T-Bone's Theater build

I've been dreaming of doing this for 18 years now and I'm finally on a roll. I've worked in the consumer electronics business for 6 years during my years at college and that was really the start of my desire for a home theater. Well do to kids coming early in my married life, college, busy jobs and real life stuff has prevented me from doing it. 4 years ago I bought DIY speaker kits from GR-Research and they've sat since then. 2 months ago I decided to build them and recently finished them.

We bought a new home a little over a year ago after moving from Utah to California. Unfortunately we weren't able to modify the home since it was a track home and the builder didn't allow for structural modifications. We did buy a house that had a spare room with the intent to turn it into a theater. A few months after moving in we tore the room down and basically did nothing to it for almost a year. Well enough was enough and I'm fired up to get the ball rolling. Here is a terrible sketch of the concept. The equipment rack will be in a different place though.


The plan is to have 8 seats in the room so Berkline 088 narrow sofas will be the seating choice.

Additional sheetrock and Green Glue was done a few months ago. Safe N' Sound solid core door was ordered yesterday. I also ordered some Wilsonart Laminate (DEsigner White) 5'x10' piece today for the screen.

Here are the GR-Research speakers I just completed.

I was off this past week so I was able to work on the stage and riser.




More to come

Finished the riser today. Well other than the second layer of OSB after I lay the #30 Roofing felt.



Got some goodies yesterday.



Screen material came in yesterday as well.





Now to figure out the front stage false wall and the equipment rack.

Got the screen hung today and started on the front wall Linacoustic. . Kind of a nightmare really but it turned out well. I used contact cement to glue it to pegboard but that posed a problem as the seems showed up. I had to take it down and reinforce the seems with 1/4" plywood that was also glued to the pegboard.

More later.

The stage has some sand in it as you can see here

The room is on the second floor and I didn't want to risk too much weight. My friend is an engineer and felt that I would be ok with it completely filled but it was pushing the calculated max load and I didn't want to get into a situation that might be disastrous. Anyway I know it's not optimal but I figure the additional mass won't hurt. There's about 800 pounds of sand in there. The stage is decoupled as well. As for the top layers they are OSB 23/32" I believe and there are 2 layers on there. The stage has green glue between the layers. The rest of the stage was stuffed with standard fiberglass insulation.

The riser is framed with 2x12's with a total height of approx 14" with carpet. Each chamber is stuffed with 2 layers of R-30. 2 sheets of the 23/32" OSB with #30 roofing felt between the layers. Hope that helps.

With all the theater build threads out there that are actually well done I'm wondering why I even post to this thread. Maybe someone will benefit from something I've done. I've actually finished a lot in the last few months and I'm really working hard on the room at the moment.

Built 2 15" subs recently. They are MFW-15's with SA-1 amps from www.gr-research.com. They came out great and sound wonderful. It's a sandbox design and they are as solid as a rock. They weigh a modest 162 pounds each.

Here is the front stage in progress.



Going to start on the soffit tomorrow.

Thanks for the kind remarks on the speakers and the encouragment on the thread.

I built all 9 speakers from scratch. Everything was in a kit when I received them from GR-Research.com. It was A LOT of work building them but they sound amazing! For the couple of grand I invested in them I'm certain I saved at least $3k or more doing them myself. The pride in building them yourself is where it's really at for me. For me they are works of art and I really enjoy wordworking as I rarely get to do it much with a busy job and 3 kids. It's been something I wanted to do when I finally got around to doing my theater room.

More to come....

Cherry


Yes many times. Everything sounds great even without acoustic treatments. My brother came over this past weekend and he has a decent system costing about $800 for his speakers (I know it's not much) and has a $500 amp (again not much) but he wanted to sell everything he has and start building speakers after his experience in my room. hehe


This is a tough one for me. I read a post somewhere from Dennis Erskine stating that the placement of the center channel is better served over the screen since our brains have a harder time localizing sound coming from above. I might try it below the screen to see the difference but for the most part I don't notice its location. It sounds central to me. It will probably help when it's hidden behind all the screens I still need to make. That way I won't see that thing staring down at me.



I wanted to go IB but it just wasn't going to work well in this room or should I say I didn't want my entire neighborhood calling the cops on me daily. I was a little reluctant to do 2 subs as I thought it might be overkill but I'm glad I did. After I got 1 done I tried it out and while it sounded good it really filled out the stage and added another dimension having a second. It also allows me to move them around to optimize them. I think a single is fine especially on a budget but I would try and plan for 2 down the road. You can't really have too much bass in my opinion. Those sub-sonic sounds aren't heard but felt. With this room on the second floor there is no need whatsoever for buttkickers. The tactile response in the room is exceptional.


It's an Optima HD70 I bought years ago. I plan to replace it in the near future but I'm content with it at the moment. I want to move up to a 1080P unit with better contrast soon. I have 100% light control in the room and the blacks just aren't very good.


My wife LOVES movies so it was easy really. Also we bought the house almost exclusively on the fact that there is a bonus room over the garage that was a nice 18'x20' with 9' ceilings that would make a nice HT room. As for the money it really hasn't been all that bad. Looking back on the project I could have done it for $3 grand I bet, maybe less. DIY screens are cheap, used PJ is cheap, speakers can add up but you can get nice used setups cheap. Then all you need is furniture to sit on. I think the money really starts to add up with the construction piece of it. If you can't DIY that part it could be a huge cost. Materials for the most part is cheap, labor not so much.

It's been a long time since I've posted anything and I actually took several months off from the room. Was working on getting my backyard done before the intense summer heat set in. Now I'm back on task in the theater.

Here is an update showing the soffit work I've been doing the last week or so. Pillars will be next up. The wires will not be hanging out of course.



Here is a shot with the firing to allow the linacoistic RC to be mounted before the fabric and Alder goes up.


Fabric installed



Alder Veneer and Trim installed




I still need to install the 9 recessed cans which should happen in the next week. Next up is the columns and wire for rope lighting. Then I'll be working on the front stage trim. I expect the columns to take awhile as I plan to do some pretty detailed wood work On them. My brother keeps telling me to just texture the walls and be done with it but by golly I'm doing this room like I always dreamed I would.

Worked on the riser today. Decided to trim it out. Waiting to stain things until I nail down the color scheme for the room. Plan to work on the columns this week. Will be making raised panels for them and topping them with speaker cloth.

Nothing to show as far as pictures go but I've been working on the columns which is a fair amount of work. I'll post pictures tomorrow. I'm trying to wrap my head around so many things right now I get dizzy at times just thinking about it. I asked a well known forum member for acoustic treatment help before I get too far into this. I realize at this point I should have bit the bullet and just taken care of that before I ever started. I didn't realize the scope of the project until I really started getting into it. Now that I have 2 kick ass subs, 7 nice speakers and the projector up and running I'm bitting off more than I bargained for. It's a lot of fun but i really realize that having a plan and sticking to it is vital! I definitely have some problem areas in the room as far as bass control goes and will need some attention. Mostly the rear row in the corner of the room. Front row is good and that's with acoustic treatment other than the Linacoustic RC on the front wall.

More soon. I know the thread moves slow but I try to keep it simple when I do post. Then again not many are following it so that helps. LOL

I hear ya on that seating position. That's actually the worst of the 7 seats, for obvious reasons it seems. I realize I won't make them all great but like you said it's not going to matter to most of my guests. They will get caught up in the shock and awe of the whole "home theater experience". I'm sure with the acoustic treatments it ill be better than it is now. I was wondering if placing 1 of the 2 subs in that corner would help or hurt. I really don't want those giant boxes in sight for people to see. They weren't intended to be seen, if they were I would have wrapped them in cherry and made them pretty. I'm good at hiding things so I could always build a screen to hide it I guess. I doubt that's going to be a recommendation when I get some of the experts on here chiming in.

Thanks for the kind words on the woodworking skills. I'm not too sure they are all that great but I am super detail oriented on my middle age years, had a great teacher (dad) and have a pretty good set of tools at this point. The columns will have Alder raised panels on the bottoms then a grill above them with some nice trim work that blends in with the baseboard, chair railings and a cap up top. I plan to have the bootms fixed to the wall and the top part will be able to be removed for easy access to the speakers as well as possibly being used as bass traps. Maybe load them with safe n sound, 701/703 type stuff. I'm a little worried the front columns might actually be in the first order refection spot but I don't think it will be an issue since the base of the columns is only 36" or so and above that will be essentially acoustically transparent so treatments will still be function-able. Off to bed....

Been working the Bench Dog over. Love this router table!


Here's a small stack of the panels I've been cutting for the columns.


Here's the base panel for the columns. I have 4 of these done and have 8 side panels to make then on to the top of the coumns. Then I'll make a removable section to access the speakers.

Everything is solid Alder. Yes it's a panel bit. Kind of a pain cutting raised panels until you get the hang of it. The speed you push them is key to preventing burns. I'm not perfect at it but that's a reason I used knotty Alder as it makes for a bit more of a rustic look. Cutting flat panels out of 1/4 inch is clearly the simpler way to get the job done.

As for acoustics I'll work on them as I go along. I asked for help and I'm still waiting to see if I get an answer but I also realize a lot of the experts on here must get so many questions they have to pass some of them by. I still have a lot of things to do so I have some time.

I'll look at Lockheed's thread now.

Not much happening the last few weeks. I'm training for a long bike ride that's happening in a few weeks so until then I'll be riding and not doing much else.

Nah,

I'll tape it off so it should be fine. Didn't have a lot of choice on that part of the staining process. The rest will be stained and varnished before it goes up.

Just ordered all the fabric for the walls and screen wall. Wife was wanting to have red/burgundy in the room and I decided to listen to her. The room will be skinned in GOM Anchorage Onyx from the floor to approx. 3' up then transition to GOM Anchorage Mulberry for the next 58" or so then have a final 8" up to the base of the sofit with more Onyx. Transitions will have some sort of wood trim and possible 45 degree bevels to polish it off. Stain on the wood is still to be determined. I'm thinking a dark burgundy black color to tie in with the 2 main colors. Originally was going to go with a medium to dark brown but I'm not leaning that way anymore as it creates more difficulty in blending the colors together correctly. I'm no interior designer but my mom had a great design eye and she taught me a few things. We'll see how it goes when I start getting the fabrics stapled up.

Hard to believe how long it's been since I posted to this thread. I was swamped last fall with work and training for a few bike rides. Theater has been ignored for several months. I decided to finish it in the next few weeks so hopefully I can stay on schedule and get it done ASAP as planned.

Soffit is done, cans in the soffit, trimming out walls so I can apply Linacoustic RC and batting. Riser trim done.





One of the areas I've been stumped on is the 2 windows I left in the room due to fire code. I toyed with the idea of using curtains but my craziness got the best of me and I decided to make hidden doors that will hopefully blend in with the rest of the walls. We shall see.... This is a rough start to the finished product.