stealth02r1
01-26-07, 08:38 PM
Background/Planning
A year or so after completing my theater I figure I would finally share it with the AVSForum community since you all indirectly influenced every aspect of this project. The planning of this project really started back sometime in 2003 when I got addicted to the Home Theater Construction threads here on the forum. I spent the next year and a half learning everything I could about theater design, construction, sound proofing, audio theory, and AV equipment.
The theater was just one piece of a larger project to add a 1200sqft basement - not just finish an existing basement - but create a basement where one did not exist! This meant digging out the crawlspace underneath the house. Now the only reason we even considered such a feat is that 2 of our neighbors had just done the same thing - only not quite to this scale. One of the neighbors is a builder and had actually just completed the addition of his own basement. So he was instrumental in guiding me through the early feasibility stage and served as my contractor and builder.
I spent hundreds of hours on the designs and went through many different layout variations before we finally decided to give the project the green light. I'm a Software Engineer and had zero architectural or construction experience before taking this on. Nope, unlike many of you here in the forums I did NOT build this myself. I did however design everything myself and guided nearly every aspect of construction. Although we did have an overall plan and were working from architected blueprints we still ended up making up stuff as we went along. I bet I had to make some decision about this or that every single day during construction. So no I didn't build it but I was VERY involved in every aspect of the project.
Construction
Construction began in March 2005 and lasted 7 months. I kept a photo blog of the progress which can be seen at http://diggingitout.blogspot.com/ (http://diggingitout.blogspot.com) . I was reading the forums here daily during that time and should have created a construction thread, but I guess I wanted to complete the project on my own without any DIRECT influences.
Theater
I ended up with 23x15x8.4 dedicated theater with a stage and riser and wet bar. Many of my early designs incorporated elements such as a false screen wall to hide the speakers and columns along the back and side walls. I ended up with something MUCH less fancy and ended up dumping the false screenwall idea and the columns. After over a year now the bar area is still not finished. I originally intended to build shelves above the bar to hold bottles and glassware - but after experiencing the Maestro I am not sure I want to introduce that kind of rattle potential.
The stage is fairly deep to accomadate placing the speakers forward of the screen wall for better stereo imaging and also gives me the flexibility to add a screen wall in the future if I so decide. It is filled with sand and capped off with 2 layers of plywood.
The riser is 12' x 6' x 12" and holds 2 Buttkickers co-located in the center-rear under the row of seating. I started out with one Buttkicker and it was great - but two is better! I am really happy with the Buttkicker effect. The effect is very subtle and natural and feels like an extension of the sub. However on some scenes the effect is anything but subtle! A definite crowd pleaser. The riser rests on rubber feet only along its width. It is suspended across its length. It is filled with insulation and covered with 2 layers of the plywood. I designed a large 2 inch overhang across the riser and stage both for aesthetics and to facilitate rope lighting.
Originally I was going to build the equipment rack into right hand wall near the back row of seating but changed my mind at the last second and ended up hiding all equipment in the adjoining equipment/media room. That was one of the best decisions I made - no distracting hard drive/fan/dvd noises and no abnoxious lights getting in the way of true movie and music bliss.
The theater sits on a concrete slab. I considered Dricore flooring but ended up going with just a thick pad called Healthier Choice. Let me tell you, this pad is awesome. The combination of this pad and carpet on concrete is more comfortable to walk on then any other carpet/pad combo I have experienced. And the carpet does NOT get cold at all.
Seating was one of the most challenging aspects of the room and the design changed often until I decide upon the Coaster Studio chairs. Once I knew the exact dimensions of the chairs I was able to finalize the design and location of the riser. All along I new that that back center seat on the riser was going to be the prime location and everything was keyed off that. The screen size is 120" and the front row of seats are only 11.5' back. Too close according to the experts but with the AE900 this distance is great as long as you are viewing HD or DVD. The back row is about 17.5 away - a distance I am happy width.
HVAC
Some of the design elements such as the soffit were done out of necessity. We had to replace the entire HVAC trunk and all supplies to the main floor. The main trunk running down the center of the house determined the height and width of the soffits. We encased the soffits in plywood rather than building thick 2x4 framing to save as much space as possible. I was very concerned with ventilation/heating/cooling in the theater and basement in general and would have liked to add a second furnace to zone the basement but that wasn't in the budget. Instead we opted to keep the existing furnace and installed 3 air supplies and two returns in the theater. One return is in the ceiling above the seating area with the intention that it would remove any hot air built up in the ceiling. Another return is located near the floor in the back of the theater. The 3 supplies are in the soffit running down the left hand side. And you know what? It worked. If I am going to be in the theater with the doors pulled tight for any length of time I simply turn on the whole house fan and which provides just enough ventilation to keep things fairly moderated. And to my surprise in the winter the theater is actually the warmest room in the whole house. And in the summer it stays nice and cool. We are located in Mukilteo, WA, near Seattle by the way - so like many houses up here we don't even have AC.
Now the equipment room is another matter. Since the equipment room door is an air tight solid core exterior door I cut a vent into an ajoining closet to suck cold air into the room while a bathroom fan expels hot air. Even so the room still heats up into the 80's and 90's.
Sound Proofing
I wanted the most cost effective sound proofing I could get with minimal effort so we insulated all outside walls with R21, inside walls with R13, and ceiling with R30. We then applied one layer of 1/2 inch drywall and tapped and mudded joints and applied acoustical sealant to all corners, light cans and electrical boxes. I then applied Green Glue to a second layer of 5/8 drywall. I had considered may options from building a "room within a room", to using RSIC clips, hat channel, staggered stud...and decided I wanted to maintain as much interior space as possible - especially ceiling height. In the center of the room I ended up with 8'4". Both doors in the theater are solid core exterior doors with threshold and weatherstripping. I am very happy with how the sound proofing turned out. At normal listening levels you can't hear much of anything standing out in the adjacent game room or even directly above the theater. With the volume cranked up the Maestro sub pretty much rocks the whole house so you can definitely hear/feel that. However it is adequate enough that I have been able to watch movies and crank the tunes while the wife and kids were sleeping to no complaints. One downside to having a soundproof room is that you cannot hear the front door. I finally found a cheap wireless doorbell extender. There is a sound sensor that you stick next to your existing doorbell chime and a unit that plugs in to any electrical outlet that contains the wireless chime. Works great!
Acoustical Treatments / Room Analysis
I have a couple of GIK 246 Bass traps up in the front corners and 6 GIK 244 panels at the primary reflection points. I considered doing the room up the "correct" way with Linocoustic and GOM but decided to go the cheap n easy route. I still need to add some absorbtion to the ceiling and maybe some combination of absorbtion/diffusion to the back wall. Acoustically the room sounds pretty good - but I want it to sound even better.
I play around with Room EQ Wizard to analyze the room and have a BFD which I use to EQ the sub. I currently have the sub located in the best practical position I could find for it up on the stage. Even so there is a large dip in the frequency response at about 30Hz and another at 63. There is also a huge 7dB room gain at 20Hz. That 30Hz dip is present for all chairs in the back row. The front row seating experiences a much flatter response although it begins dropping off around 25Hz with no room gain. Eventually I may add another sub in an attempt to flatten the response even further.
Lessons Learned
Should have come up with a better lighting design. I would like to have more light in there when needed and I don't like the position of the cans above the back row of seats. When those lights are on light reflects off your face - cheeks and nose - in such a way that it is distracting when the front of the room is dark. It would have been much better to place another set of cans or sconces BEHIND all seats for ambient light. I purposely placed the lights where they are to make it better for reading - they are positioned right above my lap so as to not cast any shadows. I now see the importance of ambient lighting - sometimes you just don't want to watch TV in the dark - Especially when you have a bunch of people over to watch football. I would have liked to have 4" cans all along the underside of the soffits but there just wasn't room for them due to the HVAC ducting. I also HATE the sconces we chose. I couldn't find anything I liked and was running out of time. My wife found those during a Street of Dreams tour and I thought they would be good enough. WRONG. I hate them. Every time I walk in there I look at those things and want to tear them off the wall.
Next to the lighting my next major gripe has to do with the HVAC return we cut into the ceiling for better ventilation. Sure it helps in expelling hot air but it really KILLED the sound proofing and negated some of the benefit I got from double dry wall and green glue. That return acts like open window and lets muted sound in and out of the theater from the floor directly above. It is by far the weakest link in my sound proofing scheme.
Another thing I am unhappy with are all of the extra electrical outlets we ended up with around the bar area. I had a general idea what I wanted to do there but the cabinet guy caused me to temporarily change my mind and wanted to install a U shaped bar area with upper cabinets and that happened to be the day the electrician was there so we wired with that in mind.
Although I am happy how this thing turned out I am also a little but dissapointed because of all the compromises I chose to make due either to time or most importantly money. It's funny because the more you learn about this hobby the more it takes to please you. Because I know I compromised on certain things the room isn't perfect. However every person that has been in it for a demo is completely blown away...and a lot of people have been through it -- I am guessing 150+.
All in all the project was long and exhausting but incredibly fun. I hope I get another opportunity to design an even better mancave.
For more pictures check out my construction blog: http://diggingitout.blogspot.com/ (http://diggingitout.blogspot.com)
Equipment List
Sherbourn PT7010A PrePro
Sherbourn 7/2100 7 x 200W Amp
Focal JM Labs Cobalt 826S
Focal JM Labs Cobalt SR800S (4)
Focal JM Labs Cobalt CC800S
ACI Maestro Subwoofer/500W Amp
Perfect Vu 120" Fixed 16:9 Screen White 1.0 gain
Panasonic AE900U Projector
Slingbox AV
Comcast Motorola 3416 HDDVR
Xbox
Xbox 360
Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon
Panamax Max4400-20A
Panamax 5300
Panamax MIW (2) (inwall extension cord from rack to projector and sub)
Buttkicker LFE (2)
Buttkicker Amp (2100W)
Behringer Feedback Destroyer Pro DSP1124P (Sub EQ)
Oppo OPDV971H DVD Player
Monoprice 5x1 HDMI switcher
Rolls HE18 Buzz Off Hum Eliminator (to kill a ground loop problem that the BFD introduced)
Middle Atlantic ERK Rack and shelves
RTI T3 RF Remote
RTI RP-6 Control Processor
RTI RM-433 RF Receiver
HTPC - Home built and overclocked
Silverstone SST-LC18 with Touchscreen
Asus P5B Deluxe
Core2Duo 6300 @ 2.6GHz
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 800
Nvidia 7900 GTO (no HDCP grrrr)
Bluegears B-Inspirer
Seasonic 500W
Western Digital 320GB
Light-On 16X DVD SHM-165H6S
Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro
Logitech G7 RF Laser Mouse
BTC 9019RF Keyboard
Streamzap IR Remote + USB IR Receiver
NetGear 8 Port GS605 Switch GIGE
Cyberpower AVR1500 UPS
Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (1TB)
Chairs 7 Coaster Studio
GIK 242 Acoustic Panels (6)
GiK 244 Acoustic Panels (2)
Lutron Spacer IR Lighting Control (4 zones)
A year or so after completing my theater I figure I would finally share it with the AVSForum community since you all indirectly influenced every aspect of this project. The planning of this project really started back sometime in 2003 when I got addicted to the Home Theater Construction threads here on the forum. I spent the next year and a half learning everything I could about theater design, construction, sound proofing, audio theory, and AV equipment.
The theater was just one piece of a larger project to add a 1200sqft basement - not just finish an existing basement - but create a basement where one did not exist! This meant digging out the crawlspace underneath the house. Now the only reason we even considered such a feat is that 2 of our neighbors had just done the same thing - only not quite to this scale. One of the neighbors is a builder and had actually just completed the addition of his own basement. So he was instrumental in guiding me through the early feasibility stage and served as my contractor and builder.
I spent hundreds of hours on the designs and went through many different layout variations before we finally decided to give the project the green light. I'm a Software Engineer and had zero architectural or construction experience before taking this on. Nope, unlike many of you here in the forums I did NOT build this myself. I did however design everything myself and guided nearly every aspect of construction. Although we did have an overall plan and were working from architected blueprints we still ended up making up stuff as we went along. I bet I had to make some decision about this or that every single day during construction. So no I didn't build it but I was VERY involved in every aspect of the project.
Construction
Construction began in March 2005 and lasted 7 months. I kept a photo blog of the progress which can be seen at http://diggingitout.blogspot.com/ (http://diggingitout.blogspot.com) . I was reading the forums here daily during that time and should have created a construction thread, but I guess I wanted to complete the project on my own without any DIRECT influences.
Theater
I ended up with 23x15x8.4 dedicated theater with a stage and riser and wet bar. Many of my early designs incorporated elements such as a false screen wall to hide the speakers and columns along the back and side walls. I ended up with something MUCH less fancy and ended up dumping the false screenwall idea and the columns. After over a year now the bar area is still not finished. I originally intended to build shelves above the bar to hold bottles and glassware - but after experiencing the Maestro I am not sure I want to introduce that kind of rattle potential.
The stage is fairly deep to accomadate placing the speakers forward of the screen wall for better stereo imaging and also gives me the flexibility to add a screen wall in the future if I so decide. It is filled with sand and capped off with 2 layers of plywood.
The riser is 12' x 6' x 12" and holds 2 Buttkickers co-located in the center-rear under the row of seating. I started out with one Buttkicker and it was great - but two is better! I am really happy with the Buttkicker effect. The effect is very subtle and natural and feels like an extension of the sub. However on some scenes the effect is anything but subtle! A definite crowd pleaser. The riser rests on rubber feet only along its width. It is suspended across its length. It is filled with insulation and covered with 2 layers of the plywood. I designed a large 2 inch overhang across the riser and stage both for aesthetics and to facilitate rope lighting.
Originally I was going to build the equipment rack into right hand wall near the back row of seating but changed my mind at the last second and ended up hiding all equipment in the adjoining equipment/media room. That was one of the best decisions I made - no distracting hard drive/fan/dvd noises and no abnoxious lights getting in the way of true movie and music bliss.
The theater sits on a concrete slab. I considered Dricore flooring but ended up going with just a thick pad called Healthier Choice. Let me tell you, this pad is awesome. The combination of this pad and carpet on concrete is more comfortable to walk on then any other carpet/pad combo I have experienced. And the carpet does NOT get cold at all.
Seating was one of the most challenging aspects of the room and the design changed often until I decide upon the Coaster Studio chairs. Once I knew the exact dimensions of the chairs I was able to finalize the design and location of the riser. All along I new that that back center seat on the riser was going to be the prime location and everything was keyed off that. The screen size is 120" and the front row of seats are only 11.5' back. Too close according to the experts but with the AE900 this distance is great as long as you are viewing HD or DVD. The back row is about 17.5 away - a distance I am happy width.
HVAC
Some of the design elements such as the soffit were done out of necessity. We had to replace the entire HVAC trunk and all supplies to the main floor. The main trunk running down the center of the house determined the height and width of the soffits. We encased the soffits in plywood rather than building thick 2x4 framing to save as much space as possible. I was very concerned with ventilation/heating/cooling in the theater and basement in general and would have liked to add a second furnace to zone the basement but that wasn't in the budget. Instead we opted to keep the existing furnace and installed 3 air supplies and two returns in the theater. One return is in the ceiling above the seating area with the intention that it would remove any hot air built up in the ceiling. Another return is located near the floor in the back of the theater. The 3 supplies are in the soffit running down the left hand side. And you know what? It worked. If I am going to be in the theater with the doors pulled tight for any length of time I simply turn on the whole house fan and which provides just enough ventilation to keep things fairly moderated. And to my surprise in the winter the theater is actually the warmest room in the whole house. And in the summer it stays nice and cool. We are located in Mukilteo, WA, near Seattle by the way - so like many houses up here we don't even have AC.
Now the equipment room is another matter. Since the equipment room door is an air tight solid core exterior door I cut a vent into an ajoining closet to suck cold air into the room while a bathroom fan expels hot air. Even so the room still heats up into the 80's and 90's.
Sound Proofing
I wanted the most cost effective sound proofing I could get with minimal effort so we insulated all outside walls with R21, inside walls with R13, and ceiling with R30. We then applied one layer of 1/2 inch drywall and tapped and mudded joints and applied acoustical sealant to all corners, light cans and electrical boxes. I then applied Green Glue to a second layer of 5/8 drywall. I had considered may options from building a "room within a room", to using RSIC clips, hat channel, staggered stud...and decided I wanted to maintain as much interior space as possible - especially ceiling height. In the center of the room I ended up with 8'4". Both doors in the theater are solid core exterior doors with threshold and weatherstripping. I am very happy with how the sound proofing turned out. At normal listening levels you can't hear much of anything standing out in the adjacent game room or even directly above the theater. With the volume cranked up the Maestro sub pretty much rocks the whole house so you can definitely hear/feel that. However it is adequate enough that I have been able to watch movies and crank the tunes while the wife and kids were sleeping to no complaints. One downside to having a soundproof room is that you cannot hear the front door. I finally found a cheap wireless doorbell extender. There is a sound sensor that you stick next to your existing doorbell chime and a unit that plugs in to any electrical outlet that contains the wireless chime. Works great!
Acoustical Treatments / Room Analysis
I have a couple of GIK 246 Bass traps up in the front corners and 6 GIK 244 panels at the primary reflection points. I considered doing the room up the "correct" way with Linocoustic and GOM but decided to go the cheap n easy route. I still need to add some absorbtion to the ceiling and maybe some combination of absorbtion/diffusion to the back wall. Acoustically the room sounds pretty good - but I want it to sound even better.
I play around with Room EQ Wizard to analyze the room and have a BFD which I use to EQ the sub. I currently have the sub located in the best practical position I could find for it up on the stage. Even so there is a large dip in the frequency response at about 30Hz and another at 63. There is also a huge 7dB room gain at 20Hz. That 30Hz dip is present for all chairs in the back row. The front row seating experiences a much flatter response although it begins dropping off around 25Hz with no room gain. Eventually I may add another sub in an attempt to flatten the response even further.
Lessons Learned
Should have come up with a better lighting design. I would like to have more light in there when needed and I don't like the position of the cans above the back row of seats. When those lights are on light reflects off your face - cheeks and nose - in such a way that it is distracting when the front of the room is dark. It would have been much better to place another set of cans or sconces BEHIND all seats for ambient light. I purposely placed the lights where they are to make it better for reading - they are positioned right above my lap so as to not cast any shadows. I now see the importance of ambient lighting - sometimes you just don't want to watch TV in the dark - Especially when you have a bunch of people over to watch football. I would have liked to have 4" cans all along the underside of the soffits but there just wasn't room for them due to the HVAC ducting. I also HATE the sconces we chose. I couldn't find anything I liked and was running out of time. My wife found those during a Street of Dreams tour and I thought they would be good enough. WRONG. I hate them. Every time I walk in there I look at those things and want to tear them off the wall.
Next to the lighting my next major gripe has to do with the HVAC return we cut into the ceiling for better ventilation. Sure it helps in expelling hot air but it really KILLED the sound proofing and negated some of the benefit I got from double dry wall and green glue. That return acts like open window and lets muted sound in and out of the theater from the floor directly above. It is by far the weakest link in my sound proofing scheme.
Another thing I am unhappy with are all of the extra electrical outlets we ended up with around the bar area. I had a general idea what I wanted to do there but the cabinet guy caused me to temporarily change my mind and wanted to install a U shaped bar area with upper cabinets and that happened to be the day the electrician was there so we wired with that in mind.
Although I am happy how this thing turned out I am also a little but dissapointed because of all the compromises I chose to make due either to time or most importantly money. It's funny because the more you learn about this hobby the more it takes to please you. Because I know I compromised on certain things the room isn't perfect. However every person that has been in it for a demo is completely blown away...and a lot of people have been through it -- I am guessing 150+.
All in all the project was long and exhausting but incredibly fun. I hope I get another opportunity to design an even better mancave.
For more pictures check out my construction blog: http://diggingitout.blogspot.com/ (http://diggingitout.blogspot.com)
Equipment List
Sherbourn PT7010A PrePro
Sherbourn 7/2100 7 x 200W Amp
Focal JM Labs Cobalt 826S
Focal JM Labs Cobalt SR800S (4)
Focal JM Labs Cobalt CC800S
ACI Maestro Subwoofer/500W Amp
Perfect Vu 120" Fixed 16:9 Screen White 1.0 gain
Panasonic AE900U Projector
Slingbox AV
Comcast Motorola 3416 HDDVR
Xbox
Xbox 360
Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon
Panamax Max4400-20A
Panamax 5300
Panamax MIW (2) (inwall extension cord from rack to projector and sub)
Buttkicker LFE (2)
Buttkicker Amp (2100W)
Behringer Feedback Destroyer Pro DSP1124P (Sub EQ)
Oppo OPDV971H DVD Player
Monoprice 5x1 HDMI switcher
Rolls HE18 Buzz Off Hum Eliminator (to kill a ground loop problem that the BFD introduced)
Middle Atlantic ERK Rack and shelves
RTI T3 RF Remote
RTI RP-6 Control Processor
RTI RM-433 RF Receiver
HTPC - Home built and overclocked
Silverstone SST-LC18 with Touchscreen
Asus P5B Deluxe
Core2Duo 6300 @ 2.6GHz
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 800
Nvidia 7900 GTO (no HDCP grrrr)
Bluegears B-Inspirer
Seasonic 500W
Western Digital 320GB
Light-On 16X DVD SHM-165H6S
Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro
Logitech G7 RF Laser Mouse
BTC 9019RF Keyboard
Streamzap IR Remote + USB IR Receiver
NetGear 8 Port GS605 Switch GIGE
Cyberpower AVR1500 UPS
Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (1TB)
Chairs 7 Coaster Studio
GIK 242 Acoustic Panels (6)
GiK 244 Acoustic Panels (2)
Lutron Spacer IR Lighting Control (4 zones)