Our Simple Home Theater for Three

My family's home theater as of October 2012.

 

Very cozy for our small family. Basement room is 13' wide by about 18' deep and is sound isolated - all construction work by myself and wife in 2009.

 

Audio:
Anthem AV50V Pre Processor
Anthem MCA50 5-channel Amplifier (L/C/R/RS/LS)
Anthem PVA5 5-channel Amplifier (LR/RR/Zone 2 R/Zone 2 L in Living Room)
Paradigm Reference Studio Esprit L/C/R
Paradigm Reference Studio ADP-590 LS/RS/LR/RR

(2) SVS SB-13 Ultra Subwoofers (new Jan 2013)
Paradigm Reference Seismic 12 Subwoofer

Video:
Anthem LTX500v (JVC RS20 re-badge)
Carada 2.40:1 (108" wide) Screen

Sources:
Oppo BDP-93 (new 2012)
Toshiba HD-A2 HDDVD
Pace RGN200 HD PVR
xbox 360 + kinect
HTPC Media Server (Silverstone + Intel i5-760/ATI + 2Tb HD, 120Gb SSD, ATI HD5700)
Apple TV gen 3 (new 2012)
 

Misc:
Harmony One Remote
Mid Atlantic Slide Out Rack
ColorFacts and Spider Colororimeter for Video
Room EQ Wizard for Audio Measurement
ETF for Audio

Paint Colour
Walls: Behr Brown Teepee
Trim: Behr Toffee Crunch

Recent Changes:

Front Wall sound absorbtion and black screenwall (Winter 2012)

New Shelves, Pictures, etc for nice WAF and better acoustics (Summer 2012)

Rome pictures taken by us in 2008 and printed onto 24"x24" by PosterJack - nice way to get personal touch on the walls
 

Future Enhancements Planned:
Side, back walls, and ceiling acoustic diffusion panels
Hush box for projector
Second (third, and fourth?) sub?
Anamorphic Lens

The Graveyard:
Panasonic BD-30 BluRay

Panasonic DVD
Panasonic RP 82 DVD
Sony DVD
Motorola HD 6414 PVR
Sharp 10000 DLP Projector
Sony HS10 LCD Projector
Toshiba 50" CRT Rear Projection HDTV
Sony 32" TV
Toshiba 28" TV
NAD Receiver
Pioneer Dolby Pro-Logic Receiver
Yamaha Dolby Pro-Logic Receiver
Harmon Kardon Dolby 5.1 Receiver
Denon Dolby 5.1 4800 Receiver
Behringher FeedBack Pro (DSP for Sub EQ "the old fashioned way")
Castle 5.0 Speaker Set
Paradigm Monitor 7 5.0 Speaker Set
Mirage 12" Subwoofer
Mitsubishi S-VHS Player
Sony LaserDisc Player
Dual 5000 Turntable
NAD CD Player
Sony CD Carousel

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by DaveBoswell - 1/22/13 at 3:17pm

Thanks all. Some comments and response to questions:

- paint colour was a good compromise between the "all black/dark grey" cave approach and frankly having a room that would be nice to be in for other than movie time. I painted the walls and ceiling allt he same neutral dark beige colour to both get a darker than white ceiling, and also, and more importantly to hide the fact there are a lot of funny shaped bulkheads as this is a basement room
- I use the zoom and shift mode to switch between 16:9 mode and 2.40:1 mode. The projector has power zoom and lens shift which I programed onto the harmony so I can do this from the couch when I want to change modes - some day I might buy an anamorphic lens, but I would do it more for the keeping the brightness as high as possible reason rather than the convenience
- yes, the sound is really quite fantastic. I am a huge fan of the Anthem and Paradigm products and their approach to high quality based on scientific method and measured data (plus the fact they are Canadian, we get good prices and availability, and the factory is 2 blocks from my office if I need repairs). I have ARC'd and re-ARC using the Anthem about 50 times fine tuning sub location, phase, couch position etc, and know there is signficant improvement to be made with some fairly simple room treatments. All I need to do now is convince the sig other as to how high this project is relative to, say, building a new deck or updating the laundry room :-)

Thanks for all the nice comments. Added some more photos to the first post.

Looking at these really makes me want to do something about that big bare wall on the right side. I've got my eye on some acoustic diffusion panels and I really need some bookshelves in this room - my CDs and books are all still in boxes in the closet.

Dave

Updated my gear and the photos to reflect some ongoing improvements over the last year or so.

Here are some before and after pictures of the construction in 2009:

Old temporary HT almost completed demolition (Nov 2008):



Old Stairs and almost empty basement:


This is where the new HT will go. Screenwall on left:


Bottom of stairs built by yours truly. Door to HT is on left where you can see drywall on the floor:



Enterring the room. Screenwall on left jsut off camera. Perfectly positioned electrical panel. Pocket doors in back of HT.



Front Screenwall:



Rack built in and post:


Looking back at Rack from front right corner of rrom:

Edited by DaveBoswell - 10/12/12 at 7:33pm

Just got some new SVS SB-13 subs. No picts yet but an absolutely fantastic upgrade. Wife not quite so thrilled as I :-)

About 7.5 feet with a lower bulkhead for ductwork on left side about 6 ft 7 in high.

Thanks, and yes - I use the zoom and shift method and the black bars are hidden in the screen border area. I made the black area larger last year to better absorb as you can see the spill over on teh beige walls - though only on the darkest scenes.

It's tucked under the stairs coming from the first floor above. I use a slide out and rotate rack from Middle Atlantic which works like a charm - was a bit pricey (somewhere in neighborhood of $1k) but finally I have not a single wire visible from seating and the management is quite easy to do. If I had a choice, I would still prefer to access from behind as it's a bit of a pain everytime to make an adjustment I have to unscrew the bottom plate to allow for the slide out mechanism to work - I've probably done this step 200 times over the last 3.5 years (!)

Dave