ErinH's theater... finally it's come to fruition!

ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
About 6 years ago my wife and I built a new home. I wired up the bonus room for HT use and it was gonna be awesome! Theeeennnnnn.... the first mortgage payment came in and I realized the HT wasn't going to happen.

We sold the house a few years later and re-built. I, again, made the bonus room purposed for HT. We moved in last July. Since then I've been saving pennies and going back and forth with gear. Ultimately winding up building my own towers (you can view the build thread here). In a somewhat rash move, I pulled the trigger on the projector and screen. Then I went selling a ton of stuff to try to recoup the money so my wife wouldn't kill me. ;)

I'm now almost finished with the room. Speakers are built, amp rack is built, everything is wired up and making music. I still have some things here and there to do. Obviously the screen still needs to be mounted to the wall (110" fixed screen). I need to add acoustic panels here and there. Still need to configure the Rane DSPs and get the sound system EQ'd and all that jazz. etc, etc, etc. But, I can do all that as I go. The important part is that I've finally got all the major pieces to the puzzle. I am pscyched!

My 3.5 yo has requested Beauty and the Beast as our first movie. I'm looking forward to watching some "daddy" movies with some b-b-b-b-b-b-bass. ;)
Just wanted to share my excitement. I know there are many guys here who have some killer setups. Glad I'm able to finally join in the ranks of a fellow HT dude.


Just in case anyone cares, here's the specifics:
Room size: Approx 17x26x8 with 5ft knee-walls.
Source: Oppo BDP-103 (feeds directly in to Rane DSPs). AppleTV or DirecTV feed in to the HDMI input as a 2nd source.
Projector: Epson 8350 (refurb)
Screen: Visual Apex 110" (got a good package deal)
Front L/R Speakers: 3-way Active with Kef concentric and Scan 10" powered off Crown amps and processed with Rane RPM26Z[/URL]
Additional Processing: Rane RPM88 to process sides, center, and subs
Center: Kef R200c
Surrounds: Kef Q100 on wall-mounts
Subs: JL Audio E112



Here's a couple pictures taken with the cell phone.

Speakers are in place and wired up with the rack back in the closet.






Got the PJ mounted. Didn't have time to assemble the screen but I couldn't resist throwing the image on the wall just to see what it would be like. Hope to have the screen up by Friday for our first movie night. :)

 
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Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
Hey Erin,

Very nice setup! Looks like the R-series midrange driver in your L/Rs, yes? I'd like to build (well, have built :D) something like that for my theater.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
Yep. It is the R-series. You used the same driver in a build? Curious how you got it. They aren't exactly sold to the public as I'm sure you know. ;)
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
Right now I have the following crossovers:
Scan Midbass - HPF: None. LPF: 480hz, LR4.
Kef Mid - HPF: 480hz, LR4. LPF: 2.8khz, LR4.
Kef Tweeter - HPF: 2.8khz, Bessel 18dB.

This stuff gets STUPID loud and incredibly clean. I hit 106dB full range at about 8 feet listening distance and the speakers didn't even flinch. These are just downright impressive. I'm looking forward to tweaking the crossovers further and dialing it in once I determine the final placement. But for now with the 'out of the box' crossovers, it's just scary good.


Here's a better pic of the amp rack, when it was in the main room for testing:

 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
I actually used the Q100's driver which was harvested from a pair I picked up for cheap. I am curious how you got your hands on a spare set from the R series though since harvesting from that line wouldn't be cheap.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
I actually used the Q100's driver which was harvested from a pair I picked up for cheap. I was actually curious how you got your hands on a spare set from the R series since harvesting from that line wouldn't be cheap.
aaaahhhhh. gotcha. I do a lot of testing of drivers so with that comes some networking abilities. I'd rather not divulge the info on how I obtained them. But, I'm just happy I did. You can see my tests of the raw drivers here: http://medleysmusings.com/kef-r300-midrange-drive-unit-testing/
 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
No worries ;) Big fan of your site by the way; I've been following your measurements for a little while now.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
Forgot to mention the amp breakdown...
Amps:
Front Mains: Crown DriveCore XLS2500 (midbass), XLS2000 (midrange), XLS1500 (tweeters)
Center channel: Crown XLS1500, bi-amped
Sides: Crown XLS1500
Subs: Built-in
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
Screen is up! (No pun intended)

Need to calibrate the PJ but we are really excited about the picture out of the box.

Tomorrow night will be our first movie night. Woot woot!







Had to throw in The Dark Knight to make sure the subs worked. ;)

 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
To black out the window in a pinch I used some black drop plastic. Looks ugly but it gets the job done.


I went upstairs this morning to see how the room looked this morning and it was pitch black. Sweet!

Had to take one last picture before heading off to work...
 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
Good morning Erin,

I do have one question about your setup. Obviously you've got the knowhow and you don't seem to mind getting your hands dirty, so what drove your decision to go with the JL subs as opposed to DIY? I understand size was a priority, though something multiples of something like the TC Sounds LMS-R in 12" or 15" would seem to fit the bill.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
it was a combo of a few things: time - I had already started on my tower build and knew I wouldn't have the time to do what I wanted. In addition, I was burnt out on cutting wood and modeling drivers. I didn't really want to go down that road again at the moment. money - I picked the pair of JLs up for a VERY good price. It was too good to pass up. performance - size of the enclosure was important but not the most important factor. that said, the size coupled with the output potential made it an easy choice. I'm a fan of JL products all around. High quality engineering and great customer support. I run all JL HD amplifiers in my car. The features on the amp were a plus; the variable phase being the most important to me which allows to really dial in the sub response in the system. I may still go IB sometime in the future but don't see the need currently.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
First official movie night!







And this Eagles Live blu ray is KILLER in surround!

 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
Beauty & the Beast pictures... finally!

First off, we have 6 can lights total upstairs. Staggered evenly in the room. I removed the front two lights because they washed out the screen when on. The remaining four lights can be left on and dimmed about halfway while providing excellent picture and plenty of light to eat snacks with. And then I can dim them all the way down for 'intense' movie watching. ;)

lights off:







then with the lights on but dimmed....







removing the front two lights made a large difference in usability with lights on. really very happy with how the room turned out in this regard.
 
ErinH

ErinH

Audioholic General
There is a SERIOUS overhaul going on with my HT starting early next year. I've decided, after a year of back and forth, I'm going to do a baffle wall. A legit one; as well as I can. The reason why is pretty simple: I want the room to have the 'movie theater' vibe and I also gain some features in the acoustical arena.

I found a local seller with a lot of JBL Pro/Cinema gear that came from a local cinema that closed down a couple years ago. Long story short, I managed to pick up some really, really nice gear which fits perfectly with my plans for the new build.
For about $350, I ultimately walked away with the following:
The gear in general is practically new. The theater purchased all new gear 6 months before closing down and moving to the new, larger theater across town. Some of it was literally never used. I just need to clean the cobwebs off some of it, literally.
Here's a few pics of the haul:







Horns:


15's:




That means the majority of what I have in my HT setup now is going to be posted for sale.
Some of it has been posted already.

Stay tuned...
 

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