# My First Dedicated Home Theater



## ZaC851 (Jul 18, 2013)

I completed my theater in the middle of 2011 but figured I would post it here. I bought a small little house about 7 years ago when I was 21. Being a nerd in the IT field, I decided to build a windows PC to go under my TV at the time to watch downloaded movies and TV shows etc. After building it, it was at this point that I became interested in home theater systems but I didnt want to waste money buying a nice system for that small house because I had no intentions of staying there more than 5 years, so I told myself when I got ready to purchase a larger house, I wanted a dedicated room for a really nice theater.

In 2011 I ended up buying my new house and it had a bonus room in the basement with a small closet. The room was a little smaller than I would have liked and not completely square but I could make it work. The room is roughly 15 wide by 16.5 long with a 8 foot drop ceiling. I really wanted 8 chairs in 2 rows with the back row built up on platform but it would have put the front row to close to the screen. Just wasn't possible

I started the build about 1 month after moving in. I basically knew NOTHING about home audio stuff as far as whats good and whats not before hand I did a lot of online reading to get help picking out my equipment. Anyway here's my list of everything that I bought. 

My equipment list
Panasonic AE4000 Projector
Carada 126” Screen in Brilliant white in 16:9
2x Polk Audio monitor 70 speakers.
1x Polk CS10 Center
2x Pairs of Polk OWM3 Surrounds and rears
1x Klipsch SW-450 Sub
Middle Atlantic Rack
Denon AVR 3311 Receiver
Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Bluray player
AudioSource AMP-100 (for Zone 2 Pool Speakers)
8 Channel Security Camera Server
Playstation 3
HP Procurve 3500 24 Port Switch
10TB Custom Built NAS running on Linux in a 4U Rackmounted Case
Media PC running Windows 7 with MediaPortal in a 4U Rackmounted Case
17" monitor mounted inside rack
4x Berkline 12006 chairs


I started with this room below. The previous owner of this house told me he had it wired for 5.1 already but I ended up yanking all that wire out.



















Here's the closet which is directly behind seating area which is under the stairs











My Dad came down from Louisiana over a weekend and helped me build a staging area, the false wall and the framing in the media closet. 



















False screen wall. Removable panels will be made and wrapped in GOM that will surround the screen. The front L+R and Center will be mounted behind the screen wall with the 4 surround speakers mounted on the wall. and the Subwoofer in the back right corner. 











Testing the screen frame











Heres the frame that surrounds the media rack in the closet. Just like the screen wall, this wall will have removable panels wrapped in GOM.











Removing Ceiling tile. I purchased new 2x4 tiles from Ceilume.com and painted the tracking flat black. I also installed recessed lightning and some sconces on the wall and tested to make sure my Polk Monitor 70s worked ok behind the screen wall.



















Heres's the removable panels that will surround the screen and the media rack. I painted them. I wasnt sure if the wood would be visible once I stretched the GOM around them.










Added the panels to the Media closet.




















Added paint on the walls. The paint is actually alot darker than it looks in these pictures. Baseboards and door trim will be in black.










Added the panels on the screen wall. They are held up with velcro on the backside since they are so light in weight.










And finally the screen is added.











Here's the back of the room where the projector is mounted.











And finally, got the carpet installed and added a little bit of the decor and finished some odds and ends with wiring ect.

Here's the back of hte room.


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## ZaC851 (Jul 18, 2013)

Looking to make some changes really soon though. I'd like to do away with the 10" sub in the back of the room and add 2 12" subs up front behind the screen wall on each side of the center speaker and add some adjustable mounts to all 4 of the surround speakers so I can direct them towards me rather than mounted on the wall pointing straight out. 

I would also like to add a layer of some kind of acoustic material to cover all the floor and walls behind the false wall where the speakers are and maybe a few acoustic panels in the theater itself. Anyone have any kind of suggestions?


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

Very nice room! Congrats.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Looks very nice..
One thing though..The seats look to be very close to the back wall..The worst place for them to be..
I would move them a bit further way to reduce the affect of resonance build up..


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## ZaC851 (Jul 18, 2013)

Prof. said:


> Looks very nice..
> One thing though..The seats look to be very close to the back wall..The worst place for them to be..
> I would move them a bit further way to reduce the affect of resonance build up..


I didn't think of that. They are about 6" away when fully reclined. How far do you think I should leave?


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## pddufrene (Mar 14, 2013)

Wow, very nice! All you need now is the powered curtains that draw back automatically when the movie is about to start.


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## pddufrene (Mar 14, 2013)

ZaC851 said:


> I didn't think of that. They are about 6" away when fully reclined. How far do you think I should leave?


I was always told a 1/4 of the rooms distance from the back wall is one of the better spots. If that helps any  So that would be 4' in your case with your room being 16' deep.


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## Mike0206 (Jul 14, 2013)

That is a gorgeous room! I'm digging the ceiling tiles a lot. Very nicely done. I would have to agree though on the placement of the chairs. Too close to the back. I'd move them forward a few feet as long as it doesn't put you in the middle of the room either.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

ZaC851 said:


> I didn't think of that. They are about 6" away when fully reclined. How far do you think I should leave?


If you can't position them 1/4 distance as suggested (since you already have your screen size) then 2'6" would be the absolute minimum disatance..

Also you might want to consider placing a large acoustic panel on the back wall..about 4" thick..


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

If you're eager to get into another project, as a self-admitted nerd, you might get a kick out of building some kind of diffusion into the back wall. Take a look at:

- QRD (quadratic residue diffuser)
- Slat diffuser
- or Skyline diffusers

There are lots of pages with details on how to do the calculations to build custom diffusers for your room. Ideally you'll want to measure the current response of the room to identify what issues to target, but you might have some fun there too.


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## ZaC851 (Jul 18, 2013)

So I moved the chairs up 2.5' and relocated the subwoofer from the back right to the front left of the room, behind the screen between the front L and center channel. My bass output literally went to nothing. I'm going to run Audyssey when I get home but I just thought it was crazy how much quieter everything was. I guess I was getting a lot of sound bouncing off the back wall. I also thought about covering the wall behind the screen? When I was moving the sub, I had to take one of the screen wall panels off and I had a crazy amount of echo back there... I thought about taking some large pieces of that black egg crate foam and lining the walls and floors behind the screen with it. I was going to get it from here. Acoustic Egg crate Foam

Any other suggestions?

Edit - actually I'm going to go create a thread in the accoustic forum section.


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## ALMFamily (Oct 19, 2011)

The room turned out beautiful mate - nicely done! :T

I am sure Bryan will get you squared away on the front wall, but a quick response on the front wall would be yes - you should have some absorption there. I have 2" of OC 703 across the front wall with superchunks in the corners in my room.

As far as the sub, I would consider doing the sub crawl test.


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

The room looks great. Dimensions of your room are about the same as mine. In fact your colors are very similar. I have my chairs about 10 feet from the screen. about 4 feet from the back of the room.
I just recently moved my 8 inch sub from the back of the room to the front and I found it greatly improved the effect. You do have to re-run adyssey though. As far as echo or bounce from your sub, I cant help there as I dont have my speakers behind a wall or screen. Mine are all out in the open. Im looking to upgrade my subs in the next month or so to (2) SVS PB12 NSD.


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## cavchameleon (Jan 7, 2008)

That is a great first dedicated home theater (and many never have that even on their 10th rendition). Great job the way. I agree with the back seating being too close. You may have to reposition your subs for better placement after moving the seats. You will have to re-calibrate as you noticed. If you want the seats further back (I had to do it because of space limitations), as suggested put some 4' acoustic pannels. That's what I did and it made a huge difference (makes it feel like there isn't a wall right behind the seating area).


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## FlashJim (May 6, 2006)

"I bought a small little house about 7 years ago when I was 21."

One of the most awesome lines uttered on HTS. Ever.  I wish I had been in a position to do that at that age.

Great looking room. Can you give us a rundown of everything in your rack? I've considered using a rack in my office closet for all of the comm stuff instead of the typical residential structured wiring panel.


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## ZaC851 (Jul 18, 2013)

phillihp23 said:


> ...Im looking to upgrade my subs in the next month or so to (2) SVS PB12 NSD.


Same here. I would like to do (2) 15s upfront. I will most likely have to build my own ported boxes since I have less than 2ft of depth between the screen and wall, so I need something thats about 20" deep and as tall and wide as I want/need


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## mcascio (Dec 5, 2010)

Very nicely done Zac851. You've created a very clean and polished space. I especially like how clean your install of the equipment rack looks. I wish I wasn't moving hardware in and out so much of mine so I could just lock everything down and in place. Great job!


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