# Please advise on Home Theater Design



## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

I do have seats planned right up against the back wall and my first row couch is from 9' to 12'. I've allocated 4 Ft. per riser


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

This looks like a good start. Is your room already constructed? What kind of advice are you looking for?


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

Peter Loeser said:


> This looks like a good start. Is your room already constructed? What kind of advice are you looking for?


I agree, a nice sized room for a HT.


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## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

It's just four bare walls for now... 4" clay brick backed by 5" reinforced concrete. I need sound and video advice about positioning etc. I already have an old 5.1 sony system. Want to start with that since the construction is going to suck up the budget... will upgrade later on... It would be nice to scalability...

I read in a post that if I put a sofa against the back wall I will have bass problems... is it true?


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

That is correct. The worst location for bass is at a room boundary (ie a wall.)
However, if that is the only place to put it, then it's a compromise that needs to be made.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

If that is your equipment rack next to the screen, then I would advise moving towards the back wall..
The lights from the equipment will be quite distracting while watching a movie and the area around the screen needs to be as dark as possible..


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## fajitas21 (Dec 28, 2012)

I'm very new to this, but as a carpenter I've learned the hard way to plan ahead cause you can't move walls and things built into walls so easily  That, and my wife really gets upset when I punch holes in them (but I always fix em).

This is regarding your AV Rack and I'm hoping a more skilled person can provide additional details.
I'd consider moving it away from the wall to wall corner only because you might want to put some sound absorption or even bass traps there in the future if your bass doesn't sound like you want it to.

Also, is the rack set into the wall?

If so, and you have access to the walls, think of EVERY cable you'll ever use (then double them), and run them when the walls are not in! If the walls are in, before you start running cables, do this exercise too and then just run them all at once. I sure wish I did....


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## sga2 (Nov 14, 2009)

Prof. said:


> If that is your equipment rack next to the screen, then I would advise moving towards the back wall..
> The lights from the equipment will be quite distracting while watching a movie and the area around the screen needs to be as dark as possible..


Agreed. I would even suggest moving the equipment to another room or closet if possible. Some gear (relays in receivers, fans in just about everything) can be more audible than you might like inside the room. I put everything in a (ventilated) closet and control everything with an IR repeater setup and am very glad I did. 

Regards,
sga2


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

Your room appears to be 20 ft long. Is that going to be big enough for 3 rows of seats? Do the seats recline, how big are the seats? 
(My seats fully reclined take up about 68". My room is 16ft long. I found I couldnt fit two rows of theater seats so I built a bar height table behind the first row. (2 ft D by 104 inches W by 44 inches high) The bar sits three people. The back side of the chairs in the front row sit at 10 feet in the room. I use a 100' screen. For reference.

Your room appears 14 ft 9 inch across. That should fit 3 movie theater reclining seats side by side distance wide and still provide around 26-32 inch isle on each side.
For reference (My room is 14ft wide and three(3) movie recliners take up 8 ft 6 inch. and leave a 32" isle on each side)

Not sure what type of seating you are putting in the room. It should accommodate two rows of recliners.
Just some things to think about....


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

Wiring wise...
Would run at least 7 speaker location and 4 sub lines. ( two front corner and two back corner or one center of each wall in room, depends were you will have space in your setup and optimal acoustics).

Projector to AV area....HDMI, Ethernet, PCI.


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## dguarnaccia (Jul 17, 2008)

I think 3-4 feet per riser is a little tight. Perhaps consider only 2 rows instead and have room to recline and spread out. I'd try to keep that rear seat a little off the back wall, and definitely plan to put some bass traps behind the rear seating position to reduce the comb filtering you're going to experience in that back row.


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## coloradoav (Dec 28, 2012)

I agree on the riser depth - especially if you will have recliners - if you can stick with a minimum of 54" deep per row (sofa) then someone can comfortably get to the middle seat when it's dark (66" or 72" is even better with reclining seats) Also, typical riser height is around 7" (just like a step) - people are "trained" how much to step up or down because they do it all the time without thinking about it. Anything significantly higher or lower will cause people to stumble. I think you're at 6" on your drawing

It appears you have a set back area near the entry door - if thats true - it's out of line of sight and a really good location for equipment. Or in another room and use IR repeaters or RF control.

On wiring, If you can swing it - copper installed now is your best hedge against future technology changes:

Run speaker wire to 7 locations - if you "carefully" tack wire in a "Z" between the studs you can add extra length now so you can go with floor standing speakers or if you want the cleanest look - opt for an acoustically transparent screen and in wall speakers that are hidden behind the screen. Plus run to sub locations. - technically you can get away with a single coax for each of those.

Run a Cat 5/6 to the screen location so you can hook up an IR receiver there that runs back to your equipment (wherever that ends up).

Run a minimum of three Cat5 to your projector (one for IR, one for "black box connector" down the road - whatever comes after HDMI or if your HDMI cable goes bad and you get a "black box" and one spare in case either of the others decide not to work in 5 or 10 years) plus an HDMI, etc.

Plan on extending a hard wire Cat 5 if possible from your existing router to feed streaming, firmware updates, etc to your rack location. Wireless is fine if that's all you can do, but copper never lies. Plan on buying a decent switch for your rack - the 14.99 switch from Best Buy is not designed for continuous throughput for streaming.

Acoustically - dependent on your speaker locations you may need a combination of panels - some that absorb and some that reflect - it's not possible without a little more information to say which you'll need - think of your HT like a pool table and the bank shots and you'll be partway there on figuring out the acoustics.


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## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

Prof. said:


> If that is your equipment rack next to the screen, then I would advise moving towards the back wall..
> The lights from the equipment will be quite distracting while watching a movie and the area around the screen needs to be as dark as possible..


It was designed as that... but now I'm thinking that I will use it as DVD Storage and move the equipment to the front of the room under the screen in a little rack. It will also make the remote pointing a little more natural


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## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

Here are some pics of the current condition of the room. Here is Pakistan the construction is done in clay brick and cement plasters. Plastic conduits are run in the bricks and then covered with portland cement plaster. Wires are then run through these conduits. There is no drywall and paint is applied directly to the plaster. I could run ducts along the ceiling (reinforced concrete) and then paint everything in a matte black color.

There is a circular hall on the outside of the theater and the two niches one near the front and one near the door are the result of a straight wall against a curved wall. Initially I had planned to use the niche for equipment but now I'm thinking of putting a little platform under the screen. For one it will give it that cinematic look and I can use the space underneath for putting my equipment. I could cover the front of the platform with openable panels covered in speaker fabric. This will hide the sub as well.

I'm wondering if the remotes will work through the fabric. I'm not sure I will have access to IR repeaters in my area.


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## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

coloradoav said:


> I agree on the riser depth - especially if you will have recliners - if you can stick with a minimum of 54" deep per row (sofa) then someone can comfortably get to the middle seat when it's dark (66" or 72" is even better with reclining seats) Also, typical riser height is around 7" (just like a step) - people are "trained" how much to step up or down because they do it all the time without thinking about it. Anything significantly higher or lower will cause people to stumble. I think you're at 6" on your drawing


Hmmm... The platforms are 12" high but there is an extra step making the rise 6" per step. As for the platform width, I was thinking of going with 36" X 72" sofa with 1' in the front for leg space (Total 48"). I was told that anything outside of 7'9" for my room would be a sound dead zone. Since we have walkways on both sides we can accommodate the seating in the middle. Recliners do indeed take up a lot more space and seating capacity of 6 is just not enough especially when home theater is a social activity :whistling:



coloradoav said:


> It appears you have a set back area near the entry door - if thats true - it's out of line of sight and a really good location for equipment. Or in another room and use IR repeaters or RF control.




Initially I had planned to use the niche for equipment but now I'm thinking of putting a little platform under the screen. For one it will give it that cinematic look and I can use the space underneath for putting my equipment. I could cover the front of the platform with openable panels covered in speaker fabric. This will hide the sub as well.

I'm wondering if the remotes will work through the fabric. I'm not sure I will have access to IR repeaters in my area.



coloradoav said:


> On wiring, If you can swing it - copper installed now is your best hedge against future technology changes:
> 
> Run speaker wire to 7 locations - if you "carefully" tack wire in a "Z" between the studs you can add extra length now so you can go with floor standing speakers or if you want the cleanest look - opt for an acoustically transparent screen and in wall speakers that are hidden behind the screen. Plus run to sub locations. - technically you can get away with a single coax for each of those.
> 
> ...


I agree that I should wire for a 7.1 system so that I don't have to fumble with wires again.

By Cat5 do you mean the networking cable?

Here is Pakistan the construction is done in clay brick and cement plasters. Plastic conduits are run in the bricks and then covered with portland cement plaster. Wires are then run through these conduits. There is no drywall and paint is applied directly to the plaster. I could run ducts along the ceiling (reinforced concrete) and then paint everything in a matte black color or bury conduits under the plaster.

I've been told to put the front speakers 2.5' away from the sides walls and 3' away from the back walls. If this is correct, I will need to hang brackets along the sides of the screen to position the speakers correctly. The rear speakers are said to be 6" to 12" away from the back walls.

Another question that is popping into my mind is whether this cement and concrete room will produce a lot of echos. I am planning to put carpet with double underlay on the floor but what about the walls and the ceiling...


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## spartanstew (May 7, 2009)

Almost every room has sacrifices. My room is almost the exact same dimensions as yours (14' X 20')

I have my equipment rack up front on the side wall (similar to where yours is) and love it there. I don't find the lights to be a distraction and I like being able to glance over at the equipment and see what volume the receiver is at, how much time is left in the movie, etc.


As far as seating goes, I too have the back row right against the wall and the difference in sound from the back row is very minor. I opted for 2 rows, however, with an aisle only on one side of the front row. The back row of seating goes wall to wall and the front row is against one of the walls.

I have recliners in mine (3 in front and 4 in the rear) with a 6 foot riser in the back. My front seating is about 13' from the screen and the rear is about 18.5. It works great.

If I were you, I'd consider extending the rows to the wall (opposite the door) and only have an aisle on the door side. I'd also consider going with two rows. It's nice to have more seating, but it's nicer to be able to recline during a movie, IMO. If you did go with 3 rows, I don't think 1' high riser is enough to see clearly over the row in front - especially if they're not recliners.


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## shumail (Dec 9, 2012)

spartanstew said:


> Almost every room has sacrifices. My room is almost the exact same dimensions as yours (14' X 20')
> 
> I have my equipment rack up front on the side wall (similar to where yours is) and love it there. I don't find the lights to be a distraction and I like being able to glance over at the equipment and see what volume the receiver is at, how much time is left in the movie, etc.
> 
> ...


This sounds like something dead on for size... if you don't mind me asking, could you please share some photos so I can get a better idea of the layout.


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