The 'I can't believe you want the largest room in the house' HT build.1 - Page 21

Oh, and David, as you have been the least guilty of self indulgently hijacking my thread, you are most welcome here anytime. Peter The Greek, it's gonna take a crap load of Coopers to get back into my good graces. And as for you Peter M, once you have my subs singing with your whiz bang computer thingamajigy, I think it's best you don't call me.... Atleast until your room is ready for movie nights!

Send her shopping. Massive Westfield at Hornsby... 10 minutes away. Pick her up when she runs out of money (minimum 2 days worth). Sometimes I wonder why I'm single!!!

Hi David. I'm hearing you on the budgetary front. Never ending bills on this project. Another 320 dollars today for the supertel insulation and 45.00 more for wood. Don't ask about the wood! My staffordshire bull terrier found one of the 3.4 metre lengths that I had cut for the screen frame and decided he wanted it for a stick more than I did for a frame. Oh well, it's been eventful! The Danleys were indeed a great bargain. The quality is superb and their service was first rate. A really nice company to deal with. So much so, I just had to buy two!
Ps. Pictures coming. More progress today.

I know, it's been a while since I have managed to post some photos of progress and the resultant hijacking of my thread because of it has spurred me into action.

The last update pretty much was building the Danleys, so I guess I should pick up there. I finished wiring them up, both internally and externally. Joined all of the wires with proper wire connectors and then attached to the wire to the cabinets with clips so that they don't move around. Copious amounts of insulation tape was used and I even wrapped the connectors in foam so that they would not knock against the cabinet. Was the best solution that I could think of.



It was simple at the end, but it was tricky getting my brain around wiring these speakers out of phase. Easy enough to do but the more I read, the more confused I became. Was originally going to wire them in phase and let the amp turn them out of phase but as I was running two DTS-10 subs, one for each channel of the Behringer EP-4000, I wired them out of phase as per the instructions. Used lots of the adhesive foam gasket when sealing up the ports and they were done. The subs were then painted black so they would not reflect light through my AT screen.

As the speaker had already been lugged into the theatre room from their assembly point (thanks Peter) the next job was to get them onto the stage. After a bit of re-organising, I decided to turn the Danleys onto their ends with the mouths pointing forwards. I won't have a lot of options for placement due to the large dimensions of the subs and my room width, but I managed to get the two subs plus the 3 x Niles LCR speakers onto the stage. I guess I can face the sub mouths towards the wall when I get into the testing phase. That would be about the only option I have. The LCR speakers need to be mounted on stands of the correct height... the Ikea tables are a $9.95 ea temp fix.

Yesterday, I went out to AGI insulation in Sydney and picked up some Supertel insulation. Filled a trailerload. The sheets are 1.2 metres x 2.4 metres (4 ft x 8 ft). $332.00 later...





I had never used this product, and whilst it's as dear as poison, it is fantastic stuff to work with. Only a little bit itchy and with an extendable blade, the 50mm (2 inch) material is dead easy to cut. The result being... about 1 hour, some cutting and four tubes of liquid nails later, I had a treated screen wall and surrounds...





I then reconnected the sub wiring and the stage is complete (I have some of the ceiling behind the screen wall left to do but will use some leftover material for this once the remaining treatments have been installed.





If I can get some more insulation done this weekend I will. Otherwise it will need to wait for during the week to get finished up. Then I can start the testing and tuning of the subs. 2 of the 3 required XLR cables have arrived so I am looking forward to that part. Even without the subs running, I did notice an improvement in the sound of the LCR speakers since treating the screen wall. The sound is a little more articulate. Should make an even bigger difference once those subs are firing. I really should make an effort to reinstall the theatre door before I expose my neighbours to that!

The work (and pile of receipts) continue...

Greg

Peter, don't look at it as solving all my technical problems. I am giving you the golden opportunity for some quality experiential learning on the DCX-2496 at absolutely no charge to you. I would have thought you would have appreciated my gesture!

I know, those mains look pathetic against the subs. They are actually a reasonable size for this type of speaker. I wonder if they will keep up with the subs? In a word.... No. The look like satellites

Hi Tony, I was leaving you alone after LSU were so unceremoniously flogged! Thought you may need some 'alone time'.
Thanks for the hint on the subs. I will try up/down/front/back when I get them fired up. That is a two man job!

Design.... This build thread should have been called the 'wing and a prayer theater build' or the 'seat of my pants construction'. If you had your way there would have been another 6 inches back there but I didn't have the space. Shame. Worked out ok, me thinks.

I will rotate the subs around 180 degrees Peter. Impatience got the better of me and I went to Jaycar today. Don't know why I bothered with eBay. Purchased an XLR cable for 12 bucks. Set the amp to parallel mode and turned it on. Yeah Baby! It was sloppy and definitely needed tuning but it was enough to pummel my temp screen. And that was only one sub. For some reason the Left sub isn't going. The eq and amp are showing an output so it's somewhere in the connections. Feel free to come over any time mate. I can honestly say that I have NO idea where to start with the 2496. I'm sure it's a powerful piece of kit but I really have no idea. My previous subs have had two potentiometer knobs.... One for xover and one for volume. That's the limit of my experience. Would welcome any help as I know I haven't even scratched the surface with these subs. Even turned right down, they made a significant improvement to the sound of my room. Looking forward to releasing that potential.
I will get the subs sorted and then build the screen. Have decided to go for the Fidelio velvet for the entire screen wall. Not that there's much velvet left after a 145 inch screen is up there. It's going to cost about the same to do either the frame or the whole wall. I'll need about 4-5 metres so may as well do the lot and have no issues with leakage outside the screen. The LCR speakers will be behind the screen. The subs should be fine behind the velvet I think.
Looking forward to getting these subs dialled in properly!

Both subs are working.... Was just one of the plugs had come out during manouvering. Sound? Oh yeah! I had a very brief play with the 2496 and put a few basic settings in as best I could manage from the DTS10 thread and they are amazing. I really don't know how hard they go. My behringer ep4000 is at about 25 percent, the sub is set to -1 on the UMC1 gains and the whole room shakes. I could feel my Jean legs vibrating. Scuba Steve's demo disk has been copping a pounding! HTTYD is a movie I have watched over and over again but with the subs going it's like seeing it for the first time. I sure have been missing out. I think getting these subs going, even only on a basic level, has been the most rewarding part of this build to date. I had been anticipating getting them up and running for a couple of years.... Sure was worth the wait. Something tells me when these subs are kicking... It wouldn't matter how much Green Glue I used. I don't like the neighbors closest to me anyway!

Listen to you, Ghetto Tony! Maybe they weren't safari printed shorts you wore but the latest urban combat wear! Watch out.... Tone's in the hood!

The fun stuff continues! I have all of my timber cut up in lengths for the screen frame. This time I hid the timber from the prying jaws of my dog. It will be a very simple design, basically 2 lengths of 1x2 maple (nice and straight with square edges) which are 3.4 metres long (11.15 feet) and 4 lengths of 1.34 metre (4.4 feet) for vertical supports. This makes up a 145 inch 2.4:1 screen. The frame will be glued and screwed and I also have some L-brackets and T-brackets to hold it all together nice and square. Once that is done, I will probably cut down the white material sheet that I have in my room and make a temp screen stretched over the frame. I don't want to use the Seymour AV material until the room is carpeted and all the woodworking complete. With my luck, I will mark or puncture the screen and be up for more expensive freight for screen materials.

The screen will be surrounded by some 3 inch x 1 inch maple, which I will screw into the minimalist screen wall. This will be painted black and will act as the furring strip for my fabric track. At this stage, I am planning to butt the fabric track right up close to the screen frame and then have velvet covering the remainder of the screen wall. There isn't much left around the screen. I think 4-6 yards of material should cover it. Not cheap at 31 dollars per yard plus freight but I will see what else I can find over here that's cheaper. If not, I may just install some leftover track on the other side of the 3x1 furring channel and run black Trilogy one for the remainder of the screen wall and a 3 inch border of velvet surrounding the screen.

I am hoping to replace the door jamb tomorrow or Friday to accommodate the extra thickness of the clips, channel and double 5/8 drywall. If I can, I will scrape out the remainder of my 3-4 Green Glue buckets to laminate the door with two more layers of MDF or ply. This should give the door plenty of mass and stop the sound gushing out of my now-doorless room. This will leave me with one full bucket of Green Glue. Anyone need any?

A friend of mine in the carpet game is hopefully coming over on Monday to measure up and then hopefully carpet will be down within a fortnight or so. That will be a major milestone and pretty much, apart from the columns, mark the end of construction. Columns will come later. When I work out the easiest way to do it. Was going to be fiddly using the fabricmate track.

For the first time, I actually enjoyed my room and watched an entire movie, and at a volume which provided much satisfaction I purchased 'the Incredibles' on BD just a couple of days ago. I can't believe this movie hasn't appeared on either of the Home Theater Demo Discs. There are some serious dynamics on this one, with loud explosions, gunfire, rocket launches, aggressive surround usage and really great animation. Not the latest offering from the animated studios but I REALLY enjoyed it. Great system demo disc!

Will post some more pictures as the work continues.

Greg

Hey there David,
I have despicable me, in both 2D and 3D. The 3D is a blast... particularly the rollercoaster scene! Same for HTTYD. It's one of my favourite movies (and Tom's) and I have it also in 2D and 3D. The 3D version has the added benefit of 7.1, which is amazing. I wish my projector was 3D so that I could enjoy it in the theater room. 5.1 is still pretty good (5.2 actually with the twin subs )

I have tickets to see the HTTYD arena spectacular in March. Should be great to see the animatronic dragons on stage. I hope that it lives up to the hype. Looks like it's going to be pretty good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJUDrjA6ZY8

At $80 bucks a ticket (no concessions) you would hope that it's a good show!

If you are interested in the GG let me know via PM mate.