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My theatre design - will it work ?

2K views 21 replies 5 participants last post by  niterida 
#1 · (Edited)
See my quick drawing for my proposed theatre design. It is not to scale :)


The room is 8'10" high, 14'4" wide and 20'2" deep (one of Seppmeyers golden ratios)


It has 2 full height 2' wide windows either side of the wall I use as my projector screen. I plan to remove the windows, build an enclosure and flush mount my fronts. So basically a baffle wall, but since my speakers aren't behind the screen there is no (little?) need for the baffling.


I will be running a 6.4.4 Atmos setup with a sub in each corner (not drawn) and no centre speaker. I found with a large screen and the centre speaker below it, it localised the vocals too low and also centred the vocals too much if the source was off centre. With the 2 fronts mounted 1/2 way up the screen height and compensating for the missing centre, it sounds much more natural and off centre sounds are easier to locate correctly. I may revisit this once the new setup is finished.


I am on a very strict budget and buy almost everything 2nd hand so spending more than $100 at a time has to be very carefully justified. My setup at the moment (with purchase price listed) consists of :


4 x Pioneer sw-200 subs ($700)
2 x Mordaunt SHort MS 3.50 fronts ($80)
4 x Mordaunt Short MS 3.30 surrounds ($120)
4 x Mordaunt Short MS 3.10 for ceiling speakers ($120) not installed and I am looking at buying dedicated ceiling speakers instead
Pioneer VSX-827 ($150) but will upgrade to SC-95 Atmos receiver or similar


Thoughts ??
 

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#2 ·
Having your left and right speakers too close to the side walls can introduce all sorts of problems with sound quality and imaging. If you use those locations, make sure to plan for absorption panels in your primary reflection points. They should be toed in so that they are facing the seating position. When seated, you should be able to see only the front of the speakers, not the sides of the cabinets.

When done properly, a center speaker will add to proper localization of vocals, not detract. If your previous experience did not bear this out, you may have had a system that was not set up properly: center speaker too low (as you mentioned), center speaker with different tonal quality (should be same make and model, or at least same make and closely matched characteristics), levels and/or delay not adjusted properly, sounds from left and right speakers not imaging correctly due to poor placement and/or reflections from the walls.
 
#4 ·
Speakers will be 22" from side walls - I think thats far enough ??
Was hoping not to have to toe them in as the surface they will be flush with will be dead flat - toeing them in is a bucket load of extra work. They don't get toed in with a proper baffle wall behind the screen, but I guess thats because the lefts and rights aren't so far apart ?

My current set up is a complete mess - the room (different to the one drawn) is almost square and the left speaker is in the corner but the right speaker is 3' in because that is where the door opens, and the centre was in the centre of the screen and fronts but not in the centre of the room. the rears are in the correct spot on the back wall but the surrounds are 3' in front of the seats !!!!!
So that would definitely affect the centre I guess. I tried it with exactly the same centre, left and right speaker and it didn't make a difference. Anyway the new room will fix that I hope.

Virtual center channel set ups only work if all the listening positions are in the "sweet spot". With a row of four seats it is doubtful if the two outside seats will have proper imaging.

I also wonder about the audible effects of sticking the ports in those chubby holes
I actually only have a 3 seater - I drew 4 because I drew the first one in the wrong spot and it was easier to draw 4 than correct it :)

From my research the ports and crossovers of enclosed speakers are there to help with Baffle Step Correction, which increases the bass response. Plugging the ports will decrease the bass, but flush mounting them increases it again so hopefully back to where it should be or thereabouts. It won't be perfect but I am hoping it will be OK.

The enclosed area the speakers will be in will be 28" wide, 24" deep and 8' high - so plenty of room for the ports to vent into if need be.My subs will be in there too but they are front ported and will be mounted directly below the fronts.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Virtual center channel set ups only work if all the listening positions are in the "sweet spot". With a row of four seats it is doubtful if the two outside seats will have proper imaging.

I also wonder about the audible effects of sticking the ports in those chubby holes

 
#5 ·
You are not taking into consideration the near boundary effect of those three walls surrounding your front LR speakers.
and I expect there will be no decent imagining of those speakers either.

Why not an AT screen and buy a third Mordaunt SHort MS 3.50 to use as the center channel?

You have a huge space, for three seats, so why not pull the "front wall" forward and simply cover over the windows?
Now your speakers are out of the cubbies and you can have good imaging.

I don't even think your tight budget is an obstacle. I think you just need a different plan of attack. :)
 
#7 ·
You are not taking into consideration the near boundary effect of those three walls surrounding your front LR speakers.
and I expect there will be no decent imagining of those speakers either.

The speaker will be flush mounted so there will only be one wall (apart from the wall it is flush with) and it will be 24" from the centre of the woofer to the wall.
Is imaging more important than room acoustics etc ?

Why not an AT screen and buy a third Mordaunt SHort MS 3.50 to use as the center channel?

A screen is not in my budget - white painted wall for me :)

You have a huge space, for three seats, so why not pull the "front wall" forward and simply cover over the windows?
Now your speakers are out of the cubbies and you can have good imaging.

Space was designed using Seppmeyer ratio for my ceiling height. Making a false front wall will affect that ratio.

Front corners put to work as corner bass trapping???.

Those 'cubbies' don't exist yet - that is where my windows are but flush with the wall.

I do wonder about using the 310 as the surrounds.

You mean as ceiling speakers ? Budget again - I have them and they are timbre matched to the rest of the system. Again budget dictates that I can't (yet) afford decent ceiling speakers. I know they are not coaxial as recommended but I am hoping that is less of an issue than timbre matching and the quality of the speaker.


I thought pulling the windows out and building the cubbie to house the speakers and allowing a flush mount to create a baffle wall (without the baffling since there is no reflected sound) would be a good idea. The alternative is simply putting them in the corners (with correct clearance of course).
 
#8 ·
Build the screen. Check out the DIY sub forum of the screen forum. You might want to look into Spandex.

I would start with imaging. An Acoustically transparent screen won't change your room and it's ratio.
But I'd be looking at planting those 3 seats at 2/3rds room length, and the AT wall would bring the screen forward.

I've been in many a home theater where the surrounds aren't timbre matched, and those rooms have excellent audio.
I would want my front three speakers to be timbre matched though, and identical.

I was suggesting the 310's as the side and rear surrounds. I am not up to speed ion ATMOS, but is 2 overhead speakers an
option with ATMOS?

Why the baffle wall at all? You have but one row of seating and the luxury of room depth. Are your speakers suitable for
mounting in a baffle wall, or are you capable of redoing the crossovers? A baffle wall eats up lots of materials too, and proper design
is best left to a capable designer.

Pulling those windows also means you have some DIY skills, right?

You really don't want your speakers in the corners. Early reflections.

I get you have budget constraints, but I am simply proposing you spend your limited budget in a different way. With the AT screen,
maybe those windows just get a simple plug, and that won't be seen. SeymourAV sells AT materials and some guys report good results
with Spandex.

Don't get me wrong, I think you are very much onto something. Something I think of as a "killer" budget home theater.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I had not even considered an AT screen - in fact I hadn't even considered a screen at all since I am more than happy with my current painted wall. I will now look further into the screen option.

The house isn't built yet so I may be able to move the windows in from the corners, use them to mount the speakers (will have to make an extra hole for the centre speaker), and us an AT screen for a proper baffle wall ....

It was never my intention to have the speakers flush mounted - they were always supposed to be just standing in the corners, but I was looking at the house plans and suddenly had the idea that I could use the window opening to flush mount them.

I have been trying to research the effects of flush mounting an enclosed speaker and the only thing I found was that the crossover has (or may / should have) Baffle Step Correction which increases the bass response. When a speaker is then mounted flush this will also increase bass response, which can be EQ'd out and if you plug the ports that will also reduce the bass. So you may be able to counter the BSC crossover ?

I was going to play with it to see if they sounded OK or not. I really want to flush mount my side surrounds at least and can do this easily as one side of the theatre is my garage and the other side is my laundry and there is room to hang the back of the speaker into them and also build a nook around them.

See actual dimensioned drawing :
 

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#10 ·
This was my original idea with decoupled internal walls
 

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#11 ·
Those double doors are very likely to undermine sound isolation. You do want a low noise floor for any serious home theater.

Have you considered that you could do an entire fabric walled room, with in that shell? That's a concept in my
next space. Since the room is big, and the seating needs small, then you can make the space more intimate
but keep the larger room's volume audio-wise. The AT screen also means you can employ a center channel, and
the narrow seating foot print means you can utilize an identical speaker to your fronts. You also could skip electrical
outlets in the wall, and run electrical in conduit on the wall instead. You also get to snake wiring around the room, and create
space for room treatments. So if the fabric panels are removable, then you have some serious future proofing already in place.

Why bother blocking ports, and getting into crossover science, at all? I doubt you are going to beat a speaker manufacturer at their own
game here, and affordable speakers are likely masking some nasty driver response surprises right outside the crossover points.

I like all the concepts you are exploring. Another thing I like is my AT screen hides some massive potent subs, bought used (and pretty darm
cheap for what what they are). Pretty looking they are not, with their mismatched finishes and bulk, so the AT screen gets leveraged in yet another
way.


Your last diagram makes me think Josk1's room in France. Or even Hollywood's single seat room. Either could be pretty awesome as a
three seat black speaker grill by the bolt DIY budget build. LED RGB tape lighting is rather affordable too.


 

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#12 ·
OK I have taken everything on board and I am sticking with my original plan :


Front wall will still be the (130")screen. My current painted wall is amazing as a screen - I sanded it nice and smooth before painting with the best
quality roller I could find with satin / low-sheen white.


Side surrounds will be flush mounted.


Front LR will be free standing in the corners (with correct clearance).


Tannoy CVS6 for the 4 Atmos speakers. I have just picked these up for less than $150 :)


I may look at an AT screen and flush (baffle?) mounting the fronts at a later date - but I suspect I will be happy without either.


All the cabling will be done during the house build so no need for false walls. Just some black paint for me........


Total cost : $50 for some paint :)
 
#15 ·
Maybe you might look into just how inexpensive an AT screen solution can be, in the design stage?

I don't think it's all that wacky, but I do question just how much better the low budget set up could get, by spending alternatively?
So the questions that enter my head go like this:

When the center channel is the most important speaker in a surround set up, why isn't there one?

(And when the room is small and limited seating, just how cool would 2.1 with a big AT screen be, and
just how simple and flexible is that, to pull off.)

How do I accommodate a center channel, without affecting screen size or pushing the center channel down low?

Why 4 subs in the corners, when they could be hidden behind an inexpensive AT screen???

Would those very low budget subs perform better, by co-locating them in pairs? Not sure about this, but I suspect the answer is better.


But I do get the value in such a low buck setup. :)

Little money expended, and a huge dollar per hour entertainment curve.
 
#16 ·
It was as much about time as money.


The house is a new build and when we move in there will be lots and lots of extra work for me to do to make it a home - painting, trimming, paving, gardening, fencing, hand-built pool, building shed to house my car projects etc etc, plus working 60+ hrs per week to pay the mortgage...................


So it will simply be a room with home theatre equipment in it rather than a home theatre room to start with. But yes AT screen is definitely the go - this thread was basically the first I had even heard of them as a budget alternative. I have even repositioned my projector (on the plans) so I can get a bigger image and take full advantage of an AT screen as (almost) the full width of the room rather than being limited to the width between the windows. As soon as I am in and settled I will be building one.


I was thinking of drywalling across the corners to contain my subs and rear surrounds - but an AT screen sounds like a much better idea - thanks for the tip.


Centre channel was going to be decided on once the room is set up - but I really prefer my current set up without one. When I go to an AT screen I will definitely run one - just need to find an other MS3.50 to match the other fronts. I did think of using my 3.30s (which are basically 3.50s with the lower cabinet) and then the 3.10s as surrounds but I think the 3.10s are too small as they are only 4". I guess I can set them to start with and see how they sound and make a decision then.


As to my subs - how dare you call them budget :( - they retailed for around $1500 here in Australia and that to us is almost the same as $1500 is to you guys (in terms of affordability not exchange rate). So that's $6000 worth of subs - probably my biggest 'extravagance' as I am still waiting on my 4th being sent from The Netherlands :) I am far from an audiophile so can't really say whether they are any good or not but my gosh do they sound fantastic to me. Each sub has 2 piddly little 6" woofers but they absolutely put to shame my Mordaunt-Short, JBL, Sony and even my Mission (which I thought was the best) subs. My current room is square and probably has the worst acoustics and general layout yet there is no boominess or inadequate response that I can hear. Full blast (!) on my amp and it is still crystal clear and ear-splittingly loud (and I currently only have the 3.10s as surrounds)
 
#17 ·
We do understand far better then you think. We've all been there. And we've all learned some lessons from being there. And some of us find the
budget room a really interesting concept, since there's never ever been so much great gear at such low price points.

Don't get offended, I also call my sub budget. An $800 Servodrive Contrabass. The amp that drives it, was a trade, for my home built NHT 1259 sub
and the NAD amp that drove it. I expect your subs are great mid bass modules, and that's based on science. You aren't getting great performance AND
deep extension, but I bet they really rock that 35-50 Hz range where lots of sound tracks have lots of energy. And that would be solid engineering for dual 6"
drivers.

Lots of what has been proposed to you, is really about challenging your frame of reference. I don't see any suggestions to spend more, or even do more work then one of your
drawings had.

Be careful on going to big with that AT screen. There's a little detail called gain and often that is a misleading posted number for AT screens. Bigger isn't better, if you aren't hitting
at least 17 foot lamberts of light on the screen.
 
#18 ·
No offence taken - you have been a lot of help :)
 
#19 ·
So after considering all the input and a bit more research I have decided to follow the advice in this thread :)

I have just purchased a pair of Mordaunt Short MS 3.30s (my 3.30s listed in my original post are actually just MS 30s) which are identical to the 3.50s except not in a floorstanding cabinet.
So these (or one of them actually) are going to be used as the centre speaker.

I am redesigning my room slightly so that there will be no windows.
Building laws here mandate that habitable room must have windows :(
But I figured if I make the door go into the garage I can call it a workshop and it is no longer classed as habitable so it doesn't need windows :)
Then once the house is built I can cut another door into the house ........

Without windows I can place the front speakers correctly and I will definitely be building an AT screen :)
 
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#20 ·
House is built and theatre 90% setup 😎
 

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#21 ·
Here is a shot of REW Roomsim for my current layout. There is absolutely no sound treatment in this room (yet).
Does that graph look ok ?
 

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#22 ·
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