After lurking for several months it is time to begin the long journey of a dedicated HT as part of a basement finishing project. The actual equipment may take several years due to budget. My plan is to make sure that all of the prewiring will be future proof. The room is long a skinny 11.4x22.4 10 ft ceiling with a soffit around the edge, with a rear entry door and side entry door. Two 4 ft risers will put the main seating at about 13 ft. with somewhere around a 106' screen. I will wire for 7.1. If I can keep the rest of the basement under budget I may be able to start of small. The equipment I could get relatively soon would be a Mitsi 1500, with a Onkyo 908, and DIY screen. First thing is to waterproof the inside concrete wall, it has never leaked but while the wall is open I am painting it with Dry-Lock. I am attaching a very crude drawing. Comments and suggestions please, especially if you have a narrow theater.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn40/jntart/SconceCloseup.jpg


Equipment List:
Epson HC720-purchased
Onkyo 606- purchased
Klipsch 7.0 Synergy B3, C2, and S1's- purchased
monprice cables

A couple comments, At 11' wide you won't have room for four seats wide, and even if you go with theater seats like I did and which I recommend especially for a narrow room your risers will need to be deeper than 4 ' mine are 58" inches which leaves room for someone to get by and if you did go with recliners you need a min of 72 " and that is tight.
Second observation is that your speakers are not well located. the sides particularly need to be moved back to a sort of mid way between. If you actually have three rows as you show, then they should be next to the middle row and about 2' higher than seated ear level, perhaps a bit higher depending on how high your last row is. also you would do well to leave room behind the seating for the rears and bring them closer together depending on whether you are going with Dolby spacing or THX standard spacing I use Dipoles for the sides and I find that works quite well.
Also be sure you decide at this stage how much sound isolation you are going for, whether you think you want to go 2.35:1 instead of 16:9, etc. in other words make as many complete plans for what you want before you start as possible. I know things keep changing but try, it does save in the long run. and don't forget to plan for acoustics as you go.

You can do four seats in 11ft wide, just without an aisle so your door would need to be in front of the last row.

Check out berkline.com. They have a planner that lets you put home theater seats into different configurations to see how wide they would be.

My room will be 26'x11' (If I ever get started)

Thanks, McCall

I am considering the theater seats similar to yours. Do you think I could do the 4 on the front row split apart, then 3 and 3 for the back rows? I am making changes on a better drawing using room arranger but could not get it posted over here. Extra insulation and a separate HVAC run is planned with some minor acoustic treatments. I am not super senstive to audio so I don't want to spend alot of money on acoustics if I can't tell the difference. The rear row might be turned into a large bench or small lounging platform as well. I will post many updates on the plans before the first wire gets pulled.

My room is 13' wide with 4 Berkline 088's and two 24" steps. Take away a step on one side and you can make the 088's work for you.

My theater is 10.5' wide and 19 feet long. You can check out pictures at:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=957962

Originally I was going to have a row of 4 low back real theater seats in front, 4 Scandanavian style spring chairs on the first riser and 5 low back real theater sears in the last row. These would allow about a 24" isle on one side.

I wound up finding two great deals that led to the final configuration: 5 high back real theater rocker seats (now in the rear row) for $60 each and 4 Berkline 090s for $100 each which are now in the front row. I eliminated one row because of the Berklines. I have to configure the Berklines into two love seats to fit and I put furniture glides under the far right Berkline to be able to easily ove the chair to allow access to the back row. Obviously not the best solution but we think we will likely have 4 or less most of the time in the theater.

It was suggested that I move the real theater seats to the front and put the
Berklines in the back. By eliminating one of the real theater rockers I could then have an isle. It wouldn't work for me because the real theater rockers are 48" high which would require a 30" or so riser; I'd have to secure the real theater seats into the concrete which I don't want to do; and finally, the "sweet spot" for viewing is where the Berklines currently are. I read somewhere in this forum that you should design the seating first to be what is best for you and then secondly what works for others.

Good luck

Bob

My riser is 11 feet wide and I am able to place 4 Berk's 45004 on them with s few inches to spare. With that width dimension and that many seats you are defintly going to want a path way for people to come and go. Out of that many people at least someone is going to have to pee during the movie!

The layout of the rest of the basement really does not allow for a built in media rack. I am wondering if I built a cabinet across the screen wall 30 inches high with shelves and door sections how this would affect the sound. I could build a base filled with sand then build the rest of the cabinet on top of that. Any ideas are links to similar pictures?

Framing started today on entire basement finishing project. Over 50 trips from driveway to basement carrying 2x4's (old knees hurt:eek:) I plan to tweak risers and seats. I may use a built in bench for backrow with some storage underneath. I would like to put a smaller door in back, but this is the main walkway from upstairs to large family room being finished out. Purchases so far are retro popcorn and hotdog machines from Dillards.

Framing complete and electrical, except for outlet for the projector. I have been pre-wiring for the speakers and have a couple of questions regarding audio/video. I am wiring for the sub to be placed on either side of screenwall a few feet out. Is it okay to run RG-6QS and 14-2 speaker wire to be future proofed? I also have alot of RG-6QS and was planning or running it for the component cable to the projector plus HDMI. Is RG-6 quality enough for that purpose? Will add more pictures this weekend.

My room is a tad under 11' wide and used 4 x Berkline 088's.....no ideal but it can be done.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k242/BritInVA/HT/140-4081_IMG.jpg

Cheers,
Mark

Not much going in the HT but pulling wire to connect it the great room. I have added extra conduit for future use. I think the last thing I need to do in the HT before drywall is concentrate on the PJ mounting area. My plan is to mount a 2ft x 3 ft piece of 1/2 plywood to give me a sturdy mounting area. I braced the Ibeams with 2x4's around the perimeter and center of the plywood. This should give me plenty of support to use toggle bolts for the PJ mount. The 1/2 inch should be flush with the drywall and I will add some casing trim to finish it out. I just need some affirmation that I am on the right track. Thanks

Long time no post. Very little done in May and June due to my mother passing away suddenly. So far Summer has been a blur but I am ready to order drywall tomorrow. Since the room is only 11 ft. wide I plan on taking down the columns to build a screenwall on top of a built in place cabinet for the equipment. This is still in the design stages as I am thinking about going ahead and planning for a 2:35 screen.

Drywall is finished. Time to prime. Night Sky from the Bob Timberlake collection at lowes will be the ceiling color and walls maybe "leather" brown.

Paint almost done. 1600 sq ft of basement, primer + 2 coats = not fun. To keep wife happy the HT is the last room to get painted. Hopefully this weekend. Valspar Canoe is the wall color, looks like Hershey brown to me:) Potential equipment list is as follows. comments appreciated.
1. Epson HC 720
2. Klipsch synergy 7.0
3. Onkyo 606
4. Toshiba upcoverting DVD ( Blueray later)
5. Name brand surge suppressor
6. Monoprice cables
7. Bic America F12 subwoofer


If I can figure out how to post pictures I will as soon as paint is done.

Congrats on the progress! Find any good deals on the Panny PJ? I'm looking for one too.

not yet. Most places show new shipment coming next week. Hopefully this is a new model and the flicker problem associated with low-lamp settings will have been corrected.

Walls and ceiling painted. Starting running trim in rest of basement. See pics of sconce update in first post to ceiling brown walls. Hoepfully of the Christmas Holidays I can sit down long enough to learn how to insert pictures directly into thread.

Hoepfully of the Christmas Holidays I can sit down long enough to learn how to insert pictures directly into thread.

Open a free account at www.photobucket.com

upload your pictures to photobucket

once the pics are uploaded you will see a thumbnail version of it on your main page with 4 tag options under it ... pick the IMG tag ... once you click with the mouse it automatically copies it ... go back to this thread and paste the image into your post ... voila ! have fun and merry christmas !

Thanks Scruffy, I did not realize it was so easy. Some other instructions made it sound like you had to do a lot steps. Maybe now with pictures more people will look. I now more incentive to take progress pictures as well.

Almost finished. Enought for the Super Bowl which was great. Had SS party where people usually leave at half-time but everyone stayed. Still need carpet and floor trim. Riser is 2 levels but forgot to take a picture. 3 seats on back row which 7x3.4. Front level is for 4 seats 8x4.5. Front row is 5 seats. We are currently using some stackable chairs from Sams Club. Just added the sub which is a Bic America f12. You can't tell by picture but the screenwall is black and the sidewalls or dark brown.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn40/jntart/setup.jpg

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn40/jntart/subspeaker.jpg