Setting up what I can with what I got.

[Tetrapod]

Hi all, First post here.

I recently moved up to college and into a duplex. This means that setting up my theater needs to be a.) cheap and b.) with as little possible PERMANENT change to the environment as I can seeing as how I neither own the property nor do they approve of big projects. I have a basement space laid out that is 30 ft. long X 11.5 ft wide. I can only use 15ft of the 30 and cannot hang any drywall to make the length 15 instead of 30 (was going to use a thick curtain or something). There is drywall hung on one side to cut the basement in half, and the other side is cement. The Floors are cement with a VERY thin carpet (no padding) laid over it. I will give my equipment list at the end of the post.

1.)I was thinking of taking a thin plywood panels and covering it with maybe like a quilt batting type of material and covering that with some fabric. then putting these on all walls. And a similar solution for the ceiling.

2.) placement of speakers and subwoofer. I will be running a 6.1 system.

3.) to use spikes or not to use spikes on the speakers and subwoofer considering that it is cement with a very thin carpeting over the top of the cement.

My equipment (nothing impressive):
Hitachi 51" F500 A
Pioneer Elite VSX54TX Receiver
Rotel RB985 Power Amp
Pioneer Elite DV47AI DVD player
DirecTV H10 HD box
Monster HTPS 3600 Clean power
2 Infinity Beta50 Main speakers
Infinity C360 Center channell
3 Infinity ES250 Rears
Infinity CSW10 Subwoofer
----
Monster Z2 Biwire 10ft Main cables
Monster Z2 Center cable
Monster Z series Subwoofer Cable
Monster Z series Video and Audio interlinks.


Thanks any and everyone who puts some input into this. Any help is appreciated as I am not very good at room acoustics and setup for proper acoustics.

Thanks All,
Bill

 

[jaxvon]

That's a pretty nice list of equipment! That Monster stuff ain't cheap, and neither is the Rotel amp.

Have you checked out this article?

 

[Mr. Lamb Fries]

what do you mean nothing impressive???

sounds like that system will rock! way too nice for a college set-up...watch out for noise violation tickets, I got my share during college!

About room acoustics, sounds like your on the right track with the plywood to enclose the room. make it as solid as possible w/out investing too much $$$. youll have plenty of that when you get your own house! Spikes or no spikes shouldnt make that much of a difference. some might argue but it shouldn be that noticable. if you want BOOMier base, then put the sub in the corner. i would spend time moving the speakers around and finding the sound you like. be carefull...and remember to put things out of the way...I lost a loty of equipment in college because my drunk friends thought all my stereo equipment were coasters, chairs and on a few occasions...toilets!
Good luck and have fun fine tuning!