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GIJoe's Living Room / HT Build

1K views 20 replies 5 participants last post by  Jake Carroll 
#1 · (Edited)
Looking into setting up a home theater type setup in my living room. Currently doing research and focusing on bang for the buck. While I don't have the wife factor, I am going to be trying my hardest to "hide" the system. This will definitely be an ultra-budget system, and I understand that I will be sacrificing quality for aesthetics and I am fully aware of and okay with this. Primary usage will be Netflix and occasional video games.

All windows will get blackout currents, but there will be a little bit of light leakage around the outside. I feel it will be negligible in the grand scheme of things.

As of right now, I'm looking at building a 16:9 home-brew AT screen using the milliskin spandex that seems to be fairly popular. Shooting for 120" diagonal, but I'm currently not at home, so I cannot measure to make sure I have room between the windows on the living room wall the screen will be hung on.

Projector will be the BenQ W1070 or the HT1075. Seems like they are basically the same thing, so I'll more than likely go with the W1070 to save a little bit of money.

AVR, as of now, looks like it will be Onkyo TX-NR636. This isn't firm because I'm still researching receivers. I'm nowhere near set in stone on Onkyo, and have read of numerous issues with the HDMI board, so I will be taking that into consideration. I don't want to break the bank on this, but if adding $100-200 will get me a vastly superior receiver, I'm willing to make the sacrifice.

People will probably really groan on this part, but I will be putting all of my speakers in-wall. The four rear speakers will be monoprice 7604s. I'm looking into a higher quality speakers for the LCRs, but may end up sticking with the cheap monoprice speakers for those as well, at least temporarily. Upgrading to something else in the future wouldn't be a big deal at all. The LCR will be hidden behind the projector screen, and to hide the rear surrounds, I'll be getting some graphics printed up on quilting weight fabric and stretching those across some wooden frames. This will provide the acoustically transparent properties I would need to be able to hide the speakers.

I haven't done any research on subwoofers yet, but I do know I want to run an infinity baffle system mounted in the attic. Size, brand, etc, I am entirely unsure on. This will probably be one of the last things I address when building the setup.

I have a coat closet right off of the living room I may build my A/V rack in. I'll need to do some testing to see if I can put my xbox360 and ps3 in there, and have the controllers still able to communicate. Hopefully they will. If they don't, I'll have to get a little creative.

If anyone has any critiques, suggestions, or comments, feel free. I'm definitely still researching and learning. And, while it seems that I am being ultra-cheap (which I am), it will stilll be a VAST improvement over my current setup with is a 5 year old Sharp Aqous LED 40" tv, and an ultra-cheap 4 speaker surround sound setup with no subwoofer.
 
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#2 ·
Looking into a couple Dayton RSS390HF 15" 4ohm subwoofers for the infinite baffle system. It looks like the Dayton 15" subwoofers would provide what I want and in my price range.

As far as amps goes, maybe the Behringer iNuke 1000DSP? I'm not really sure, but it seems like it could be an affordable option.
 
#3 ·
BenQ W1070 has been ordered, as well as 3 yards of silver matte and 3 yards of white matte spandex from Spandexworld.com.

Hoping to have a small collection of parts waiting on me ready to install once I get home from work in May. Step 1 will be deciding on a screen size and building the screen.

Still looking at AVRs, subwoofer drivers and amps. I was leaning towards the Onkyo 636 for the Atmos stuff, but that isn't critical to me at this point, so I'll just be looking into a decent 7.1/7.2 receiver. I found a few refurbs on accessories4less for under $300, so I may go for one of those. The Denon AVR-X1100W is a 7.2 receiver that could work and is more definitely an option.

When I build the box for my IB setup, I'll build it to hold 4, then make some blockoff plates for 2 of them, so it can be easily expandable. It seems no one is ever happy with what they start with, and always want more.

For subwoofers, I'm now looking into a pair of ficaraudio IB318 18" drivers. Seem to be a popular option for a decent price. More than I want to pay, but it could be worse. And amplifier looks like it could be a Behringer EP4000. Also seems pretty popular. I'd rather go with the tried and true than be cheap and it end up sucking and having to crawl into the attic multiple times.

As always, critiques and suggestions are more than welcome.
 
#4 ·
BenQ W1070 projector has arrived. SpandexWorld order (3 yards matte silver, 3 yards matte white) supposedly was shipping yesterday (haven't received a tracking number). Trial piece of cloth for my "posters" to hide in wall speakers has arrived. Will be placing order for the next 7 pieces soon. 8 total, 4 will cover speakers, 4 will just be fill in to make the walls look uniform instead of it being obvious that I'm hiding something. Looking more and more into some slightly better speakers for my front stage. Looks like SpeakerCraft IW7's may be a possibility. They are about $130 each from Abe's of Maine. The HTD-65W speakers are also a possibility if I need to save a little money. They seem to be good bang for the buck as well from what I've noticed on older threads.

Also working on designing retractable projector mount. The ones online are crazy expensive ($2000+). So I'll be throwing something together, having an engineer from work look it over to see if he can make any upgrade suggestions, then kick it over to the machine shop for anything I can't handle making myself. I have a base idea put together in Solidworks, but will need to take a few measurements to ensure I have my layout correctly. I may get buy with being able to hang a linear actuator vertically from a roof truss, instead of having to lay it horizontal and using a pulley. Either one would work, but one would save me having to buy cable, a pulley, etc.
 
#6 ·
Denon AVR-X1100W has been ordered. Its a 7.2 receiver with 4K capabilities. Should be everything I need for now. Was $249.99 refurb'd off accessories for less. Will definitely do everything I need for a good while. When I'm ready to upgrade, it'll be to a 7.2.4 system, which won't be for a good while, I'd imagine. Right now, its not worth the $1000+ more right now.
 
#7 ·
Not sure if anyone is actually reading this thing, but I'll keep updating it from time to time anyhow.

This is a basic layout of my room. Measurements are precise, and purely off memory, but I'd guess that they are accurate within about 1 foot. Thin line on the living room / kitchen wall is a pass trough with a bar height counter top, blue line on top is planned screen placement, and red lines are the windows in the living room.
 

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#9 ·
Spandex for the screen has arrived from SpandexWorld. They shipped it in a roll, with no issues. Little bro checked it out for me and said it was all blemish free. AVR from Accessories4Less is scheduled to arrive today. I'm slowly running out of things to order. Gotta decide on my front stage, and get my subwoofer stuff ordered still, but I'm not in a huge hurry for that.

Also looking into how I'm going to store my equipment. Two options I'm looking at now are a rack in the coat closet (which was my original thought), or now, maybe putting it in my laundry room. There is a good bit of room in there, and I wouldn't have to worry about adding in auxiliary fans to vent out the hot air.
 
#10 ·
I'm using the Monoprice 4102 rears and 7606's for LCR. I couldn't be happier with the quality. I'm not an "audiophile", but they sound clear, loud, and full.

There is a huge thread in the speaker forum (here) about the Monoprice in-wall speakers if you're interested... I read through the entire thread before pulling the trigger.

I know it's not a popular choice, but I also got the 10" in-wall sub and I am also completely happy with it...

Now my setup is very different, and YMMV. My theater room is extremely small, where I'm sitting about 6.5 feet from my 60" tv but I believe these would fill a room with much larger dimensions.
 
#11 ·
I'm using the Monoprice 4102 rears and 7606's for LCR. I couldn't be happier with the quality. I'm not an "audiophile", but they sound clear, loud, and full.

There is a huge thread in the speaker forum (here) about the Monoprice in-wall speakers if you're interested... I read through the entire thread before pulling the trigger.

I know it's not a popular choice, but I also got the 10" in-wall sub and I am also completely happy with it...

Now my setup is very different, and YMMV. My theater room is extremely small, where I'm sitting about 6.5 feet from my 60" tv but I believe these would fill a room with much larger dimensions.
Why is it you went with the 7606s? Any particular reason?
 
#14 ·
My Denon AVR-x1100w has officially arrived! Still trying to decide where I will be "hiding" all this stuff. Also looking into ways of disguising the screen when not in use. Found a build of some folding art panels that cover up the screen that look pretty cool. Would be massive, but who cares? But that's a while from now. Just brainstorming trying to get ideas. I'm really hoping that, when its all said and done, there will be no obvious evidence of any type of A/V system in my living room. Would truly make the room dual-purpose, in my opinion.
 
#15 ·
The last of my "heavy" spending is done. Have 3 more monoprice 7604's on the way for my front stage (will be upgraded at some point in the future, i'm just not sure when). A pair of Ficaraudio IB318s (4 ohm) have been ordered. And a Behringer EP2000. Amazon was having a lightning deal on that amp, so i ended up picking it up for just over $200. Oh, and 250ft of 14AWG CL2 speaker wire from monoprice.

I'll still have a few things to purchase here and there, but this will allow everything to at least be roughed in. The remaining pieces will primarily be finish-work type stuff.
 
#18 ·
Haven't worked on this in a while, but put some effort into it last night. 4 out of the 7 in-wall speakers are installed and wired. The hole for my center speaker is cut. Will be cutting the holes for the rear surrounds today, and get the last 3 wired up. Still need to order the Screen-Tight material and buy some poplar to build my screen. For now, I've just been projecting directly onto the wall, and I am more than happy with the picture this little BenQ provides.
 
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