Need help with home theater

[Doogs83]

I’m building a home theater man cave, which will be 14x14. I thought I had a plan, but then I started delving deeeeeep into all the things to consider when building a home theater. I’m only doing a 12’ “u” shaped sectional with dual chaises.

I am sound proofing with insulation, mass loaded vinyl, hat channel 2’ on center with 5/8 drywall. That took forever to come to that design.

Then I found out that you then need to control the sound in the room, holy hell, now I have decided on building my own acoustic panels, bass traps, diaphragmatic absorbers, and figure out some sort of diffuser. Check that off the list.

Next I figured I need to upgrade to a projector, which I have decided on the Epson LS500 laser projector, I decided this because the long lamp life, 4K-ish picture, and low input lag, oh and it doesn’t pump out a ton of heat.

Finally I have decided on either a Denon X3700H or a Marantz SR7013 with Polk 265-RT, RC85i in the walls, and RC80i for atmos (which I didn’t know existed until 2 weeks ago) and dual Polk 10” subs. All this is making me broke the more research I do.

Long story short, I read square rooms suck for home theaters and will my setup even work? Should I do a 7.2.4 or 7.2.2 or just a regular 7.2., or a 5.2.4??? Is the choices I made decent, how do I setup the speakers, should I stick with in wall or should I get something else? How far from the wall should the couch be? I can pull it too far away because the short throw projector needs to sit 30” from the screen. I’m so tired of researching.

 

[NINaudio]

Are you getting an acoustically transparent screen? I'd skip the in walls personally, and definitely skip the polk subs. They're rather lackluster. Where will the seating positions be? If there isn't going to be much room behind the couch, it would make the most sense to go 5.2 first. You'd be better off spending the same money on fewer, better speakers than you would on more, less good speakers. What is your budget for speakers/subs?

Infinity has some great value speakers that go on sale frequently. If you're doing a large AT screen I'd go with 3 of the reference 263's behind it.

JBL also has some great sounding speakers for the money in their Studio line that happen to go on sale fairly often.

 

[Doogs83]

Are you getting an acoustically transparent screen? I'd skip the in walls personally, and definitely skip the polk subs. They're rather lackluster. Where will the seating positions be? If there isn't going to be much room behind the couch, it would make the most sense to go 5.2 first. You'd be better off spending the same money on fewer, better speakers than you would on more, less good speakers. What is your budget for speakers/subs?

Infinity has some great value speakers that go on sale frequently. If you're doing a large AT screen I'd go with 3 of the reference 263's behind it.

JBL also has some great sounding speakers for the money in their Studio line that happen to go on sale fairly often.

I plan on putting the speakers behind the screen. I plan on having the couch about 2.5 - 3’ from the back wall. I would like to keep my budget for everything, projector around $3500 and amp, speakers and subs under $3,0000.

 

[NINaudio]

You won't have enough space to properly implement a 7.x solution. I'd recommend to start with just going with a solid 5.1 system. I'd definitely suggest getting either the Infinity speakers recommended above or the JBL Studio series when they go on sale. Sale prices have been as much as 50-60% off historically, so you could get 3 towers for up front for right around $1k, pick up their smaller bookshelves from the same series for $2-300/pair as surrounds, and get yourself one of the 15" ported HSU subwoofers. That should put you right around $2k for speakers and sub, leaving plenty of money for a good AVR (current and fairly recent Denon 3000 or 4000 series will have everything you want/need).