impression in such a space and would be enjoyable as well.

80"? Pshhh! 100" Z9D or bust! https://www.sony.com/electronics/televisions/xbr-z9d-series

 

[kuru]

What projector are you intending to use?

There is no issue with the window as long as you get some decent curtains/shades for it that can completely block out light when you want the best image on screen.

It looks like your viewing distance is only about 9' or so from eyes to screen in that room. I'm not entirely sure, that in such a space, I would go with a projector (and I love projectors) due to the shorter room design and the single window that I probably wouldn't really want to close the shades on.

A 80" flat panel or similar would give a very good impression in such a space and would be enjoyable as well.

That said, if you are going front projection, what type of projector do you intend to use? Do you have wiring in place already? Power at the ceiling, and HDMI run? How about conduit for when you need a different cable or the one you have breaks?

I got the short throw Optoma GT1080Derbe that Amazon accidentally shipped for me and told me to keep it (I ordered one for my brother, they shipped two and told me to keep both) hence why I went with the projector screen route, it's cheaper to just buy a fixed projector screen and call it a day. I'll be mostly using it for games and movies. I tried it with a couple of videogames and it was good enough.

I have double heavy curtains that block almost all light without any effort. Besides, except for one day a week, I'm rarely home when the sun is up due to work, so I'll almost always use the system at night.

Here's the diagram again but with imperial units

The distance seating and screen is about 10' and I can push it to about 11' while still leaving 1' between the surround speakers and the back wall, otherwise the area behind the seating is dead and I can push it back as far as I want (12' total)

I have gypsum board ceiling about 280cm (9.1') high. so I can easily run wires though, I already bought in ceiling rated cables. If I can (i.e. within budget) I'll remodel the ceiling and make it a flat surface atleast around AV system (now it has decorations and cornices). The room have power plugs at the top of the wall behind the screen, and one blow it at the bottom of the wall, so hopefully it's easy to run conduits though the wall and pull them from under the screen to the projector. But tbh I'm not sure how replacing the cables once I'm done will be like. Overall I haven't given wiring that much thought honestly (I know such an an amateur mistake xd)

I'm also not sure on the best way to run the speaker wires around the room.

Edit: I also forgot to add to the diagram, but there's a high 3'-3" by 3'-2" window in the kitchen. I'm thinking of making the wall to it's right a half wall to allow more light to the room, and move the workstation to the bottom wall next to the screen (as bonus it's easier to connect cables to the AVR)

 

[BMXTRIX]

80"? Pshhh! 100" Z9D or bust! https://www.sony.com/electronics/televisions/xbr-z9d-series

That may be a BIT out of budget! I like your thinking though.

Can you imagine 10 years ago how much an 80" display would cost? Now they are under $3,000. Under $2K if you go to 75". I just picked up a 85" model for $3K. Crazy low prices compared to a $60,000 Sony 100". But, man... If I had unlimited cash, that would so be on my wall.

 

[BMXTRIX]

A free projector of decent home theater quality is certain a good starting point for your budget. Pairing it with a grey screen may be of some use, and at 106" diagonal, you should have plenty of light output to do well in there. While the Optoma isn't as nice as the BenQ short throw model, it is still well received and does a good job.

Unless you intend to paint the walls dark, I would likely go with a grey screen to improve black levels with that model. They still won't be perfect, but a .8 gain (or so) grey screen will help.

The screen size/viewing distance looks appropriate. About 10" of diagonal for each foot of viewing distance is common practice. You are pretty much right on.

Two things to consider at some point: Lighting and wiring.

Wiring I've already gone over, so it's in your head. Also be aware that with front projection, there is absolutely no reason to have all your equipment (and flashing lights) at the front of the room. They can be hidden off to the side, or back of the room to keep things out of the way and put all your attention on screen.

For lighting, you can really have a lot of ambient light on while still enjoying the game on TV, you just don't want any flood lights on. That is, non-directional lights that just fill a space with light will significantly impact on-screen quality, while directional spot lights will give you lights to move around, read, eat, etc. with minimal on-screen impact. See: http://www.avintegrated.com/lighting.html for examples.

 

[kuru]

This is a lot of useful information that I'll keep in mind, so thank you very much!

The BenQ model looks nice but I feel my next step would be 4k HDR gaming. hopefully in a year or two we get some nice +80" options within budget.

Unfortunately following some (flawed?) advice I went with a white 1:1 gain screen from Silver Ticket. I usually play in total darkness even with bright monitors, and I'm planning on painting the walls darker so hopefully the viewing will be decent.

The link will extremely useful while I redesign the room's lighting which I'm on working on right now!


Thanks again, all the tips are much appreciated!

 

[lsiberian]

This is a lot of useful information that I'll keep in mind, so thank you very much!

The BenQ model looks nice but I feel my next step would be 4k HDR gaming. hopefully in a year or two we get some nice +80" options within budget.

Unfortunately following some (flawed?) advice I went with a white 1:1 gain screen from Silver Ticket. I usually play in total darkness even with bright monitors, and I'm planning on painting the walls darker so hopefully the viewing will be decent.

The link will extremely useful while I redesign the room's lighting which I'm on working on right now!


Thanks again, all the tips are much appreciated!

I use a white screen in a white room. It's not ideal, but it's still amazing too me. Be warned projectors can ruin the movie going experience. I know for me I have to sit up front now to really feel like I've gone to the movies.

 

[kuru]

That's awesome to hear! the screen will be delivered tomorrow so I'll have time to try it out my light the blue walls and see how much darker I need to go.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Going dark is a bit of a tradeoff in a family room theater situation. It's all good to have a white screen, and there is no 'ruining' the image from a decent projector at a acceptable screen size as long as you are trying to control ambient light.

So, yes, go with as dark as you are comfortable with within your space. Try to paint the ceiling if you can. But, it's all just recommendations to improve quality.

The photos from my link above were my family room setup and you can see that we used grey carpet and we went dark green and grey on the walls and the ceiling. We certainly got some comments from visitors who were pretty accustomed to renters beige.

I think if anyone has a decent 1080p projector right now, then they absolutely shouldn't change anything up for a few years. We are just starting to see the 4K DLP projectors roll out right now, and this roll out will put pressure on other technologies and manufacturers to severely drop the price of their 4K units to stay in the market. So, I expect we may see a 4K Sony in the next few years drop under $3,000, if not $2K. Epson will likely stay on target as well, and start dropping their 4K units to the prices of their current 1080p projectors.

The next few years will likely follow the very similar progression that we have seen from the switchover to 1080p from 720p projectors. Now is not the time to upgrade, and it will give you a good chance to decide how much you enjoy the front projection experience.

 

[kuru]

Yea it's a great time to have a good 1080 projector, especially as a gamer, no matter how much consoles are trying to make it so, it's really hard to play in 4k @ a decent frame rate, just a year ago these same consoles were struggling to hit 1080p. I have a top pf the line PC and I struggle to hit 2560 with max sittings at a high frame rate in games with new technologies. I'd much rather play in lower resolution but higher res textures or higher frame rates.

I setup my screen today for a quick test and the image seem quite decent! my current walls are not only light in color, but glossy too, so just painting them anything darker in color will be a huge improvement. and after redesigning the lighting I'll also be able to avoid playing in pitch darkness.

Thanks again, I absolutely appreciate all the help and in-depth insights!
And thanks to everyone else too! Glad I joined the right forums. Hopefully after more hands on time with the system I'll be able to join in more advanced discussions.