Building my first dedicated home theater.

Thread Starter

harry winston

Joined May 17, 2019
1
I am in the process of building my first dedicated home theater.

Below is my current "theater room":


We are remodeling the basement and doing some major construction items:
Moving walls to create a "large" room for the home theater (Optoma UHD60)

Putting in new flooring
Creating a larger window opening for an escape well
Replacing current radiator pipes with PEX so that the pipes can be hidden and the ceiling can be finished

Below is our new floor plan that will be completed in 1-2 months


I wonder if a lower height room is better off as a single row, with an even more substantial screen?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

Could you upload the pictures to this forum using the "Upload a File" button.
The images are broken and they seem to be hosted on an other forum, wich likely does not allow deep linking.

Bertus
 

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Optoma UHD60 4K UHD Home Cinema Projector
projectorpeople.com said:
The UHD60 can project 4K UHD images up to 140 inches, allowingviewers to be in optimum viewing area to enjoy all 4K UHD pixels,from a distance of up to 11 feet. The average 55-75 inch 4K UHD TV simply cannot match this, as viewers typically sit further away from their TV than the optimum viewing area of 4-6 feet. High Dynamic Range, also known as HDR is the true star of the 4K UHD show. HDR leverages REC.2020 wide color gamut and DCI-P3 color gamut coverage to deliver super luminous levels of white, the deepest black levels, and beautifully striking like-life real world color that was previously only possible in the Cinema.
Seen one of these years ago at a Nascar race! (Not this model but a projector) It wasn't bad but the times have changed and technology has gotten better. Don't know if I would go that way but "To each his own".
Anyway's "You can't hide MONEY"
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
I am in the process of building my first dedicated home theater.

Below is my current "theater room":


We are remodeling the basement and doing some major construction items:
Moving walls to create a "large" room for the home theater (Optoma UHD60)

Putting in new flooring
Creating a larger window opening for an escape well
Replacing current radiator pipes with PEX so that the pipes can be hidden and the ceiling can be finished

Below is our new floor plan that will be completed in 1-2 months


I wonder if a lower height room is better off as a single row, with an even more substantial screen?
What is your acoustics plan for the new home theater room? Sound isolation, traps, ceiling/floor/wall treatments and low frequency room mode considerations. Great picture needs great sound to balance the experience.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Agreed. It’s also a great time to lay speaker wire where it will be hidden.
One thing that often gets overlooked is the electrical system. I used a several KVA 220VAC isolation transformer to create s separately derived power panel with a new bonded earth ground on the secondary to reduce electrical noise (house appliances switching off and on) and hum to just about zero even with the sound cranked up. One leg just for audio/video and the other leg for lighting/general use in the room.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
One thing that often gets overlooked is the electrical system. I used a several KVA 220VAC isolation transformer to create s separately derived power panel with a new bonded earth ground on the secondary to reduce electrical noise (house appliances switching off and on) and hum to just about zero even with the sound cranked up. One leg just for audio/video and the other leg for lighting/general use in the room.
Never thought about an isolation transformer, makes sense. Thx for the tip. I'll remember this when I try to do song recordings.

kv
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Never thought about an isolation transformer, makes sense. Thx for the tip. I'll remember this when I try to do song recordings.

kv
The main thing I wanted to eliminate was the contaminated ground that can cause hum and noise loops with long low-level single ended audio cables. Instead of daisy chaining neutrals and grounds like is sometimes done in house wiring, each power socket ground and neutral (bonded with ground inside the sub-panel) wire is star connected directly to the correct bus inside the dedicated isolated power sub-panel.
I have several 20 foot runs of pre-amp audio signals to a separate amplifier cabinet that connect to a bass signal 24 band parametric equalizer to sound shape signals for audio and tactile transducers, each with its own power amp channel.
shakers.jpg
Upper seating riser with tactile transducers.
https://www.parts-express.com/cat/bass-shakers/3524

IMG_20190530_080005083.jpg
Two channel PEQ sound processor to tune the riser/transducers and sub-woofer channels.
shakersweep.jpg.w300h330.jpg
RS sound meter for EQ tuning using a audio spectrum analyzer program.
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/
REW is free room acoustics analysis software for measuring and analysing room and loudspeaker responses. The audio measurement and analysis features of REW help you optimise the acoustics of your listening room, studio or home theater and find the best locations for your speakers, subwoofers and listening position. It includes tools for generating audio test signals; measuring SPL and impedance; measuring frequency and impulse responses; measuring distortion; generating phase, group delay and spectral decay plots, waterfalls, spectrograms and energy-time curves; generating real time analyser (RTA) plots; calculating reverberation times; calculating Thiele-Small parameters; determining the frequencies and decay times of modal resonances; displaying equaliser responses and automatically adjusting the settings of parametric equalisers to counter the effects of room modes and adjust responses to match a target curve.
shakers_bfd_eq.jpg
Riser "Bass Shaker" frequency response.

shakers_no_eq.jpg
Riser before EQ response.

room_response.jpg
Seating sub-woofer bass EQ response.
IMG_20190530_075430245.jpg
Sub-panel and amp power cabinet.
 
Last edited:

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
The main thing I wanted to eliminate was the contaminated ground that can cause hum and noise loops with long low-level single ended audio cables. Instead of daisy chaining neutrals and grounds like is sometimes done in house wiring, each power socket ground and neutral (bonded with ground inside the sub-panel) wire is star connected directly to the correct bus inside the dedicated isolated power sub-panel.
I have several 20 foot runs of pre-amp audio signals to a separate amplifier cabinet that connect to a bass signal 24 band parametric equalizer to sound shape signals for audio and tactile transducers, each with its own power amp channel.
View attachment 178549
Upper seating riser with tactile transducers.
https://www.parts-express.com/cat/bass-shakers/3524

View attachment 178552
Two channel PEQ sound processor to tune the riser/transducers and sub-woofer channels.
View attachment 178553
RS sound meter for EQ tuning using a audio spectrum analyzer program.
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

View attachment 178554
Riser "Bass Shaker" frequency response.

View attachment 178555
Sub-panel and amp power cabinet.
:) I'm in AVSE at the Uni, but you have taken it to the next level. No one has introduced Audio to me like you have. Good grief, you could charge for that experienced. :p

Thx man,

kv
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
:) I'm in AVSE at the Uni, but you have taken it to the next level. No one has introduced Audio to me like you have. Good grief, you could charge for that experienced. :p

Thx man,

kv
It's just a hobby but I've helped a few people with builds, too much hard work to make a living.
My HT is a shack compared to some of the guys that build high-end stuff. Some of the ideas were from Dennis Erskine at the old AVS forums before he was big business.
http://erskine-group.com/
http://erskine-group.com/home-theater-design-and-engineering/
 
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