Completely open options, looking where to start

[CMSTech]

Hello All!

I have been a home theater lover for MANY years! In my current house I have built a nice system. Nothing overly fancy just a 53" Sony Rear Projection and a 5.1 system, DVD, TiVo, Dish.

I am in the VERY beginning stages of building a house. In fact is it so near the start I just yesterday began looking at blueprints.

Anyway, one of the major parts of the house is going to be a dedicated theater room in the basement. I mean a full out room.

The plan is to have the builder of the house finish out the room per my instructions and after I move in to take my time building and installing a system. This is not only for the satisfaction of building it myself but to serve as a hobby as well.

I am pretty well educated on most HT topics. However my pallet has only allowed for a system in a family room so I am pretty much ignorant on the proper basics for a dedicated room. Optimal mins and max of room size, best practices for acoustics, etc.

My plan is to have 10 foot ceilings in the basement and have the builder install a black drop ceiling to facilitate hanging a projector later, running wires, etc.

So my big question is where to start? Since I am just now looking at potential blueprints, I can pretty much do what ever I want, I just need a good reliable source to get some basics. A website? some books? etc.

I am just looking for a good info source that can teach a somewhat knowledgeable HT guy about a topic that he hasn't had the pleasure of exploring yet. A dedicated HT.

Right now I am a sponge soaking up as much as I can so I will take almost any info you can point me to.

Thanks for your tips!

Jason

PS. In my younger days I have built a few houses (meaning not for myself, as a job) and have spent the past 10 years in the electronics/IT/IS field so I am pretty confident that I should be able to build a good system.

 

[sab30]

Hey CMS,

You were me 6 months ago..just built a new home and now that I have just finished the dedicated home theater room all the goods are set to arrive this week..ie projectors, receivers etc. I have found alot of good on-line merchants to deal with at greatly reduced prices. Before I built the room I was told to wire the hell out of it..which I did..7.1 with 2 extra speaker jacks and a jack for an extra sub, you name it. In terms of dimension I read a great article dating back to July 2002 in Home Theater Builders dealing with optimum home theater dimensions. One that has been talked about alot is Sepmeyers ratios which have been used alot by high end HT rooms. It goes like this

Room 1 C XW1.14XL1.139
Room 2 C X 1.28 X L1.54
Room 3 C X 1.6 X2.33

So choose room 2 with 10 ft ceilings

10 X 12.8 ft W X 15.4 wide this with enhanced acoustic panel with provide the best sound possible according to L.W. Sepmeyer

Its great fun when you get to start fresh..it aint cheap but you can save alot through on line retaliers and special orders but ooooh is it going to be worth it !!

 

[CMSTech]

Thanks for the tips!

I am looking forward to this project. In dealing with the whole building a house thing, it is nice to know I will be able to relax and spend some money on a HT!

 

[sab30]

We started building in March 2004 and moved in August 2004. After the adjustment of moving in I got to work on the basement (my area) So it was 4 months of work on weekends but like you say in about 10 days I will be watching movies in a very cool room. This site has been a HUGE help for me and there is a ton of knowledge with mosts more than willing to help. Post everything and anything and you will most likely get an answer.

What city are you building in?

 

[mcwilson]

Once you decide on approximate speaker locations, I'd recommend installing conduits rather than running speaker wire behind the drywall. That gives you more flexibility. And don't forget the subwoofer's conduits. Depending on the size of your room, you might want to consider running the conduits for rear speakers for a 7.1 system. That would give you upgrade flexibility for later.

Also, maybe consider running conduits to a location on the ceiling where you might (one day) mount a projector.

 

[cownd]

We started building in March 2004 and moved in August 2004. After the adjustment of moving in I got to work on the basement (my area) So it was 4 months of work on weekends but like you say in about 10 days I will be watching movies in a very cool room. This site has been a HUGE help for me and there is a ton of knowledge with mosts more than willing to help. Post everything and anything and you will most likely get an answer.

What city are you building in?

So how did it turn out??