# Whsperz' Home Theater Build Ideas



## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

Long time lurker (and gawker) and a huge fan of the builds and craftsmanship on this site. I am finally in a place in my life where I can build a dedicated home theater.

I have been tossing ideas around and learning from other's "printed"/"admitted" mistakes. I am working with a 22'x11' room in basement of a split level home. Unless I want to relocate the water heater and furnace plus figure what to do with the support pillars, aesthetically, I am stuck with the size limitations. The other caveat of this room is that my fiancé has Misophonia, so this will be quite the challenge. I have to be really cognizant of sounds going through house. Mind you, I need to keep the budget down as much as possible. I do understand equipment changes later in the process. I am more concerned with the building and materials cost.

Since this a basement, I have 3 of the 4 walls with concrete and 3 windows. The other interior wall is to envelope the support pillars. My plan is to build a room within a room with double doors. I would like to apply some sort of covering over the windows to seal out as much as I can. Any recommendations on how to "seal" the windows up? The windows still have to look and be functional from the outside world. I am thinking a want a short hallway to the front entrance of the theater to adjust eyes for the lack of light.

I will be adding one riser for seating behind the first row and due to the width of the room, I am limited to seating six, comfortably, in the theater. I am undecided about a stage and false wall as we are tossing the ideas of whether we want a projector or an 85" TV (potential wedding gift). 

Current equipment:
65" Samsung TV
Onkyo TX-NR1030 9.2 Atmos
3 sets of Polk Audio T15s
Polk S35 Center
1 set of Polk TSi500s
Harmony Elite
Polk PSW505 12 inch Sub
Polk PSW110 10 inch Sub
42U rack with assorted media devices

I would love to have any thoughts or ideas that might help me either radically change my thinking or help in setup process. I also have some questions about Atmos if anyone has had any experience with dealing with it.

Attached is a sketchup screenshot of existing walls and where my thought process is. The furniture placement is not to scale just for visual purposes.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

The room within a room is a great idea to keep sound inside the space. Those dimensions are tight but we all make compromise to make things work.

Im going to assume that the area with the treadmill is a smaller space?


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## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

tonyvdb said:


> The room within a room is a great idea to keep sound inside the space. Those dimensions are tight but we all make compromise to make things work.
> 
> Im going to assume that the area with the treadmill is a smaller space?



The area with treadmill is actually the larger area. See attached (although stairs are not to scale and pillar supports are not added). With the exception of the wall extended (now showing doorways in my drawing), IRL the wall ends where the rack (the front of the rack is flush with end of the wall where it currently sits) and the basement is completely open.

The open area (to the left of the stairs in the picture) is my office and that is directly underneath the master bedroom (which is a definitely a no-go) and there are french doors to go outside as well as more windows and it is identical in size as the original room. Of course, the pillar supports are a big deal as to my size and placement limitations.

A huge factor for me is that I don't want to place this room awkwardly in an area that doesn't flow with the house. That being said, has anyone built their home theater and sold their house? Was there more value in it or was it just demoed and restored to a "regular" room?


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## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

By the way, the rack has a 19" flat screen attached to the side facing the treadmill. I am using the multizone feature of the Onkyo and it displays everything that the home theater would be so you can walk and watch


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## thrillcat (Mar 25, 2014)

My room is 17.5 by 9.5 and I fit 3 rows. The third row is basically overflow. I got some seats from a local theater closing down and put them back there. Not quite against the back wall, but close enough they're not ideal.

But the first two rows are comfy. Two theater recliners in the front and a long couch is row 2. 

It also helps that my LCR are able to fit back into the wall, as there were windows there before. Save some space that way. The sub is behind the third row. 

(Sorry about the mess. This was as I was finishing up my remodel. I need to take good photos sometime.)





























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## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

thrillcat said:


> My room is 17.5 by 9.5 and I fit 3 rows. The third row is basically overflow. I got some seats from a local theater closing down and put them back there. Not quite against the back wall, but close enough they're not ideal.
> 
> But the first two rows are comfy. Two theater recliners in the front and a long couch is row 2.
> 
> ...


Thank you thrillcat. After posting my original post, I started reading some more (side note... isn't it amazing that you think you have enough information to proceed and wham, you find enough information to change your whole thought process) and was looking at the perfect room ratio stuff. I thought to make the room smaller, playing with ideas in Sketchup and, especially, with seeing what you have done, I think I am going to stay as close as I can to my original idea. The back row is really made for visitors or me if I want to really dazzle them. You and I have the same width and my couches are just a little under 7 ft long. As far as the aisle goes, its not ideal but certainly doable. I am curious about your stage/wall. Are your room measurements, length wise, from the stage wall or is it from the wall? How far out from the real wall is your stage wall. I am still really torn on what I want to do with the front screen area. Thank you very much for posting your pictures, it made it more of a reality for me seeing what you have done with a similar space. 

I know that as soon as I am done setting this all up (like we are ever done... I know better.. I build up Jeeps for a hobby), that there are some influential people in my life that will want me to do it to their place and/or buy my equipment and get me upgraded. If I build a wall, I will have to have a lot of access as I change out equipment and/or redo the wall. That being said, if it's not that impressive, that may never happen. I know my audio equipment isn't on par with some of the people in here and I am well aware of that. What I have now is quite good for me in my open area (that will soon be the HT), so I am hoping it will be impressive enough for me to enjoy.


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## thrillcat (Mar 25, 2014)

This is behind my screen and false wall. The measurements are from this wall. Because of a door on each side wall, the false wall/screen live about 4 inches out from this wall, and the LCR speakers make use of the window cavities (LR) and a hole I sealed up where there used to be an in-wall gas heater (C). 





























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## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

thrillcat said:


> This is behind my screen and false wall. The measurements are from this wall. Because of a door on each side wall, the false wall/screen live about 4 inches out from this wall, and the LCR speakers make use of the window cavities (LR) and a hole I sealed up where there used to be an in-wall gas heater (C).
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Thank you for enlightening me. You have helped me with some things that I hadn't fully seen beforehand. 


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## Medi0gre (Oct 30, 2012)

The room within a room is great if sound proofing is a requirement but it sure eats real estate fast.
1" framing space from existing wall
3.5" framing
5/8"drywall with clips and furring channel- 2"
Were now up to 13.5" that you have lost and we haven't considered double dry wall or room treatment - panels etc.

I only mention this because I am faced with the same challenges room wise. The compromises I made were just using clips and channel on the ceiling and one layer of 5/8 drywall for the whole room.

I must say it has made a considerable difference inside the room as far as keeping sounds from the rest of the house from penetrating the theater and i don't even have my door mounted yet... 
Noise being broadcast outside the room we will see as I am still building the room, but its just me and the wife so thats a factor in my build as well. I really don't expect any real bass containment though, but running 4 - 18"subs doesnt help neither:wink2:


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## Whsperz (Apr 27, 2010)

Medi0gre said:


> The room within a room is great if sound proofing is a requirement but it sure eats real estate fast.
> 1" framing space from existing wall
> 3.5" framing
> 5/8"drywall with clips and furring channel- 2"
> ...


Medi0gre,

I was thinking along the same lines. I accounted for 6.5" from the outer basement walls (3 of them) and 10" from the other side of the interior wall. I wish soundproofing wasn't as big of a concern. When I first hooked up all the equipment and tuned it for the room, I ran a test. A couple of days later, the neighbors next door mentioned they heard some loud booming in their kitchen and my outside wall is 25' from their house. They said it only lasted about 10 minutes (my test). My bigger concern is with my soon to be wife, if she can hear it, it will literally be WW3. Misophonia is really an issue with her, so in order for me to enjoy my home theater, soundproofing is the only option. I may spend a LOT of money doing it but it is really the only option that I have. 

I know everyone has to fight the idiosyncrasies of the space they are dealing with. I would like to think that I have gained enough wisdom about myself and my methodology that now I am actually planning (and planning and OVER planning) and thinking outside of the box to make enough work, at least on paper, to pull the trigger. I know there will be mistakes and I won't meet my imaginary budget. I am just trying to avoid the most time consuming and most expensive mistakes that I can.

Attached is the basement, as it sits now. The only thing not to scale is the height of the steps. Obviously pillar supports are something I will have to contend with no matter what I decide to do. With gaps between walls and other pillars of 7'6", 7'11", and 6'8.5", I am finding it difficult to arrange seating and views without being obstructed or just making it difficult in general.


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

Whsperz, I fear you might be about to engage in a losing battle. It is nearly impossible to completely stop low frequency HT sound (especially at high volume) from penetrating the rest of the house. Have you considered using tactile transducers to get your LFE impact while minimizing the intrusion for your wife? 

I've had a Buttkicker LFE setup in my system for years, and we used it with great effect instead of subs when the kids were babies and we didn't want to risk waking them upstairs. It isn't exactly the same, but it isn't a bad compromise, especially when you have a real reason to want to cut down on the sound transfer. If you account for it at the design stage, you can put your main seating on a small riser (even 2x4s on edge might work) which might also help. There are a large number of options out there, from inexpensive Parts Express all in one kits up to Crowsons (and probably more high end that I don't know about).

I think if I were in your shoes, that's definitely the route I'd be taking. You just can't keep all that bass inside, and if it's going to be that uncomfortable for your wife, this is a good way to avoid a large part of the problem.


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

Whsperz said:


> The area with treadmill is actually the larger area. See attached (although stairs are not to scale and pillar supports are not added). With the exception of the wall extended (now showing doorways in my drawing), IRL the wall ends where the rack (the front of the rack is flush with end of the wall where it currently sits) and the basement is completely open.
> 
> The open area (to the left of the stairs in the picture) is my office and that is directly underneath the master bedroom (which is a definitely a no-go) and there are french doors to go outside as well as more windows and it is identical in size as the original room. Of course, the pillar supports are a big deal as to my size and placement limitations.
> 
> A huge factor for me is that I don't want to place this room awkwardly in an area that doesn't flow with the house. That being said, has anyone built their home theater and sold their house? Was there more value in it or was it just demoed and restored to a "regular" room?


We are returning the garage to a room with in a room for our sale.

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