New Home Theater / Media Room and overwhelmed (but excited!)

[Pleady]

Hi All.

I am just starting to overhaul / refinish my basement. I have spent several hours over the past few weeks reading about speaker options, receivers, amplifiers, projectors, projector screens (and viewing distances), theater seating, lighting, acoustic treatments, etc. and I am completely overwhelmed (in a good way). I am definately an

I'm at a loss where to start. Some of the things I *think* I want are

1. Dolby Atmos (5.1.4)
2. A projector
3. AT projector screen (not sure on size)
   
4. in wall / ceiling speakers
5. theater seating for 4 people

A little bit about my space. It's a smaller space - 12' long and 13' wide with one side open. The projector screen needs to go on the 12' side. Ceiling height is 7' 6" to the edge of the joists and will be exposed/painted.

We will use the room for movies, TV, Videogames, listening to music, etc.

Where do I even begin? I assumed I should start with a floor plan but I was even having a hard time finding a simple way / program to use.

My thoughts are all over the place. I'm still quite a ways out from any purchases (need to tear out old gyproc/insulation/walls down to the concrete and re-insulate with 2" foam the rebuild wall in front and insulate/drywall, new subfloor and floor, etc.) I'm in Atlantic Canada and need all the R value I can get

Where do I begin? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated or if there is a post I should be reading but missed please let me know.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to being a part of this community!

Jeff

 

[shadyJ]

If you are planning on tackling everything personally, it will take you awhile to get everything right. It is going to be a time-consuming process, but it still might be fun. I would only give you a few bits of advice at this stage:

• Plan on having dark colors for the room. Dark rug or carpeting, dark ceiling, dark walls. Make the room colors as dark as possible so you get the best picture.
• Don't try to make the picture too big. This will diminish the brightness and lose contrast. Unless you have the budget for a powerful projector, I would keep the picture less than 115"
• Plan for multiple subwoofers, but don't be too rigid with where they should go. Have some freedom of placement available, so you are able to place them where they will grant you the best response.
• Have a way to measure the room modes in bass frequencies; this will let you know the best places for the subwoofers. You will want a USB microphone and measurement software. The good news is that this stuff isn't too expensive. Microphones are less than $100 and the software is free.
• Don't spend a fortune on cables, ie. do not buy over-priced Monster cable. It will not improve anything. Perfectly fine cable can be had at Home Depot.
• Since you intend to go Dolby Atmos, read this Atmos home installation guide carefully, and pay attention to speaker placement with respect to seating. The problem with in-walls and in-ceiling speakers is that, if they are not in a great location, it is terribly inconvenient to relocate them, unlike regular speakers.

 

[3db]

Hi All.

I am just starting to overhaul / refinish my basement. I have spent several hours over the past few weeks reading about speaker options, receivers, amplifiers, projectors, projector screens (and viewing distances), theater seating, lighting, acoustic treatments, etc. and I am completely overwhelmed (in a good way). I am definately an

I'm at a loss where to start. Some of the things I *think* I want are

1. Dolby Atmos (5.1.4)
2. A projector
3. AT projector screen (not sure on size)
   
4. in wall / ceiling speakers
5. theater seating for 4 people

A little bit about my space. It's a smaller space - 12' long and 13' wide with one side open. The projector screen needs to go on the 12' side. Ceiling height is 7' 6" to the edge of the joists and will be exposed/painted.

We will use the room for movies, TV, Videogames, listening to music, etc.

Where do I even begin? I assumed I should start with a floor plan but I was even having a hard time finding a simple way / program to use.

My thoughts are all over the place. I'm still quite a ways out from any purchases (need to tear out old gyproc/insulation/walls down to the concrete and re-insulate with 2" foam the rebuild wall in front and insulate/drywall, new subfloor and floor, etc.) I'm in Atlantic Canada and need all the R value I can get

Where do I begin? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated or if there is a post I should be reading but missed please let me know.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to being a part of this community!

Jeff

Welcome to Audioholics. It's very nice to have another Maritimer on board. Shady has offered some good points.

 

[Pleady]

Thank you for the replies shadyJ and 3db.

I think I was too focused on trying to find a basement app for a sketchup - ended up using homestyler and it worked OK.

I'll keep reading and I'll keep posting

 

[herbu]

1. in wall / ceiling speakers

Jeff,
Please think long and hard about this one. There are so many advantages to free-standing speakers.

 

[Bryce_H]

I did this journey in our old house in 2003 and turned a section of our basement into a dedicated HT. I started with concrete floor and walls and joist on the ceiling. I "documented" most of my journey through questions/posts on Audioholics (do a search on my name). It is good you are starting now as the most important aspect to your theater is not your gear, but the room. The open space on the left side could present some challenges...is there any way you could use more of the room for the theater? Maybe a continuation of the partial wall (the one you currently have the screen on) to close the room up. Then you could have a room lengthwise down the long wall. You could then design the room length (based on ceiling height and width) to eliminate the room modes that Shady mentions - much easier to design them out than try to fix them later. Since the room is in the basement, your primary concern will be sound traveling up through the ceiling to the other floor of the house. Definitely put insulation in the joists to help. If you can uncouple the ceiling drywall from the joists that is even better (I used resilient channeling). The Auralex website has a fair amount of info about room construction. They used to have a whole guide, but I didn't immediately find it...

As a frame of reference, I spent about 6 months designing/researching my HT build (but I had time to kill as the house was being built) and then about 7 month of nights and weekends actually doing the construction (remember I started with bare walls and joists).

Also think about wiring since you are opening the walls. wire for more than you need. I even ran 1.5" conduit around the room so I could change out wiring as my needs changed (i.e. upgraded a projector from component video to HDMI). This also helped when I moved last year as I could take all my cables with me (a 25' HDMI cable even from BlueJeans is not cheap).

Again look through my old posts.

Good luck on your journey.

 

[Pleady]

Jeff,
Please think long and hard about this one. There are so many advantages to free-standing speakers.

Hi herbu! Thanks for the reply.

I have a 15 year old son and a 6 year old daughter that will be using the space (I envision sleepovers happening down there). I'm a little worried about accidents / them being kids so that was one reason I thought about in-wall speakers. I was also thinking that the space is quite small so less stuff on the floor the better.

 

[Pleady]

I did this journey in our old house in 2003 and turned a section of our basement into a dedicated HT. I started with concrete floor and walls and joist on the ceiling. I "documented" most of my journey through questions/posts on Audioholics (do a search on my name). It is good you are starting now as the most important aspect to your theater is not your gear, but the room. The open space on the left side could present some challenges...is there any way you could use more of the room for the theater? Maybe a continuation of the partial wall (the one you currently have the screen on) to close the room up. Then you could have a room lengthwise down the long wall. You could then design the room length (based on ceiling height and width) to eliminate the room modes that Shady mentions - much easier to design them out than try to fix them later. Since the room is in the basement, your primary concern will be sound traveling up through the ceiling to the other floor of the house. Definitely put insulation in the joists to help. If you can uncouple the ceiling drywall from the joists that is even better (I used resilient channeling). The Auralex website has a fair amount of info about room construction. They used to have a whole guide, but I didn't immediately find it...

As a frame of reference, I spent about 6 months designing/researching my HT build (but I had time to kill as the house was being built) and then about 7 month of nights and weekends actually doing the construction (remember I started with bare walls and joists).

Also think about wiring since you are opening the walls. wire for more than you need. I even ran 1.5" conduit around the room so I could change out wiring as my needs changed (i.e. upgraded a projector from component video to HDMI). This also helped when I moved last year as I could take all my cables with me (a 25' HDMI cable even from BlueJeans is not cheap).

Again look through my old posts.

Good luck on your journey.

Thanks for the reply Bryce_H. I dug through some of your forum posts and your questions - they will definitely help. As a side question, do you still subscribe to any magazines? I love having paper in my hands vs reading everything on the computer.

I have also updated my floorplan to show a couple immovable objects - I really should have labelled them the first time! With the immovable objects, I don't think I have much choice in screen / speaker locations. I think it's either one of 2 walls.

 

[Bryce_H]

Can you make that black bar an actual wall? It would create a divider for the space and would help with your front sound stage.

I still subscribe to Sound and Vision, but only because it is so cheap. I have collected articles over the last 20 years and keep a binder of the ripped out articles. The magazine "Home Theater Builder" was short lived, but had great articles. You might try a library. Most of the print articles are on equipment and not the build or the room.

Feel free to keep pinging the forum with questions or me directly.

 

[Pleady]

I spent ~30 mins with the wife last night trying to convince her that a full wall would be better - no go She wants the natural light from the 1 window to get the whole space (when not blacked out while watching a movie, etc.) Is there a non permanent solution I could use i.e. some kind of pulldown divider / screen? I haven't researched that piece yet.

My wife also wanted to leave the ceiling unfinished and just paint it. The HT room is below the kitchen so sound transfer to the rest of the house is not too much of an issue. I am more worried about sound quality being affected. I came across a picture of drywall drop ceiling. I was thinking I could use 2" XPS instead of the drywall. Everything would be painted the same colour and I wouldn't lose any ceiling height.

Have you seen anyone else on the forums use this ceiling method before? I searched but didn't really see anything.

 

[3db]

Believe it or not, an open ceiling would offer less reflections than a drywalled ceiling. Although dry wall ceilings look nicer, I'd rather go for a drop ceiling. It offers many advantages over a dry wall ceiling. Easier access for changing wiring and it offers better acoustics with less reflection than a dry wall ceiling.

 

[Pleady]

Thanks 3db.
We were originally going to paint it all out, but I did a small mockup with some scraps of drywall, some L moulding and now my wife likes it lol. She is pretty convinced this is the way to go and she likes that the 2 tapered ends of the drywall meet up and give a clean edge. There is about 14" to 15" between joists so I can get about 6 tiles per sheet of drywall.

I talked about using 1" XPS as well and she might be game for that too. I wonder if there are any obvious advantages using one over the other?

I can insulate with Roxul using either one (if needed and would make a difference)