Laying out a/v in a family room

Gorgeous room, but not home theater friendly at all!


Yup, it’s going to get tiresome craning your neck up to watch the thing. Plus, is that square black thing on the stone the fireplace opening? If so, it looks really high. Putting the TV even above that? Ugh.


...And there’s your next issue with a fireplace TV. The misalignment with the L/R speakers isn’t that big a deal – few of us are able to achieve that. It’s just going to look freakin’ ugly hanging up there off the stone wall.


Not to mention, no good place to put them.

Wall to wall carpet, but I’m sure that’s out of the question...


Yup. Plus there just isn’t a good location for one (notice the recurring theme?). Every viable location (from the standpoint of layout) has some big opening right next to it. That never works well.


There’s no free lunch with an IB - except that you don’t have a big box in the room. They work best when vented into the room at a place where you would normally locate a subwoofer. In this room, an IB is just going to get you a really expensive, invisible sub with bad performance


Well, if home theater really matters to you, I’d pass on this one. When my wife and I were shopping for a home a few years ago, “home theater friendly” was a make-or-break deal. Look for a room with a good corner to locate the sub up front where the TV will be, and one that can be arranged with the fireplace to the left or right of the TV/seating. Corners work very well for subs in open family rooms. Also, make sure there are good locations for the rear speakers as well.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

If you're having a house built, don't sweat the home theatre setup in the main living area. You'll never get it right without lots of ugly sound baffles and bass traps etc., and that house is clearly not designed to have it in the great room anyway.

That greatroom screams "board games", "football while hanging out in the kitchen", and "christmas parties". Not so much "Star Wars", "Independence Day", or "Pitch Black".

Get a decent setup prewired with a rack in your basement, then as you get budgetary dollars, you can fill the rack and hook up the sound etc.

My 52" Bravia is hanging over my fireplace, but I am also 11' from my nose (in the primary seating position) to the surface of the screen. No neck strain thanks to distance, but it's also drywall above the fireplace so speaker mounting etc is cake. Dolby recommends the speakers be centered to the tv, so you just mount them so they are in the center third of the screen, and if the tv tilts down make sure your speakers are on stands that tilt up and down as well as side to side.

If you "need" to have some sort of surround setup, get something small and starter like a take 5 system. Less intrusive on that beautiful room that way, too. For a sub, make it double as a quilt stand or something that won't mess up the sound (don't put a chessboard on it...doesn't go well - yes I speak from experience).

Don't sink money into a "good" HT system for that room, just get a good LCD or LED display that fits and looks good, and spend the money on a dedicated "man cave" in the basement.

^ Agreed. That space is not "Home Theater" material. Find another space for a *dedicated* room. Do you have access to the space above the garage?

Just get a good TV viewing system for the Great Room. A large flat panel with an LCR soundbar below would be more than sufficient.

Craig

Sure, anything like that would help. The more soft stuff in the room to absorb reflections, the better.


It’s a crap shoot for sure. You won’t know for sure what you have until you actually get in there. The room size can be beneficial in that it’ll probably help minimize severe peaks and dips. And you’re right that getting good levels will be a problem. But another big problem will be extension. A sub that might do 20 Hz in a “regular” room might not do better than 28 Hz in a huge one like this (as an example; those aren’t “hard” figures). Having no good corners anywhere will only make this problem worse. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you will be able to get anything worthwhile below 35-40 Hz in that room, not even considering the SPL issue.


Making it work is not a problem. The real issue is whether or not you can live with all the sonic (and visual) compromises: mediocre bass, a center speaker hanging from the stone fire place, rear speakers in poor locations, etc. (Actually, a good place for the rear speakers would be to use in-walls to the sides of the bar, providing you could center your furniture better than what’s in the first picture.)

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Hmmmm... If I lived in your house, and I had your requirements... I would...

1. Make the space above the garage a true "Home Theater". That space could work really well for HT and I would spend a lot of time, $$$ and energy to optimize it for HT.

However, it appears your priorities are to optimize the Great Room for "social" TV watching, and for "very social" entertaining. That's fine and in that case, I would...

2. Get as big a screen as the space can accommodate, and optimize the audio around it. This could be a very capable "soundbar" such as the Atlantic Technology FS-5000:
http://www.atlantictechnology.com/de...asp?NodeId=116
or the Pinnacle QP-15:
http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/quantumplasma15.html
Then augment those speakers with a couple of small, high performance subs, such as the JL Audio F110's:
http://home.jlaudio.com/products_subs.php?prod_id=374
or a pair of the Rythmic subs at whatever your pricepoint allows:
http://www.rythmikaudio.com/products1.html

I would not be overly concerned with surround sound for the Great Room if you don't plan to spend a lot of time with "serious" movie viewing.

OTOH, if you really want room-filling sound in multiple areas of the house, a high-quality distributed audio system is your best bet. That's a whole different discussion...

Bottom line, you need to decide your priorities. You can only "optimize" a room for a single application.

Craig

PS. If you ever get to the point that you want to turn that space above the garage into a dedicated HT, come on back here 'cause we can help you.

I agree with Craig, but I've spent the last 13 years in the building industry reading blueprints and helping builders make design changes to homes, and then recommending and selling the products that go into those homes. Mind you it's sticks & bricks, not electronics, so bear with me.

My average house when this was my bread & butter was the 6,000 sqft 12/12 hip-roof monstrosity, so I'm familiar with what you're trying to do.

Here is what I'm going to recommend you do to get as close to "good" as you can.

#1 pick a receiver that is going to throw down at least 100w/ch. 130w/ch would be ideal, but 100 will carry you.

#2 make sure you pick satellite speakers for all 5 of what you want to use. If you get a new receiver with PLIIz and DSX, you can install "wides" or "heights". In your case, expanding your front soundstage with DSX "wides" is going to help you get where you want to be. This brings you to a 7.1 or 7.2 receiver, like the Onkyo TX-SR 707/807.

#3 whatever speakers you choose should have a crossover at or below 80hz and a sensitivity of at least 90db. If you can get more, DO SO. Also, make sure your speakers can be driven with a nice low wattage (like 10-25 watt minimum) and will max between 25-50 watts over what your amp will drive (this will minimize distortion and let you crank them without having to worry about destroying your tweeters). Having all 5 or 7 speakers identical will make the sound 110% better in an environment like that, because you won't have differences in sound reproduction stacked with the challenges of room design.

#4 your subs should be capable of reproducing sound down in the 20hz-25hz range AT VOLUME. Some subs say they reproduce to 25hz but when you turn them up to reference level they only handle 35hz without getting boomy or distorting. With a room your size, you need to seriously look into 12" and 15" subs.

#5 don't put any of your speakers in cabinets, surrounds, or in-wall. Bad. All it's going to do is attenuate your sound and cause distortion. Get all your speakers wired with a 12ga cl2 in-wall copper wire, and use wall mounts that can support the weight. I use peerless 731/732 wall mounts which will carry 20lbs AND the wire is hidden inside the mount, so you don't see it.

Now, for the installation recommendations.

#1 Use a different type of fireplace surround stone that what is in that picture. Either traditional brick, or the owens corning cultured stone. That way, you can safely use tapcons or concrete anchors/lag shields & screws to mount your speakers and tv over the fireplace. If you must use that particular type, get the mason to place mounting areas for the lighting, speakers, and tv that will securely hold whatever is attached to it.

#2 Do away with the built-ins on either side of the fireplace. Having the fireplace centered is good, but having the walls open on either side so you can better place a pair of front subs is even better. I recommend putting your A/V equipment in the basement or in a rack directly below that room. Having a couple small shelves built into the wall to conceal a bluray or cd player would be good, but you can rack 300 disc changers in the basement and run remote IR upstairs.

Install your TV in the center of the fireplace where it's shown, and then place your center channel around 4" above & centered over the TV. Install your front L and R speakers around 6" to either side of the TV, centered in the middle third of the set (from top to bottom). Use the Peerless 731/732 mounts for this, because they will allow you to angle and tilt the speakers to match any tilt the TV has to it. You use 2 mounts for the center channel and angle it down toward the primary seating position.

Install your DSX "wide" front L and R about 12" from the outside edges of the surrounding walls to either side of the TV, and at the same height as the main L and R speakers that are mounted already. Angle them in towards the main seating postion, and down to match the other speakers.

For the rear surrounds, install them on the walls to either side of the bar and split the difference in spacing between the front L and R and the DSX "wide" L and R. Angle them towards the primary seating position also.

Place your subs on either side of the fireplace. Front firing/downfiring doesn't matter. If you get a 7.2 receiver, you don't even need to split your signal from the sub out, you can run 2 dedicated RG6 cables from the rack to the subs. I'd even go so far as to place them on Auralex Great Gramma's cut to fit and then cover them up with quilts or something to hide the ugly without damaging the sound quality.

If you don't think that will be sufficient, 2 smaller subs (no smaller than 12's in your case) could to positioned to the rear against the walls next to the bar and below the rear surround speakers. With a 7.2 receiver you could run one RG6 lead to the fronts and split them, and one RG6 lead to the back and split them, instead of 3 splits off one cable.

If you want to get really into filling that room with sound, getting a 9.2 receiver that will allow PLIIz "heights" to be added could increase the soundstage a little for you, but so little information goes to those height channels that it probably won't make a difference at all.

With an 11.2 receiver you could add side surrounds mounted on the balcony and the outside wall at the same height and angle, pointing down at the primary seating position. These, combined with heights and the other speakers that you "should" have, will definitely fill the room with sound, but you're talking some serious coin between the receiver and the extra 4 speakers.

Then add some bass traps and acoustical absorption materials around the room and maybe up on the ceiling along with full curtains on the doors and windows etc and you'll have a hell of a room, but it won't be cheap.

I'd use a full set of deftech promonitor 1000's (for all 4, 6, 8 or 10 L and R speakers) with a procenter 2000. For subs, a pair of HSU ULS-15's in the front and if you do the extra subs in the back i'd go with a pair of VTF-3 MK3's.

If you want "more" from the front soundstage, going with Mythos 10's for your LCR and DSX wide might add more bang for the buck, and then promonitor 1000's for the surrounds.

Serious cash, but nothing is impossible.

yeah those are some expensive puppies right there.

I'd be careful before mixing klipsch with anything else. Horn tweeters don't play well with others.

Honestly floorstanding speakers would ruin the layout of that room. Putting good sound in it that's less obtrusive should be the goal.

With enough damping products and whatnot, that funny ceiling in the bonus room won't be a huge issue.

You could do this and it would be great for viewing television, which is mostly 2-channel anyway, even the DD feeds. If you really wanted surround sound, you could always install some matched surround speakers.


I would pick the Atlantic Technology soundbar. Then for surrounds, you could use:
http://www.atlantictechnology.com/default.asp?NodeId=56
(You could also use this system surrounding the TV, but you would give up wall space that would be better utilized with a larger display.)




Craig

Looks like it will be a great home.