In case it's not clear from the title, my name is indeed John.

And I want to welcome you all to the Official DownTown JohnTown post-build thread!!!

Random Guest: "The DownTown JohnTown Theater is the best theater on John's block. I garauntee it!"

And the title must be pretty catchy, since just the other day my wife said to me, "Hon, why is it that you come straight home from work and dissappear into The DownTown JohnTown Theater?"

DownTown JohnTown might sound like a crowded row of porta-potties at the state fair, but I assure you it's much better than that!

Room Dimensions: 11'4" W x 19' L x 7' 6" H
Distance from back wall to false screen-wall: 17 ft.
Distance from front row eyes to screen: Roughly 9.5 ft.
Distance from back row eyes to screen: Roughly 15.5 ft.
Horizontal Viewing Angles for Front and Back Row are within the THX minimum of 26 degrees, with the front row topping out at 40+, which works well on HD DVDs.
Screen: 96 inch Carada Brilliant White, Criterion Series
Seating: Leather Power Recliners, Berkline 088s, 2 rows of 3.
Projector: Sony Pearl (VPL-VW50)

Okay, first of all, here are some pictures of the finished product. Keep in mind, the flash is being used in a lot of these pictures -- the actual paint colors are much darker than depicted.

The Entrance to the DownTown JohnTown Theater
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl124.jpg

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Opening the Door (with/without flash)
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl063.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl034.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl054.jpg

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A Shot of the Seating

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl045.jpg

UPDATE 01/12/2008: Finally installed Acoustic Panels!

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/corrected1.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl116.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/corrected3.jpg

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Rockin' Out at the DownTown JohnTown
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl036.jpg

Even Mike Douglas Likes the Theater!
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl042.jpg



Stay Tuned for more pictures and details of the Saga of the Lame Contractors.... Same John Time, Same John Channel.


---John

looking nice. Go Blues!

Man, this soffit sucks
(and other design obstacles)

I went through *many* iterations of design on this room. It was laborsome because basically every inch of this room was accounted for, and there really wasn't any wiggle room.

One of my design obstacles was the annoying I-Beam that is encased in this soffit:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Soffit.jpg

This thing poses many challenges. I had to be able to project under it, for starters. But I also had to be able to get my screen high enough to allow for visibility in the last row. This design drawing, which is good enough for government work (although the riser dimensions and seating distances have changed ALOT since I made this drawing), illustrates the problem quite nicely. The only thing missing is a line to indicate line-of-sight for the guys in the back row, but I think you can see clearly enough from this drawing that we're cutting it close:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/crosssection.jpg

I ran the numbers over and over again, using our riser height calculator as a guide. The fact is that the riser height calculator stickied to the top of this forum is dead-on accurate, as long as the numbers you put into it are legit. I'm glad I spent the time running the calculations, because I am just barely able to make this work.

I had the builders frame the soffit as tightly as humanly possible -- it drops down less than a half inch from the steel of the I-beam. Then, I slid my screen up as high as I could get it, and dropped my projector from the ceiling on this pole so I could project under the soffit without using keystone correction:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pipe.jpg

Yay! It worked. People in the back row can see over the heads of people in the front row (in most cases, anyway -- keep in mind, I've got a really big melon). And the vertical viewing angle is comfortable for people in the front row too.

My projector mount is the Chief RPA-U, which is their universal mount and should work with whatever projector I buy in the future. It can be used with or without the extension pipe. It's a good mount unless you absolutely must get your projector as close to the ceiling as possible -- in which case you may have better options.

In addition to the soffit, there were a bunch of other design issues to contend with such as:

1) Where to put the door
2) How to deal with the window (yes, that's right, I have a window in my home theater.)
3) How to build the room in such a way as to allow ample seating and isle room
4) How to allow enough room to recline in both rows without introducing "stinky feet syndrome."

I am a Systems Designer by trade, and my penchant for Design led me to create 10 or more different Visio drawings of my room before I settled on the one below, which appeared to comprise the most favorable set of compromises. A special thanks to Bryan Pape, who first suggested that I might be able to orient the room in such a fashion, and who worked with me to finalize my drawings.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/FinalPlan.jpg

Creative Window Coverings 101

Okay, so I had this nice window in the back of the room. And I didn't want to remove it or board it up for two reasons:

1) The increased build cost
2) Resale Value -- Basically, with the window there, I can sell this house as having a "possible 4th bedroom." Otherwise, not so much.

So for the time being, I covered up the window with this sheet of quarter inch plywood. The plywood is attached to the window frame via magnets that are affixed to angle irons mounted to the inside of the window well.

Behind the plywood is a double layer of blackout cloth, thumbtacked tightly around the window. From the outside, this just looks like a window shade.

Here's a picture of the quarter inch sheet of plywood.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl051.jpg


I'll probably turn this window well into a bass absorber at some point.

Nice sock :)

Oh and the theater looks awesome! I like the color scheme. Do you have any before pictures?

Laters,
Jeff

Acoustic Fun!

Bryan Pape helped me with the room's acoustic design. The design is finished, but the room treatments have not been completely installed yet because of budgetary limitations on the part of the owner (that would be me!).

Bryan took the room drawing (a version of which is shown in the Design post, above) that we'd been collaborating on for several weeks and, when a final floor plan had been agreed upon, he traced out the first reflection points and ran his calculations to determine the proper amount/location of acoustic material for my room. Here is a drawing that shows the first reflection points for both the first and second rows, the location of the side panels, location of rear/front absorption, etc. Although some very minor changes have since been made to things like the "riser location," the acoustic plan remains intact as shown:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Acoustic.jpg


In the picture above, one set of speakers represents the actual physical location of the speakers in the room. The other set provides a visual representation of the first reflection points. The red and blue lines represent the actual traces for the first reflection points for both the first and second rows (blue lines for first row, red lines for second row).

I have made some assumptions about the second set of drawn speakers, but Bryan would be better prepared to explain this aspect of the picture. My assumptions are pretty simple. It looks to me like the spacing of the "real" speakers is identical to the spacing of the second set of "reflection point" speakers. Also, you will notice that the second set of speakers seems to be spaced away from room's side-wall the same distance that the "real" speakers are. Erego, my assumption is that this is a method of identifying the first reflection points, and also a cleaner way of drawing them without showing a cluster of tangled lines bouncing off the side walls.

As a further explanation of the drawing above, I have copied the following text from BFauska on the next page of this thread:


Drawing the second "mirrored" set of speakers is actually a way of finding the reflection points, not just showing them. It is one of the ways to geometrically find reflection angles. By creating a mirror image of the speakers on the other side of the reflection surface (in this case the wall) and then drawing a straight line from the mirrored speakers to the listening position you get the reflection points at the spot where the line crosses the wall. In a symetrical room you can copy these points to the oposite wall, however if the room is not symetrical you would have to do this drawing for both side walls.


1) The Front Wall: The front wall, behind the false wall made of black GOM, is completed. The corners are acoustic cotton floor to ceiling, and the rest of the wall area behind the false wall, which includes an HVAC soffit, is covered in 1 inch thick OC703.

2) Side Panels -- Not installed yet. The design calls for 8 side panels made of 2-inch OC703 to tame first reflections and provide some additional control for the lower end. I hope to get these purchased shortly.

3) Back Wall Treatments-- Not Installed yet. The back wall calls for additional absorption, but it will be a while before I can get this done.

Until I can afford to upgrade my speakers, here are my cheap Athenas. You can see one of them here:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl048.jpg

With the front wall deadened, these speakers already sound better than they ever have before. I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when I get the side panels mounted.

looks great. If you don't me asking, what's the brand/model name of the remote control? Does it operate through doors and walls?

The Remote

My wife bought me this cool remote for Christmas. It's an affordable RF job that we got at Best Buy that controlls *all* of my equipment in the next room without having to run an IR Repeater.

Basically, the remote sends RF signals to a base unit which is mounted in the rack, and the base unit sends IR signals to the various pieces of gear. So yes, it will work through walls or doors, up to 100 feet away (or so they claim). It certainly works well enough to control my gear that's like 5 feet outside the room.

Here's a link to the remote at BB: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7977086&st=remote+control&type=product&id=1153999180247

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl057.jpg

IT APPEARS TO BE

Universal Remote Control MasterControl 8-Function Learning Remote with PowerBlaster Transmitter

Model: RFS100

The Construction Nightmare

Frodo: "I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

--Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring.

Lame Contractor: "I wish this crap hadn't happened either, since I'm not making a profit on this job anymore. I think my guys are just inexperienced."
--Lord of the Lame Contractors, Super-Extended-Edition.


Despite the fact that I paid fair market value for a contractor to construct my theater, and despite the fact that I delivered detailed drawings to him regarding the build and talked to him nearly every step of the way, the inexperienced buffoons that he allowed to work on my property were the source of much agony as this build dragged on for month after month after month. It took over 4 months in total, maybe 5. They built my friend's entire house in the time that it took these contractors to build my room.

I wish I had kept photo evidence of everything that went wrong, but unfortunately I only have a few photos, and you'll have to take my word for the rest of it. Here are some of the things I had to deal with:

1) Severely crooked walls that had to be straightened
2) Severely crooked and out-of-square soffits
3) A complete and utter innability to follow even the simplest directions -- everything had to be done twice or three times before they could get it right.
4) My favorite -- the HVAC guy put the return and supply vents RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. Are you kidding me? He did fix it, but I mean come on.
5) Despite being told exactly where to run my rear channel speaker wire, the contractors used up all my freakin' wire running 6 separate locations (instead of the 2 I requested) and get this: NONE of them were in the right spot.
6) Super sloppy craftsmanship. The equipment cabinet they built for me is made of plywood, and they didn't even use cheap edge banding to hide the edges of the plywood shelves. I had to do that myself. In fact, I had to fix a lot of their work myself. Oh, you should have seen the paint job on this cabinet when they delivered it. It was covered in cat hair or something, and you could still see the primer, and they hadn't even sanded the rough edges of the wood. Holy Crap, it looked like a little kid built the thing.
7) The contractor just flat out lied to me about his ability to run the A/C compressor line where I had requested. He said he had consulted his HVAC guy and that it could be moved as planned. I later came to realize that he had pulled that answer directly out of his hinter regions and had never really consulted anyone.
8) They hung my theater door swinging the wrong way, making it completely impossible to position my riser correctly, despite my detailed drawings and repeated explanations. They fixed that too.
9) He said the build would take 4 weeks. It took nearly 5 months.
10) Constant no-shows and guys showing up to work for a few hours and then leaving.
11) And I learned a valuable lesson. Never again will I pay a contractor to do work on my house unless I absolutely have no other choice. No way. I'm going to learn to pick up a hammer, by God.

And now for the fun pictures. I wish I had more to illustrate the depth of my annoyance with these builders.

First, the story of the pinched wire. What kind of person willfully smashes a speaker wire inbetween the ceiling and a wall? Seriously, what kind of person?

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl009.jpg

Okay, so I politely ask them to change it, and they do:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl013.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl024.jpg

Thankfully, the speaker wires were not damaged. And in case you were wondering, yes, these speaker wires are in wall rated despite the clear jacket. Details are covered in this thread for anyone who wants proof: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=758203&highlight=CL2+speaker+wire+insurance

Now, the case of the several out-of-square soffits. I mean, seriously, they make tools for this stuff. I don't have a real good picture of the area that's the real problem, but this soffit is more than an inch out of square at one end, which is why there are gaps in the sheetrock. A little out of square is one thing, but over an inch? Pull out the square, guys. Stop being sloppy.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl018.jpg

And another one that's not quite as bad, but not what I'd call good either:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl018-1.jpg

When I asked one of the guys why he couldn't build a square soffit, or a square *anything*, he said that the general contractor was sending guys to frame my room one guy at a time. He said, "I need another pair of hands to hold the square while I do the hammering." Okay, that seems to make sense, but my GC should know this and should send guys to do it two at a time. Lame.

Oh, and as I mentioned above, there's so much more. Unfortunately, I didn't get more pictures, except for these next two, which I am reluctant to post because it's going to seem like nit-picking. But I'll post these pictures of sloppy trimwork because I have them, not because they are good evidence of the kind of sloppy work these guys did throughout the build. keep in mind, I've cleaned this up quite a bit. I will eventually replace all of the trim around the cabinet. It just seems like a professional should be able to match up the corners of a piece of trim:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl058.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl059.jpg

The Cabinet

Despite the sloppy trimwork and the truly scandalous paint job on the equipment cabinet (the latter of which I have already corrected myself), the contractors did indeed deliver a functional cabinet. It's actually pretty cool. It's sturdy enough to hold all of my gear. It looks clean from the front, with absolutely zero indication that the cabinet opens onto a service hallway from the back. The key to keeping things presentable from the front is the door on the back of the cabinet, painted black. You can't even see the wires from the front of the cabinet.


Cabinet Front
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl071.jpg

Here are some shots of the back of cabinet, where I can open the door to access my gear:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl066.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl069.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl070.jpg

I could really use a wire management system of some kind, though. If anyone has any suggestions, fire away.

looking nice. Go Blues!

Thanks for the compliment, bmwracer. Go Cards!

looks great. If you don't me asking, what's the brand/model name of the remote control? Does it operate through doors and walls?

Thanks HT05.

I put the information about the remote into the remote post -- I also changed the order of a few of the posts, so hopefully that's not too confusing for people.

Nice sock :)

Oh and the theater looks awesome! I like the color scheme. Do you have any before pictures?

Laters,
Jeff


Thanks for the compliment on the color scheme. I was really struggling with it, and then my wife picked up a paint card at Home Depot. The paint card was in the Disney Paint section. It had two coordinating colors on it, Cinema Star, which was a nice toasty brown/black, and Mickey's Shadow, which was a nice middle gray color. We already had the burgundy recliners, so we threw in some burgundy trim to tie it all together. It's hard to tell how well colors match by looking at digital photos -- the colors you're seeing are undoubtedly different than the actual colors in the room due to a variety of factors. But these colors really do work together because they all have red undertones.

That paint chip made my life a lot easier. Anyone who wants some decent theater colors should check out the Cinema/Shadow paint chip in the Disney section of the Home Depot.

I do have some before pictures, but unfortunately I can't find my pictures of the framing or the empty space as it existed before the build. I can only find my drywall-stage pictures.

I'm not sure how interesting those are, but I will post them if you want.

Your carpet/flooring is interesting. What is it?

Your carpet/flooring is interesting. What is it?

It's an inexpensive carpet. In the pictures it sort of looks brownish, but it's jet black in real life. There is a very subtle blue and red pattern on it. In these pictures, it looks like heavy treadwork or something, but the pattern is actually quite delicate.

I paid about $12 a yard for it and had a family member install it. It's nice carpet.

In these pictures, it looks like heavy treadwork or something, but the pattern is actually quite delicate.

Funny what cameras will do sometimes. I could of sworn it was a deep treaded design. Looks very cool. Your room is clean and functional...I like it!

How has that remote held up for you? I'm looking at picking up the same model.

Funny what cameras will do sometimes. I could of sworn it was a deep treaded design. Looks very cool. Your room is clean and functional...I like it!


Thanks! I really do appreciate the compliments I get from people, especially after all the hard work spent in Design and in managing my contractors.


How has that remote held up for you? I'm looking at picking up the same model.

So far, I love this remote. I've never owned a super nice remote like a Harmony, so I can't really compare. But I can say that this is the first universal remote that hasn't driven me crazy. It is well laid out and very easy to program, especially after you watch the smiley talking-heads on the DVD instruction program.

The remote is missing a couple of obvious buttons. One button that I couldn't believe it didn't have was an "input" button. So if I want to change inputs on my projector, for example, I had to program that functionality into the TV/VCR button. It seems like "input" should have been an obvious bit to include.

But other than that, it works as advertised. Switching between sources (projector, Satellite, Receiver, etc.) is very easy, and the buttons are laid out quite intuitively. I didn't even have to use the little IR transmitters that you can run directly from the base unit to your gear. I think the unit includes 8 of those.

I should mention that my interest in a universal remote is being able to control the basic functionality that I need for everyday viewing (volume, input switching, picture controls, etc.). To that end, this unit works well. As to whether or not this unit would be a good match for someone who wants to control every last bit of esoteric functionality in all of their gear, I'm not prepared to offer an opinion because I don't use it that way.

Having personally rocked out in the downtown johntown, I can say that it kicks ass. I look forward to hanging out there again.

T-Steppin for life!
- Pimpjuice

Having personally rocked out in the downtown johntown, I can say that it kicks ass. I look forward to hanging out there again.

T-Steppin for life!
- Pimpjuice


Two Words: NFL Playoffs.

It'll be me, you, and Mike Douglas.


http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl042.jpg

Great job with the design and wall & rug color selection. I'm doing the planning for a multi purpose room and hope I can convince the wife to go with darker colors. Did you think of going with a larger screen or did the width of the room determine the size for you?

Great job with the design and wall & rug color selection. I'm doing the planning for a multi purpose room and hope I can convince the wife to go with darker colors.

Thanks for the compliment! In a dedicated HT, darker is better. This can be achieved through total light control and dark colored surfaces/materials. Brighter colors will increase light scatter and will wash out the ANSI contrast capabilities of your projector.


Did you think of going with a larger screen or did the width of the room determine the size for you?

Seating distance and personal preference determined screen size. Generally speaking, the best approach is to find the optimum spot to place the seating, which is usually determined by room layout and acoustic considerations, and then to use horizontal viewing angle calculations to determine the proper screen size to achieve decent viewing angle in all rows.

There's a lot of thought and computation that goes into this. Factors involved include the following:

1) Screen resolution
2) Source quality and resolution
3) Where do you like to sit when you go to the movies?
4) What size will get both the front and the back row into the proper zone, so that the front row isn't too overwhelmed but the back row isn't too disengaged?

The closest I'd want to be is at 40+ horizontal degrees, and this seating distance works best on 1080i/p material on a 1080p screen and will likely seem too close for lower quality content. I wouldn't want to be any further away than 26 degrees, which is the minimum allowable distance for any theater seeking THX certification.

Once you have determined your seating locations, this is a very helpful link to help you select screen size based on horizontal viewing angle, but I always caution people to visit a few high-end HT stores to get an idea for what viewing angle they are most comfortable with before making a decision:

http://whatsonhdtv.blogspot.com/2005/06/viewing-angle-calculator.html

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll have trouble convincing her that a dark ceiling is a good thing. I might be able to get away with a dark section in front of the screen area and a similar wall color to yours.

The basement area in I'm using has an even lower height than yours with HVAC ducts along both sides. I'm just using furniture we have for seating with no riser.

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll have trouble convincing her that a dark ceiling is a good thing. I might be able to get away with a dark section in front of the screen area and a similar wall color to yours.

The basement area in I'm using has an even lower height than yours with HVAC ducts along both sides. I'm just using furniture we have for seating with no riser.


I think your wife might be surprised at how nice a black ceiling can look. Too much black can be suffocating, but that's where color coordination and appropriate use of different shades/colors/textures comes in.

Low ceilings are a pain, though. I feel for you.

For those of you following this thread, I will be posting some more interesting stuff within the next day or two. My next picture-fest will involve a disection (visually, not literally) of my screen wall.

I need help taking down the screen to show you guys what's behind it, so I have to wait until someone has time to lend me a hand.

I plan to post photos of the acoustic treatments behind the false wall and also provide some instructions for the very creative (and staple-less) way that we affixed the GOM to the frame around the exposed edges.

Also, I have some tips for cutting and working with GOM, pictures of the tools we used, fun descriptions, etc. Stay tuned.

John,

Nice job on your theater! My dimensions are similar to yours. I built my room in 1997 and it has evolved since then. I'm now getting the pj upgrade urge and would like to upgrade my seating as well. I love your Berklines. Did you buy those locally?

Stace

John,

Nice job on your theater! My dimensions are similar to yours. I built my room in 1997 and it has evolved since then. I'm now getting the pj upgrade urge and would like to upgrade my seating as well. I love your Berklines. Did you buy those locally?

Stace

I bought them from Roman at Ultimate Home Entertainment (I think that's the correct name of his online business). He is a Berkline seller who hangs around the HT accessories forum here at AVS. Compared to the price that I saw recently at BestBuy.com, I got these for roughly half price, and that includes power recline and one of the nicer grades of leather. So you definitely save some bucks buying them the way that I did. My experience with Roman was very good.

And in case anyone is wondering where my next round of pictures are, my city was hit by a crippling ice storm and I've been without power for two days now. I'm typing this from my mother's house. It's no fun to be without power. :(

Makes it kinda hard to watch movies:)

Makes it kinda hard to watch movies:)

Very true. :D

I've been without power for going on 3 days now. I keep calling my home phone number, hoping that my answering machine will pick up, signaling that power has been restored. So far, no luck.

The worst part of all of this is that my tropical fish are almost certainly dead by now. I wrapped the tank in insulation and kept trying to add warm water to the tank, but these fish are so easily stressed that even small fluctuations in temperature can make them sick or kill them. And here we're talking about wild swings in temperature.

At some point, the poor guys are just going to give up.

UPDATE: At 1pm this afternoon, power came back on. Apparently my frequent water changes and wrapping of the aquarium in insulation has saved ALL of my fish.

Unbelievable. Most of the aquarium owners (who I've talked to) with similar stock who have experienced a similar cold-weather outage have lost lots of fish.

I'll be keeping an eye on the fish for the next few days as their immunity will likely be weakened. But so far, so good.

It will still be a while before I get the next round of pictures out since we're currently busy doing fun stuff like "throwing out the spoiled burger," and "pitching the melted frozen-dinners." :eek:

A suggestion for you. I see you are very constrained for placement of your surround speakers. I can recommend some GR-Research DIY AV1-RS which would give you much better surround immersion in your room and the cost is very low, they would also blend a lot better into your room (high WAF factor), they are designed to hand on the wall and fire off the ceiling. They are $229 for pair in kit form. No I am not affliliated with GR in any way besides enjoying their speakers.

http://www.gr-research.com/kits/av1rs.shtm

A suggestion for you. I see you are very constrained for placement of your surround speakers. I can recommend some GR-Research DIY AV1-RS which would give you much better surround immersion in your room and the cost is very low, they would also blend a lot better into your room (high WAF factor), they are designed to hand on the wall and fire off the ceiling. They are $229 for pair in kit form. No I am not affliliated with GR in any way besides enjoying their speakers.

http://www.gr-research.com/kits/av1rs.shtm


Thanks for the tip. I will eventually be upgrading my system and I'll look into those.

I will eventually be moving to a 7.1 arrangement with a pair of rear surrounds just behind each row. I was thinking about Axioms or Ascends.

Do you know of these GR-Research jobs come in black?

Most of Danny's stuff (GR) is kit and you build the cabinets yourself. He does have someone he works with a lot though if you want someone else to build them.

Bryan

Reverse Engineering the False Wall

For some reason, I found the design of the false wall to be one of the most puzzling and perplexing aspects of my design. Yes, I read all of these wonderful construction threads. Yes, I looked at all of the beautiful pictures. And Yes, I got a general idea of how a false wall is put together. But it was still a big fat NO as to whether or not I had any idea how to design my specific false wall.

I'm sure there's a great thread around here somewhere with a tutorial on how to design a false wall, but I sure couldn't find it. So I'm going to take a crack at making my own "How To," laying out the general rules that one must follow if they wanted to build a simple wall like mine in their own environment.

Since my screen wall is already built, we're going to reverse engineer it here in this thread. Come one, come all. Witness the amazing reverse engineering of John's amazing FALSE WALL! Admission is free. Beer and Doritos are accepted as gratuity.

To start things off, let's take a look at what my false wall looks like with the screen removed.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl072.jpg

In the gaping void behind the screen, you get a clear view of what's behind the wall. Specifically, you're looking at 1 inch thick OC703 to acoustically deaden the front wall. You can't see the corners from this angle, however, so check out these pictures, where you can clearly see the floor to ceiling acoustic cotton.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl077.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl076.jpg

There's one thing you've got to understand about me right now. I'm not very handy. I'm not comfortable around power saws and the other various gadgets that you guys use, most of which seem to involve an incredibly sharp blade whirling around at insane speeds. I still have all of my fingers, and I'd like to keep them. So you can understand my desire to come up with a way to mount my acoustic cotton in the corners without having to nail or saw anything.

Well, the good news is that all of that acoustic cotton in the corners is hidden away behind the false wall, so it doesn't have to look pretty. After trying several lame methods of mounting the cotton, I finally decide to staple left-over strips of velcro to the walls to keep the cotton from falling over. Here's a closer shot of the corner cotton, and you can see the strips of velcro. Keep in mind, I didn't have to use velcro -- the fact that it's velcro doesn't really benefit me at all here. I just used strips of velcro because I had some left over and it acted as a nice "belt" to cinch my cotton tight against the wall:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl079.jpg

Okay, so that's what the acoustic treatment looks like. If anyone wants more detail about how to cut acoustic cotton or OC 703, let me know. Otherwise, I'm moving onto the meat of this post. Let's talk about how to design a false wall!

Okay, first things first. My false wall is constructed out of 2x2s, like a lot of other false walls around this forum. So the first question you might have is: John, how do I decide how far apart to space my 2x2 studs?

I'm so glad you asked! First, you have to decide if your goal with regard to stud spacing is similar to mine. My goal was simple. I wanted to be able to wrap my black, acoustically transparent GOM cloth behind the false wall so I could staple it, and I wanted the screen to completely conceal the seam.

If your goal is like mine, then you want to make sure that you have "inside studs" that will fall behind the screen, so that you can wrap the cloth around the studs, and the seam will be invisible once the screen is hung.

This is probably a lot easier to show than to explain, so check this out:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/FalseWallOutline.jpg

In the picture above, the red lines indicate 2x2 studs. Clearly, you need a top plate and a bottom plate, and there's generally no mystery regarding where those need to go -- the floor and the ceiling, right? In my case, the ceiling is a bit lower than usual due to that HVAC soffit (which I've conveniently chosen to hide away behind my false wall), but other than that, the top/bottom plates are easy as pie. Much the same can be said about the left and right outtermost studs.

But what about the other studs? How do you know where to put those? Well, let's start with the the two innermost vertical studs marked by arrows in the photo below:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Arrow.jpg

Okay, so how do you know what the spacing should be? Follow these steps:

1) First, measure the outside width of your screen frame. In my case, it was 7'6" wide.
2) Then, figure out how much distance will remain inbetween the outside edge of your screen-frame and the side-wall once the screen is mounted in the middle of the front wall. My room is 11'4" wide, and my screen is 7'6" wide, which basically means that I will have about 1'11" on each side of my screen.
3) make sure that the studs in question (the ones marked with the nifty yellow arrows) will end up behind the screen. If I spaced those studs 2 feet off the side walls, they would fall behind the screen quite nicely.

Okay, so how do you determine the location of the other studs? Well, in my case, the top plate ended up falling behind my screen almost by accident, giving me a good place to wrap fabric. Most screen walls will not end up like that, since most screen walls don't have a handy-dandy HVAC soffit hiding behind them like mine does, meaning that you'll need to run an additional horizontal stud behind the top of the screen. But the math is similar to what was done above.

Now let's consider another stud location that I found to be a bit trickier. Check out the stud with the yellow arrow pointing to it in the picture below:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Arrow2.jpg

The arrow in the above picture is actually pointing to 3 horizontal studs. Why 3? you ask. I'll tell ya why. It's because my Carada screen has a bottom mounting bracket which has to be spaced a specific number of inches below the top mounting bracket. And all end user reports have indicated that getting that bottom bracket in the right spot can be tricky, often requiring multiple attempts.
So I used the math in Carada's installation instructions to determine the "right" spot to put the bottom bracket, and then I gave myself two extra studs worth of leeway in case I needed to slide the bracket up or down.

I'm sure glad I did that too, since I needed to slide it up a hair. Here are a couple of shots of the brackets once they were screwed into the false wall. The top bracket is actually screwed into the drywall of the HVAC soffit, and the bottom bracket is screwed into my triple stack of horizontal studs.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl089.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl088.jpg

By the way, it was important that the top lip of the triple-stack end up behind the screen, so I could wrap fabric around behind the screen wall and use the screen to hide the location of the wrapping, just as with the other "inside" studs in the false wall.

And one more point. We need to talk about that center/bottom space for a moment, where the center channel is hiding. You've got to make sure you leave enough room there for your center channel because you sure can't have a stud right in the middle of your tweeter. That center channel area in my false wall allows 3 full feet inbetween the vertical studs. That's plenty big.

Reverse Engineering the False Wall Part 2:
Fun with GOM.

For those of you who have been wandering around this forum for a few weeks wondering what in God's name GOM is, it's a secret code word that we use to inform each other that we are wearing our Harry Potter Secret Decoder Rings and are ready to receive mysterious messages.

Nah, GOM actually stands for Guilford of Maine, which apparently is the company that makes the acoustically transparent cloth that most of us use to cover our false walls.

I needed about 6 yards of fabric to cover my false wall. I purchased my fabric from fabricmate, and they helped me figure out how much I needed.

Anyway, around this forum you will find lots of suggestions for attaching your GOM to your false wall. These methods range from pre-built track systems like FabricMate, to staples, to velcro, to who knows what else. Staples seem like a no-brainer on any edge that will be hidden (use a power stapler), which is why I used staples on this edge, which is hidden behind the screen (you're actually looking at an edge on back side of the false wall in this shot):


http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl092.jpg

But what can you do about those ugly staples on edges that will be visible? Some people use trim pieces (base board and crown molding for example) to hide the staples. I've even heard of some people gluing decorative rope over the staples.
And I am quite sure that all of those methods work great.

But I took the advice of a fellow forum member and used velcro. That's right, Industrial Strength Velcro from Wal-Mart (It's cheaper there than at Home Depot, to no one's surprise).

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl102.jpg

So you might be wondering exactly how this works. Well, first of all, the velcro comes in two giant rolls -- one made out of velcro "loops" and one made out of velcro "hooks." The rolls look something like this:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl095.jpg

First, I peeled the paper off the back of the "loops," exposing the sticky, industrial strength adhesive.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl098.jpg


I then applied the "loops" around the entire permiter. In the picture below, the blue lines indicate where I affixed the loop velcro:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/FalseWallVelcro.jpg

Now, the tricky part: Affixing the "hook" velcro to the GOM fabric. Listen, this isn't for the faint of heart. And to be honest, I'm not even sure this "whole wall attached by velcro" thing is a good idea, even though it did work out amazingly well for me personally. I didn't find it to be particularly hard, but the trick is getting that last piece of velcro on in the exact right spot so that you can stretch the entire fabric wall as tightly as possible without having too much slack, or too little. In my opinion, the only good way to do this is to affix the velcro to three sides of the fabric wall (the permiter edges) and wait to affix to the fourth permiter side until you can stretch it and see exactly where it needs to go.

Cutting fabric that is already attached to a wall can be lots of fun! But check it out, my wife found this cool rotary tool which you can just roll along the edge of the fabric and it cuts like butter!

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl093.jpg

The rotary tool came with this hard backer board (shown below)which I used as the cutting surface.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl086.jpg

The rotary tool was a Wal-Mart special, friends. And the beautiful thing about using velcro is the nice, tight seems I got all the way around the wall, with no need to cover up staples.

Here's a close up of the seem where the fabric wall meets the side wall. You can see the seem isn't completely, 100% perfect, but it's not too shabby either, and from normal seating distances it looks nice and tight. Heck, when you're right on top of it, it still looks pretty good. Keep in mind, a light as bright as the flash on this camera is not a part of the normal room ambience, and this is the harshest angle from which to view the seam, since any imperfections will be visible like this. When you're looking at the wall straight on, it's nearly perfect, despite the minor imperfections visible below.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl101.jpg

Nice details. I too am building a "false wall" but not for the screen. Rather, I have a 17 x 17 space, and will be shortening one dimension down to about 13 feet. This "false wall" is more of a real wall, I guess, since it will also have a door in it.

Nice details and great thread. Couple of questions though, as I am noodling on how I am going to do my false wall as well.

1) Did you just use 2x2s for your baseplates and what did you use to affix these to the floor/ceiling (you said you don't like power tools)?
2) Did you build this before or after carpet? I am thinking about waiting until after carpet and all the inspections before I start doing this type of thing, and am wondering if that is a bad idea.
3) Do you have any electric outlets or anything on the wall that is covered w/ absorption... I'd like to see some pics on how you dealt with that if you have them.
4) How did you attach the 703 to the walls/ceiling?

5) I am also curious to your motivation for putting the screen on the front part of the wall, as opposed to having it recessed into the wall, and using the outer part of the wall as a shadow box. Are you planning on using an AT screen at some point?

Thanks, and keep the posts coming. I really like the format of this thread, and you may be inspiring me to start my own. I'd also love to come check out your room in person sometime.

just a suggestion, you should think about adding a few holes or hole in the back of the cabinet to vent some air out of there. Especially that you have a 360 in there.

Nice details and great thread. Couple of questions though, as I am noodling on how I am going to do my false wall as well.

1) Did you just use 2x2s for your baseplates and what did you use to affix these to the floor/ceiling (you said you don't like power tools)?

Remember those contractors of death I hired? They did a couple of things correctly, despite my compaints. :D I had them use that big noisy shotgun-style tool to pound nails through the bottom plate into the concrete floor. I've been told not to use construction adhesive due to the extreme hassle involved if I ever wanted to take the wall down.

And yes, I used 2x2s for my top and bottom plate. This seems sturdy enough, but if I fell into the wall with all my weight I might damage it, so I don't plan on doing that anytime soon! :D

I used 2x2s for the plates because I needed all the room I could get "behind" the false wall -- that inch made a difference. Here's the deal, I have a hole in one of the side walls where I am running my speaker wires from the equipment hallway to the area behind the false wall. This hole had very specific location constraints due to the inconvenient location of my furnace. Basically, I have only a couple of inches to play with where the wire inlet hole could go. So the thinner I could make the false wall, the more room I had to run wires through a hole along the concrete floor.


2) Did you build this before or after carpet? I am thinking about waiting until after carpet and all the inspections before I start doing this type of thing, and am wondering if that is a bad idea.

I installed the false wall prior to carpet. If you plan to stop your carpet at your false wall (as I did since I didn't want to pay for carpet that would never be seen), your carpet guy will need a base plate to kick up against. So I just had them build the whole wall and then lay carpet. I'm thinking that if you explain to your inspector exactly what you're doing so he's not surprised, he will have an opportunity tell you if there are any special code gotchas related to the false wall before those gotchas bite you. Plus, inspectors are *usually* reasonable if they are kept in the loop.

When it comes to code in the St. Louis & St. Charles areas, I'd be more concerned about the riser than the false wall. If you've got a high ceiling and ample width for a step, it's not so tough. If you're working with 7.5 foot ceilings and minimum width, you'll practically be required to break code to make the riser functional.

My riser is not to code, which is why I built it to be removeable -- if it's removeable, it's a piece of furniture, not a part of the room. Of course, removing the riser would involve 4 guys, some wonderbars, a case of beer, and some pizza.



3) Do you have any electric outlets or anything on the wall that is covered w/ absorption... I'd like to see some pics on how you dealt with that if you have them.

There is one faceplate with two standard grounded outlets on the wall behind the screen. I will post a pic of that later tonight. I basically just cut up pieces of OC703 and attached them all around the outlet. OC703 cuts like butter if you use a razor knife.


4) How did you attach the 703 to the walls/ceiling?

A cheap 30 dollar power stapler from Home Depot. The work was harder than it had to be beause my stapler was not very "heavy duty." But I just put my shoulder into it and it turned out fine. If I was going to put down staples in an area that needed to be finished, I'd have used a more powerful gun.


5) I am also curious to your motivation for putting the screen on the front part of the wall, as opposed to having it recessed into the wall, and using the outer part of the wall as a shadow box. Are you planning on using an AT screen at some point?

Three words: SOFFIT OF DEATH.

Check out the HVAC soffit on this current page of my thread. The top of my shadow box would need to be below that HVAC soffit because, well, you can't put a shadow box in the middle of your main ductwork. The HVAC soffit is basically a deal breaker for the shadow box because it would require me to drop my screen down to the point where people in the back row would lose "line of sight" with the bottom of the screen. My riser cannot be any higher due to ceiling height limitations.

If you really want to get a good idea for how far I'd have to drop my screen to put it inside of a shadow box, go check out the picture on this page of the "top bracket" for my screen. That bracket is mounted to the soffit. It looks to me like I'd have to drop that bracket by 8 inches or so to get it under the soffit and still leave room for the top edge of the screen frame. I measured it at one point -- it's just not feasible.


When I said that every inch of this room was accounted for in the initial Design, I wasn't kidding. The good news is that I conducted a thorough design up front, so none of this stuff bit me or came as a surprise. Less time spent in design would have resulted in a completely non-functional (or at least seriously compromised)room.



Thanks, and keep the posts coming. I really like the format of this thread, and you may be inspiring me to start my own. I'd also love to come check out your room in person sometime.

I might host an AVS meet or something sometime, since there are a couple of other guys around here who have also expressed an interest in seeing the theater. My theater isn't nearly as awesome as some of the other ones in the St. Louis Area -- John Kotches theater comes to mind as an example of first class craftmanship. But mine is a good basic theater that seats 6 people and is a fun place to watch movies, and I'm always happy to share it with others. Finding the time has been tough lately, though.

just a suggestion, you should think about adding a few holes or hole in the back of the cabinet to vent some air out of there. Especially that you have a 360 in there.

There is some circulation through the cabinet because the back/bottom of the cabinet opens onto the cool, unfinished part of the basement. But I was also thinking of installing a fan, and maybe drilling some small holes in the back/top of the cabinet.


Does anyone have a recommendation for a small, quiet fan?

I added an additional picture and some more detail to the "acoustic fun" post on the first page, including a drawing that Bpape did for me that shows the first reflection points.

Bryan, I assume it's okay for me to post this picture. If it's not, let me know and I will remove it.

No problem John.

The room is looking good. Hope you're going to take some time and enjoy the football this afternoon in your new man cave.

Bryan

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Acoustic.jpg

1) The Front Wall: The front wall, behind the false wall made of black GOM, is completed. The corners are acoustic cotton floor to ceiling, and the rest of the wall area behind the false wall, which includes an HVAC soffit, is covered in 1 inch thick OC703.

2) Side Panels -- Not installed yet. The design calls for 8 side panels made of 2-inch OC703 to tame first reflections and provide some additional control for the lower end. I hope to get these purchased shortly.

3) Back Wall Treatments-- Not Installed yet. The back wall calls for additional absorption, but it will be a while before I can get this done.



How does one read the two rows of front speakers in this diagram? Looks wild and I'm sure it means something :confused:

How does one read the two rows of front speakers in this diagram? Looks wild and I'm sure it means something :confused:

Bryan is better prepared to explain this than I am. But keep in mind, one set of speakers in the picture represents the actual physical location of the speakers within the room. The other set represents the first reflection points. And the red and blue lines are the actual traces of the first reflection points for the first and second rows.


It looks to me that the second set of speakers is a mirror image of the first set, and that both the "real" and and the "reflection" speakers are spaced the same distance away from the inside side-walls. Drawing it this way is cleaner than drawing the traces bouncing off the side walls from a single set of speakers, so I'm guessing that's why it was done this way.


P.S.

I added this additional information to the "Acoustic Fun" post on the first page.

No problem John.

The room is looking good. Hope you're going to take some time and enjoy the football this afternoon in your new man cave.

Bryan

Oh yeah. This room is great for both sports and movies. And with my new DishNet HD DVR, I have a constant backlog of movies to watch. It's awesome.

Drawing the second "mirrored" set of speakers is actually a way of finding the reflection points, not just showing them. It is one of the ways to geometrically find reflection angles. By creating a mirror image of the speakers on the other side of the reflection surface (in this case the wall) and then drawing a straight line from the mirrored speakers to the listening position you get the reflection points at the spot where the line crosses the wall. In a symetrical room you can copy these points to the oposite wall, however if the room is not symetrical you would have to do this drawing for both side walls. I did some sample drawings in This thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9446540&&#post9446540) that may help explain what I am saying. I am sure that BPape could do an excelent explaination of this too, I just thought I would jump in on this too. I think that I will either start a thread about this or drop it into the acustic treatment master thread if it isn't already there.

The Downtown Johntown theater looks great. I hope you are spending some good time enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Later,
Brian

Drawing the second "mirrored" set of speakers is actually a way of finding the reflection points, not just showing them. It is one of the ways to geometrically find reflection angles. By creating a mirror image of the speakers on the other side of the reflection surface (in this case the wall) and then drawing a straight line from the mirrored speakers to the listening position you get the reflection points at the spot where the line crosses the wall. In a symetrical room you can copy these points to the oposite wall, however if the room is not symetrical you would have to do this drawing for both side walls. I did some sample drawings in This thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9446540&&#post9446540) that may help explain what I am saying. I am sure that BPape could do an excelent explaination of this too, I just thought I would jump in on this too. I think that I will either start a thread about this or drop it into the acustic treatment master thread if it isn't already there.


I liked this explanation so much I copied it into my acoustic post.


The Downtown Johntown theater looks great. I hope you are spending some good time enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Been watchin' movies and football all day! :D

BTW, same geometry for bank shot in pool/billiards where the listening position is the object ball, the wall treatment is the point the object ball must make contact with, and the mirrored speaker is the mirrorred pocket, which is a reflection of the actual speaker or pocket. But in pool, the lines must be imaginary of course.

PF

Thanks for the explanations. Makes lots of sense. I was used to seeing diagrams with the actual trajectory of the sound, but I can see where this is cleaner and easier to read. Heck, I'm still bribing friends with beer to walk along the wall with a mirror while I sit in the sweet spot watching a reflection of one of the speakers....

3) Do you have any electric outlets or anything on the wall that is covered w/ absorption... I'd like to see some pics on how you dealt with that if you have them.


Aaron, I know I promised to post a picture of an outlet, but unfortunately I don't have one. I thought I did. Taking my screen down to get my last round of pictures proved to be a major ordeal, so hopefully my description of how I handled the outlets in my original response gets the point across. If not, I'll snap some pics the next time I have the screen down, but that could be a billion years from now. :D

Aaron, I know I promised to post a picture of an outlet, but unfortunately I don't have one. I thought I did. Taking my screen down to get my last round of pictures proved to be a major ordeal, so hopefully my description of how I handled the outlets in my original response gets the point across. If not, I'll snap some pics the next time I have the screen down, but that could be a billion years from now. :D

Thanks, but your description did just fine. Bryan has me doing 6" of 703 on my screen wall (everywhere except where the screen is), and I've been wondering how I will deal w/ the outlets. This is why I am likely going to postpone treating the screen wall until after the inspection ;)

Thanks for answering the other questions as well. It sounds like the OC 703 is easy enough to work with that I will have plenty of options when it comes to mounting it.

Designing the Room: The Process
(alternate title: the ramblings of someone who has seen the light and gone blind.)

When you first begin contemplating building your own home theater, you might find yourself a bit overwhelmed. I know I was. In fact, my first two weeks in this forum were spent wondering what in the world GOM was. We seriously need a "common abbreviations" sticky at the top of every forum around here, for real.

And now that I've been to the mountaintop and back (the climb felt like Krakatoa), I thought it might be helpful for me to outline the basic process that I used to design my theater.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do -- outline a process. It may not be the best process in the world (since I'm not an expert like Dennis), but it was my process, and it worked for me. Maybe it will work for you too. Or maybe you'll get a good laugh.

Keep in mind, the steps outlined below are iterative. And since subsequent steps effect former ones, you may find yourself iterating A LOT if you try to follow my process. Also, if you will be working with an acoustic expert or other guru, get them involved early.

Before we get started, another note: Avoid the temptation to start with some pre-cooked idea for how big you want your screen to be. This is a sure-fire way to hose up your design. The basic order of operations is this:

1) Figure out the dimensions of your room (where the walls will go)
2) Figure out where your seating will be
3) And then, finally, figure out how big your screen will be

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, and details are below in abundance. :D

STEP ONE: Figure Out Where the Walls Go
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? For me, it wasn't. If your house has only one option for wall placement, or if you are required to use an existing room without altering the structure, this step might be easy. For those of us with multiple build options and various obstacles like HVAC ducts and support poles, this is tougher. For me, figuring out where to put the walls was the single most difficult decision. For starters, I think it might be helpful for me to lay out some basic guidelines that helped me through it:
1) Avoid a square shaped room because of poor acoustics
2) A room that is a perfectly symmetrical rectangle will yield the most predictable acoustic response and will lend itself more easily to acoustic treatment based on various models
3) Related to point 2, symmetry is important for acoustics. Funny star-shaped rooms should be avoided. Remember, perfect rectangles are good! Star-shaped rooms are... not! :D Having said that, symmetry is more important in front of the listening position than behind it.
4) There are minimum recommended widths and lengths for a room depending upon the number of rows and type of seating. 17 feet from the back wall to the screen is a comfortable MINIMUM for two rows of recliners. (You can get by with less length, but you may find that selecting a screen size in step 3 becomes problematic and doesn't result in a theater-like feel for all rows. Either that, or you might have to sacrifice leg room.) 11.5 feet of width is a comfortable MINIMUM for the smallest footprint recliners I could find -- Berkline 088s. Larger recliners demand more width.
5) If you plan to build a false wall, 2+ feet of room behind it may not be a requirement, but it sure does help with sub placement, acoustic treatments, and speaker placement.
6) If you can manage it, I recommend moving your equipment outside of the theater room. A/V equipment emits light and heat -- two things you don't want in your theater.
7) Spend some time thinking of creative ways to disquise support poles, HVAC, and other obstacles without compromising the symmetry or aesthetics of the finished space.
8) And now is the time to figure out what you're doing to isolate your room acoustically. Double and staggered stud configurations eat up more floor space and must be accounted for in your drawings.
9) Don't worry so much about building a room that adheres to one of the golden acoustic ratios unless achieving the ratio is a natural progression of room design or involves minimal alterations. Instead, you might find it easier to avoid particularly bad dimensions -- for example, dimensions where one room dimension is an even multiple of another. Keep in mind, your room will require acoustic treatment regardless of whether or not it is built to a specific ratio.

For me, there was no way around the fact that figuring out how to arrange the walls was the most troublesome and time consuming part of design. In an earlier post, I showed you the Design that I eventually decided on, shown below:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/FinalPlan.jpg

Notice that I have room to recline (but just barely), that I have feasible side-isles (but just barely), that my front row is placed at a good position acoustically, that my room is a symmetrical rectangle, and that my main HVAC ductwork is hidden behind my false wall -- none of this was by accident.

But before I arrived at the Design shown above, I went through a ton of alternatives.

Below was my very first idea. It was pretty lame, but I didn't really know what I was doing. This scenario created what was essentially a giant shadow box and also some very strange speaker placement scenarios, so I quickly ditched it:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/HTLayout2.jpg

And if you think the Design above was bad, check this next one out. My drawing shows two rows of seating, but the total length of the room is only 15 feet, which rules out recliners and makes things very tight in general. This was my cheapest build option, in more ways that one. And no, those seats are not to scale.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/HTLayout1.jpg

And for a while, I was totally in love with a version of the room that put the equipment cabinet in the room. Light, heat, and symmetry became concerns.

Oh, and there was another fun version of the room that considered a superior length of 24 feet where I planned to have 3 rows instead of 2. The problem? I don't have the ceiling height for 3 rows of recliners on risers of the necessary height. And once again, symmetry became a problem.

In short, figuring out where your walls go may be the hardest thing you have to deal with. Take your time and get it right.

STEP TWO: Figure Out Where Your Seating Will Go
1) The 38% rule. I am not an acoustics guru, but I have learned that the primary seating location can be optimally placed at 38% of the room length, or, conversely, 62% of the room length. This will yield a favorable acoustic response. In all but the largest rooms, you'll probably end up at 38% off the back wall. In my room, that was the only option, since 62% off the back wall would put my head practically in the screen and made it impossible to balance viewing angle for 2 rows.

If your room is of a length similar to mine, you'll put the front row at 38% off the back wall and then jam another row behind it with whatever room you have left. That sort of takes the mystery out of seating placement, and makes it pretty easy. Of course, it's not ideal to have your back row right up against the back wall, but sometimes you have to make due with the space you have.

2) If you want the people in the back row to be able to fully recline, allow at least 1.5 feet inbetween the foot of the back-row chairs when fully reclined and the back of the front row chairs. Some people have long legs and big feet. And a stinky foot seems bigger than it is.
3) 30 inches is a good width for a side isle. 36 inches is roomier, of course, and 4 feet is very nice if you have the extra width. I do not.
4) As I mentioned, if you can, try to keep your seating off the back wall

STEP 3: Juggling Screen Size and Riser Height
Now that you've figured out where you'll be sitting, you can begin the long, slow dance with screen-size and riser-height. It's a fun dance. Get used to using online calculators.

First things first, you need to know what sort of horizontal viewing angle you prefer, because the right "viewing angle" for your theater will be influenced largely by your own personal preference. Check out some local A/V shops to get an idea for the distance/size ratio that you prefer.

Also, the optimum viewing angle for you will be influenced by the quality and resolution of your source material and your projection technology. Describing all of the calculations that can go into this would be nearly impossible, so I'll just throw out a few of MY more important guidelines.

1) I personally wouldn't go over 40+ degrees horizontal viewing angle. This angle works fantastically on high quality 1080p content (like HD DVD) on a 1080p projector, but it's way too close for my tastes on lesser quality content.
2) I want the back row to feel like a theater experience too, so I wouldn't drop below 26 degrees horizontal viewing angle in the back row -- 26 degrees is the absolute minimum viewing angle required by any commercial theater seeking THX certification. This is an excellent viewing angle for watching lower resolution standard DVDs with edge enhancement, macroblocking, and other picture defects.
3) Read and understand this document: http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hitech/1137/maxing-out-resolution.html (and here's another one where the graph goes to higher screen sizes: http://www.carltonbale.com/blog/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/)
4) Use this online calculator to calculate viewing angles in the multi-row environment (and remember, your goal is to get "close enough" in the back row without getting "too close" in the front row): http://whatsonhdtv.blogspot.com/2005/06/viewing-angle-calculator.html
5) Make sure you have enough space on the sides of your screen for proper speaker placement.
6) Use the riser height calculator stickied to the top of this forum to make sure you can get proper line of sight from the back row. Remember your ceiling height. Codes regarding "steps" and "ceiling height" are there for a reason, a fact that you may soon discover if you choose to ignore them.
7) To use the riser height calculator, you'll need to know how far off the floor the bottom of your screen will be, which means you'll need to decide. Here are some screen placement rules of thumb that I found very useful, although your mileage may vary:
a) Try to put the eyes of people in your primary row at 1/3 from the bottom of the screen.
b) Try not to exceed 20 degrees vertical viewing angle (physical discomfort sets in at 35 degrees, but this is hard to exceed in a typical home theater environment at normal seating distances). Reference: http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/Verticalviewing.html

STEP FOUR: Finalizing the Acoustic Treatments (this step can run parallel with the preceeding one)
1) Well, now you should be able to calculate first reflection points. Check out my "Acoustic Fun" post on the first page of this thread for a good way to do it.
2) You can run your own RT60 calculations, or you can hire someone to do it for you. As you may have already read, I chose to do the latter. This was a really good decision, since at the time I didn't even know what RT60 was. Remember, I didn't even know what GOM was. Even though I'm learning more about acoustics everyday, I still wouldn't be comfortable handling this myself, since firsthand experience is very important, and I don't have enough of that yet. Anyway, the important thing is that you figure out how much absorptive material you need in the room and where to put it. You need to run real calculations to do this right, but there are some rules of thumb that lots of forum members use:
a) In a multi-channel HT environment, the front wall should be acoustically dead. This usually involves Linacoustic or OC703 or some other insulation covering most of the front wall.
b) Bass traps are generally in high demand, and lots of people use wedge traps in the corners of the room. This is a good place for them, apparently. My traps are made of acoustic cotton.
c) First reflection points are handled by side panels -- Linacoustic or OC703, prefab or "built in".

STEP 5: RINSE REPEAT REFINE

Excellent read. Keep 'em coming.

Excellent read. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks!

I just thought it might be a good idea to do a brain dump of "how I got here" before I forget all of it. :D

I don't suppose this will be any help at all to the seasoned guys who have been hanging around this forum for months or years, but maybe it will help a few new guys out who don't know where to start. Heck, I hope it helps somebody. :D

I agree, that was helpful. I am in a middle spot, I have learned some, but never enough. The 38/62 stuff was new to me. Damn shame my seating will be closer to 70/30. Good read though.

I made a bunch of revisions to my "process" post last night, and a few minor ones this morning.

I have a tendency to use the forum as my text editor, so the first posted copy of a post (especially a *long* post) is seldom complete.

We need a diff feature for your posts ;-)

I really think this is a great way to organize a thread. I wish there would have been something like this when I started. Then again, I really wish I would have started my own construction thread when I started... perhaps I wouldn't have made as many up front mistakes that I have made.

Well guys, I'm sorry to report I've just lost my job. My corporate headquarters is located in another state, and I work out of a satellite office -- and they just decided to close my office. 60 employees, with skillsets ranging from VB/Java programmer to Systems Designer (that's me), to Business Analyst, are about to flood the St. Louis market. You heard it here first, friends.

To my friends in St. Louis -- If you are aware of a job opening for a very thorough Systems Designer (or a Project Manager -- I can do that too), or heck, even a coordinator or BA, send me a PM.

:(

Sorry to hear that.
Hope something comes up soon.

Scott

What a drag. I'll keep my eyes out on our corporate job board.

Bryan

What a drag. I'll keep my eyes out on our corporate job board.

Bryan

Thanks Bryan.

This isn't the first time I've been through a brutal re-org, but I tell ya, it never gets any easier. The sad thing is that this is the best job I've ever had -- I really fit in here, loved my bosses and co-workers, had garnered respect. It was nice.

That sort of job satisfaction is very hard to duplicate.

They've offered me a chance to move to corporate headquarters, but I can't accept the offer -- too many connections here in St. Louis.

I work on the second largest privately owned network in the country (my company has a surprisingly enormous IT department). If we were a public company, we'd be in the "Fortune 5." But even the giants have to chop stuff off every now and then.

Bummer.

Nice read. Sorry to hear about the job. I like your room John, and thanks for taking the time to post all the info and pics.

Scott

John

Sorry to hear about getting fired. To say that it is a shock, is an understatement. Good luck in recovering. I would hope that some one that has your ability to communicate and attention to detail will be recognized by another employer ASAP.

I really appreciate the time time and effort that went into you documenting
Reverse Engineering the False Wall
and
Designing the Room: The Process

I am starting the design of my theater and I think that your posts will help me along the journey to the final nirvana of having a completed theater to be able to enjoy.

Once again, good luck
George

Nice read. Sorry to hear about the job. I like your room John, and thanks for taking the time to post all the info and pics.

Scott


John

Sorry to hear about getting fired. To say that it is a shock, is an understatement. Good luck in recovering. I would hope that some one that has your ability to communicate and attention to detail will be recognized by another employer ASAP.

I really appreciate the time time and effort that went into you documenting
Reverse Engineering the False Wall
and
Designing the Room: The Process

I am starting the design of my theater and I think that your posts will help me along the journey to the final nirvana of having a completed theater to be able to enjoy.

Once again, good luck
George



Thanks for the kind words, guys.

John

Sorry to hear about getting fired. To say that it is a shock, is an understatement. Good luck in recovering. I would hope that some one that has your ability to communicate and attention to detail will be recognized by another employer ASAP.

I really appreciate the time time and effort that went into you documenting
Reverse Engineering the False Wall
and
Designing the Room: The Process

I am starting the design of my theater and I think that your posts will help me along the journey to the final nirvana of having a completed theater to be able to enjoy.

Once again, good luck
George

I second all that. This thread has quickly become one of those I regularly visit to learn as I continue on my own project. I have truly appreciated your thorough write-ups around the false wall and room deisgn.

I too am sorry to hear about the re-org. Hopefully you can land something else quickly. Good luck,

-Ryan

Here, you have exhibited some great qualities, mixing kindness and sharing, to thorough attention to detail and enthu for the job (ok, well it is HT!).

I hope and expect you will land on your feet. There are many ways threads turn direction, but this ranks up there for concern/empathy/sadness.

Hang in there!

Here, you have exhibited some great qualities, mixing kindness and sharing, to thorough attention to detail and enthu for the job (ok, well it is HT!).

I hope and expect you will land on your feet. There are many ways threads turn direction, but this ranks up there for concern/empathy/sadness.

Hang in there!

Thanks Mandrake. It's been many months since I last posted in this thread, and my situation has vastly improved. I am once again gainfully employed, and in fact I've got more than one job opportunity beating down my door even as we speak.

And I'm developing a taste for HT again because I have the bucks to spare, or at least I will shortly. :D

I have bookmarked your page. I appreciate the way you descrived your building process and find your anecdotes both humorous and frightening.

My contractor signed an agreement that costs him $500 per day for everyday he exceeds his own estimate of 12 weeks for the theater, a bedroom, the equipment room and a full bathroom ---and doing all of the detailed stuff that a Rives room requires. It was that way or not at all.

Sorry you had the experience that you did --tought on the arteries/heart/stomach/marriage/job

Well, I finally got around to putting up acoustic panels.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/corrected2.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/corrected1.jpg

Your back, Congrats| The panels look nice. Did you roll your own or get premade ones? What kind of fabric is that?

cheers,
aaron

Your back, Congrats| The panels look nice. Did you roll your own or get premade ones? What kind of fabric is that?

cheers,
aaron

Hi aaron!

These are panels from atsacoustics. The material is burlap. As far as I was able to determine, these are far and away the most affordable pre-made acoustic panels on the planet. I believe they are made of 3 lb. mineral wool (or something along those lines), 2 inches thick.

Although I haven't taken a picture of my back corners yet, I have backless 4-inch thick panels straddling them. To do the corner mounting, I picked up a really cool nested universal corner mount from readyacoustics. In the future, I could have ATS custom build me a couple of extra panels to completely fill the rear corners from floor to ceiling, and the readyacoustics corner mounts would let me stuff the space between the panels and the corner with acoustic cotton. I will probably do that eventually, as I believe it will dramatically improve the low-frequency absorption compared with what I have there now.

There's been a lot of talk about burlap not looking nice, but I like the way they look. The textured look of the burlap is a very nice contrast to all the overly smooth, monochromatic (and patternless) surfaces that fill the rest of the room.



The acoustic layout that Bryan drew up for me called for a bit more on the back wall. But I figure what I'll do is start measuring the frequency response in my room to see where I need help. Already there is a marked difference in the sound quality. I noticed that right away.

One thing everyone should know about the ats panels: they smell like burlap. I've had them for over a week now, and the smell is starting to fade. On another forum, I found a guy who recommended keeping them outside for a couple of days to let them air out. It sounds a little silly, I know, but eventually the smell will fade. As far as appearance, they're great. And you can't beat the price!

I looked at the GIK panels too and considered them. The GIK first reflection panels have better low frequency absorption, but they're also 3 and 1/2 inches thick (instead of 2). And I don't have an extra 3 inches to spare. I'm already bumping into the 2 inch panels as it is. So for my application, the ATS panels are more "space appropriate," and they're certainly cheaper.

Life is full of compromises. :-)

A few more shots of the acoustic panels:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/corrected3.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl116.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl121.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Pearl112.jpg

John

Your theater looks great! Really inspiring.
You've given so much detail and tips, it's a great reference point.

I am in StL area too.

I have a smaller room, but I have big plans for it (who doesn't). My wife is onboard too, so that is the second biggest hurdle taken care of, money being the first. I already have a lot of great equipment, just never had a dedicated room before.

Anyway, looks great, and don't be surprised if you get a PM or two from me with questions as you seem so willing to share great information :D

John

Your theater looks great! Really inspiring.
You've given so much detail and tips, it's a great reference point.

I am in StL area too.

I have a smaller room, but I have big plans for it (who doesn't). My wife is onboard too, so that is the second biggest hurdle taken care of, money being the first. I already have a lot of great equipment, just never had a dedicated room before.

Anyway, looks great, and don't be surprised if you get a PM or two from me with questions as you seem so willing to share great information :D

Thanks Crash! Sure, feel free to ask me anything. I'll help however I can.

Nice work. Great looking theater. I am in the process of getting mine built and I am sure going to reference your work.

BTW, what is the distance from the rear seating and the front seating eye level to the screen?

Thanks.

Nice work. Great looking theater. I am in the process of getting mine built and I am sure going to reference your work.

BTW, what is the distance from the rear seating and the front seating eye level to the screen?

Thanks.

Hi Indianrider. From the first post:

Distance from front row eyes to screen: Roughly 9.5 ft.
Distance from back row eyes to screen: Roughly 15.5 ft.
Horizontal Viewing Angles for Front and Back Row are within the THX minimum of 26 degrees, with the front row topping out at 40+,

Hi Indianrider. From the first post:

Distance from front row eyes to screen: Roughly 9.5 ft.
Distance from back row eyes to screen: Roughly 15.5 ft.
Horizontal Viewing Angles for Front and Back Row are within the THX minimum of 26 degrees, with the front row topping out at 40+,

Thanks.

[QUOTE=gremmy;9403296]Man, this soffit sucks
(and other design obstacles)


One of my design obstacles was the annoying I-Beam that is encased in this soffit:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c101/gremmmy/Soffit.jpg

Thanks for the thread. Nice HT.
My Dad says that when something's in the way, annoying but can't be moved or hidden...celebrate it! What he means is to stop trying to make it go away and try a different approach. What I wonder for your room is if you were to put in dropped crown moulding in at a height just above the bottom edge of the soffit, it may serve to better integrate the soffit into the ceiling. The eye may perceive the soffit at intentional, or at least less intrusive.

Thanks for the inspiration and I lilke the methold of determining the reflection point. Geometry - you gotta love it.

Sorry for commenting on an old thread, but it's linked to the Show Me thread, and is therefore considered still current.

I really like the "annoying soffit". It adds character. :)

Nice job!

BTW, that white HVAC vent is annoying. ;)

Hi ...just landed here after seeing your post on Audyssey Flat regarding male voices sounding harsh. I have been dealing with this issue for quite some time..and I think I already see that Flat is better even though I had previously discounting it thinking it will make high frequencies more of a problem. I will report back after some more critical listening.