# The B-Stock Theater



## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Back in January I decided to tear out my old make shift theater room down to the studs and start fresh. I finished construction about a month ago. I kept my original M&K THX 750 speakers. I had dual Epik Legend subs but sold them and acquired dual SVS cylinders (the plus model). I wanted a room that was elegant yet had a minimalist design. I did not want a stage, soffits or columns. I did want an AT screen to hide the LCR's and two subs but I still wanted my M&K Surround 550's to be showing like a commercial cinema, as well as a full fabric panel ceiling. I will post before, during and finished construction photos along with an equipment list, my initial design sketch, and calibration screenshots from Calman and REW. The room is 19'x12'x8'. Here is the design sketch. More photos will be uploaded tonight.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Sounds like an interesting project..Looking forward to seeing some pics..


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

The room itself was already a theater but it was just awful. The audio and video was great (I kept all the same equipment except for the subs) but there was a painted concrete floor, white trim, a riser that was uncarpeted that had my really nice Bass theater seats bolted to it, blue walls, red drapes, and a 60 inch doorway with no doors. I decided not to soundproof the room. I was limited on width, height and length as is.

Before Demolition

Screenwall









Back of the room. Bass theater seats and the window at the back of the room.


















Skinned the room in OSB then painted it flat black. No drywall. No need since the room will be covered in fabric.









Furring strips for the cans for the fabric ceiling









Screenwall with LCR shelf









Beginnings of converting the window into a shelf for media storage, calibration equipment, and an outlet to charge my tablet with IRule.


















Completed Shelf









Furring strips with room painted. Ready for carpet, fabric and all the finishing touches.


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Told you the room was pretty bad before. Here is the equipment list:

I'll use this post to show the Slim5 rack design and my final (well, almost final) equipment list.

Room Construction
19' x 12'
60" opening for entrance that now has 2 solid core doors
No Soundproofing other than insulation
No drywall - OSB shell sprayed with a flat black paint from Lowes that costs $18 a gallon. If it's gonna be covered in fabric then I'm not spending $50 a gallon on paint.
7.25" riser
No soffit, no stage

Power
Single 15 Amp circuit I would like another 20 amp but that will come at a later time.
APC J10 Silver Battery Backup/Voltage Regulator

Decor
Elegant yet minimalist design
Fabric: DMD Acoustimac Navy for the ceiling and walls and DMD Acoustimac black for the screen wall panels
Trim and Doors: Sherwin Williams Latex Enamel - Black - Satin Finish - It's their off-the-shelf black. No mixing.
Carpet: Martha Stewart Francesca Winterthur from Home Depot.

Seating
Front: 3 Berkline Reno
Rear: 4 Bass Millenium Theater Seats

Video
Projector: JVC RS-45
Screen: Seymour AV 100" wide 2.40:1 with Centerstage XD acoustically transparent material
Sources: Oppo BDP-93 blu-ray player/Time Warner cable box
Video EQ: Lumagen Radiance Mini

Audio
Speakers: Center: M&K Center 750 sitting vertically
Left/Right Main: M&K LCR 750's
Surrounds: 4 M&K Surround 550's
LFE: Dual SVS PC12-Plus Subwoofers
Processor: Sherbourn PT-7030
Amplifier: Sherbourn PA-150
EQ: None yet. Soon to be MiniDSP 10x10. The built in EQ in the Sherbourn doesn't seem to work according to my measurements and the EQ on the SVS amp works but is limited.

Cabling
Monoprice 12 gauge speaker wire to all channels
Monoprice XLR interconnects to all channels including subs
Monoprice Redmere HDMI cable for in ceiling runs from rack to PJ
Bluejeans Cable Tartan HDMI at the rack

Lighting
3 zones/Eight 4" cans
Switches: 3 Insteon Dimmers
Controller: Powerlinc Modem and ISY994i.

Control System
Software: IRule - currently
Hardware: 2 Global Cache ITach Wifi. 1 for Serial and 1 for IR. Stay away from the GC-100's if you are using more than just IR!






Here is the final design of my equipment rack on Racktools. It is a little different than my original. I wanted all the equipment that wasn't going to be neatly mounted with rack ears or a custom RSH shelf to be concealed. I also added a drawer under the Oppo. I hid the switch, ISY 994i, Lumagen Radiance Mini, and cable box on two 2U universal rack shelves which are mounted on the rear rack rails and then covered them with blank panels. I also was going to rack mount my APC UPS but decided to let that just sit on the floor behind the screen wall panels. It's silver in color and not black like the rest of the gear so I thought it wouldn't look right.










Actual rack photo


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

*Finished Product*



















Fabric ceiling









Closer Shot of the fabric ceiling









Accidentally overexposed



























Need to tuck away the wires behind the screen for the reveal. Working on that soon.


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## brwsaw (Feb 19, 2014)

Looks nice, how does it sound compared to the original room?


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Thanks! There's a big difference in sound quality mainly because of the doorway not being not being open. I'm sure the carpet helps as well. The room with the open doorway had a huge null at around 40 Hz. So big I couldn't fix it with any EQ. It's got a much better response right now but I still need to get a more powerful EQ system than the built in parametric EQ in my Sherbourne preamp. I'll post a screenshot of REW and my
3-D LUT calibration with Calman and my Lumagen Radiance.


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## brwsaw (Feb 19, 2014)

Its all new to me but I'd be curious to see any before and after comparisons.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

those darker colors will do wonders for your JVC's contrast and black levels... that's for sure. looks a lot nicer from what I can tell


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## jaguar717 (Sep 8, 2014)

Very nice setup. Does it black out completely or do you have dim lighting that stays on?


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

jaguar717 said:


> Very nice setup. Does it black out completely or do you have dim lighting that stays on?


The lights are controlled with iRule on an iPad and iPhone and can be dimmed or turned off. Here is a picture of my lighting panel on my iPad:


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Here are some more IRule screenshots


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## Peter Loeser (Aug 11, 2012)

This looks great! Very nice design and nice photos. I'm curious - how exactly did you mount your fabric panels to the ceiling?


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Peter Loeser said:


> This looks great! Very nice design and nice photos. I'm curious - how exactly did you mount your fabric panels to the ceiling?


Lexel and 18 gauge brad nails.

Thank you for the compliments Peter!


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

Big improvement Jeff, very nicely done. I have 2 questions about your fabric walls. 1) What did you use... was it GOM or did you source somewhere else? What was the max width for a strip you did? 2) did you just staple directly to the furring strips on the walls and cover that with the trim? Seems like a good simple way to get a very clean, sleek look (over individual panels).


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Owen Bartley said:


> Big improvement Jeff, very nicely done. I have 2 questions about your fabric walls. 1) What did you use... was it GOM or did you source somewhere else? What was the max width for a strip you did? 2) did you just staple directly to the furring strips on the walls and cover that with the trim? Seems like a good simple way to get a very clean, sleek look (over individual panels).


Thank you Owen. I agree it was a huge improvement. The last room looked like something out of Animal House. As far as your questions...

1) I used navy colored DMD acoustically transparent fabric from Acoustimac. It comes in 66" wide rolls. Not sure what the max width was to be honest. Probably 60" I would imagine. If I could have afforded it, I would have used GOM for the walls. DMD is $8.99 a sq yard and GOM is $17 or so. DMD is easier for panels because it stretches more but for the walls it was difficulty or me because it stretched so far. 

2) Yes, I stapled to the furring strips and tacked up trim over it. I thought about panels but after building 9 panels for the ceiling I decided that I wanted as little to do with panel building as I could get by with.


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## jtl (Sep 19, 2013)

Looks great....nice upgrade!


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

jtl said:


> Looks great....nice upgrade!


Thanks Joey!


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## J&D (Apr 11, 2008)

Awesome project. Really like how you kept it simple and did not get overly fussy. I can appreciate the intricate builds with attention to every single detail but sometimes a "keep it simple" approach is nice to see. Finished product looks great and I am sure performs excellent as well. Great job.


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

J&D said:


> Awesome project. Really like how you kept it simple and did not get overly fussy. I can appreciate the intricate builds with attention to every single detail but sometimes a "keep it simple" approach is nice to see. Finished product looks great and I am sure performs excellent as well. Great job.


Much appreciated J. I guess it would have been nice to have all speakers hidden but I wanted to keep the M&K's which meant I needed columns and I just don't have the talent know how to pull off intricate mouldings and all that kinda stuff. Nor did I have the width for that matter. Thanks again.


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Final 3-D LUT calibration. The Lumagen Radiance can turn the mid level JVC RS-45 into a very high end projector after calibration, in my opinion. Not 3 chip DLP kind of high end but it throws a really good picture. Calibration was done with X-Rite i1Display Colorimeter and Calman 5 using the Lumagen 3-D LUT workflow.


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## jkvoth (Mar 26, 2010)

Here is my final waterfall. I have room gain compensation activated on my subs because there was a 10 or 15db peak at 30 Hz. The 2 SVS cylinder subs are in sealed mode by the way. I tried ported but I just didn't care for the sound. The PEQ on my Sherbourn preamp really came in handy even though it isn't as powerful as a Minidsp or Feedback Destroyer. I need some work for sure in the 20-30 Hz range but I don't think anything will fix that except more treatment. The only thing I can do is rebuild my removable panels on my storage shelf and include duct liner this time around. I also plan on getting a Minidsp Dirac Live box around Christmas to see how that works for my room. A third SVS sealed sub is planned as well, to go behind the back row of seats. I was looking at just getting the $499 box version (b-stock of course). Right now, however, the MLP is sounding exactly how I want it to.










Here is the response curve with 1/6 smoothing. Not too bad but a more powerful PEQ or Dirac should yield better results.


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