Building a Dinner Theater w/ DIY Speakers, Subs, etc... - Page 11

I did run 300 feet of in-wall DMX cable, for a total of 10 locations for lighting effects. ;-) The idea is for the space to be versitile enough to be used for any purpose we want. My target audience is anyone who wants to spend money at the winery. If that means having a "night club" night once a week...so be it (I must say, club type music really blooms with those F20s).

With 15 speakers and 3 subs completed, I have only one more F20 to go before the speaker project is finished. This was more involved than I originally planned, though the cost savings still made it worth it. I will be throwing the last of my sawdust this afternoon. Then the fun part of installation and callibration can begin
:-)



The last four 1pi speakers were finished earlier in the week. That makes 12 that are ready to go.

Oh. :-)

I thought you ment something bad was going to happen like I chose the wrong AVR or amps or something.

Here is an image (sorry about the quality) that shows everything that I have done so far. You are looking at 15 speakers and 3 subs. Still working on the last sub. I hope to be able to move everything to the winery in about 4-6 weeks. We are having three open houses prior to our grand opening so that people can see the final phases of construction. The first one was May 19, the next one is the 4th of July, and the final one is on Labor Day weekend. I hope to have at least the mains and subs installed in the baffle wall by the 4th of July in order to do some preliminary testing (more like playing around since the acoustical treatments will not be installed by then) and demo them a little. We started putting out advertisements stating that we are opening "Fall 2012". Technically that gives me until December 20 to finish haha ;-)



And then there were 12 :-)

@Beerparty: That is R13 insulation, and is supposed to be there. ;-)

Updates will be coming in about a week or so. My weekend energies have been recenrly focused on wiring the electricity for the entire winery.

1 Weeks...3 Weeks (TomAto...TomOto) ;-)

For those of you still with us, I offer my apologies on being slow to post updates. We have been working very hard to get the winery ready for its electrical inspection, and then we can finish spray foaming and have the sheet-rockers do their thing. It feels like we are getting close, but we are going to have to really work hard to open by Labor Day. OFFICIALLY we have advertised we will open "Fall of 2012", so technically I guess I have until December 19 to finish haha.

Since there isn't any electrical that will go behind the baffle wall, I asked them to spray foam the portion of the wall where the baffle wall will be built while they were spraying the rafters. They didn't go wide enough, but I am sure they can get into the extra foot on each side that they missed after the wall is built. This is open cell cell polyurethane spray foam. All of my research says that 6 inches of open cell spray foam is not a sufficient vapor barrier for the rafters, but the installer says that it is. I don't know if the technology changed, or if he is just full of crap, but I guess this is the wrong forum for those questions lol. Most of the spray foam in the rafters is closer to 8 inches thick.

In any case, I hope to be building the baffle wall a week from tomorrow so that I can demo the 4pis and the F20s during our "Construction Open House" on July 4. I still have that last F20 to build. The wood is cut, I just have to put it together...probably on Sunday.

@flying fool: I have read on it fairly extensively and almost everyone says that closed cell is a vapor barrier and that open cell is not. They all say that open cell is a better sound retarder than closed cell (which should seal our building up pretty tight acoustically). I HAVE read that you CAN use open cell in the rafters, but that you must follow it up with a special type of paint to provide the vapor barrier qualities that one needs in a non-ventilated application. If it does not work as the installer says, we can always cut holes in the roof and install ventilation. I just paid $30k for new shingles, so I am not too worried about leakage in general.

Thanks for the spray foam info gentlemen. I aim to get the conversation back on track now. Below are a couple of images of the baffle wall's construction. The wall's foundation, which houses the four F20 subs, is 169" wide and is 63" tall. I built two subs with the access panel on the left and the other two on the right. This allowed me to create a permanent installation while giving me the flexibility to change out the drivers, should they ever fail or need replacement for any reason.

The subs are screwed to a 3/4" platform of OSB in order to raise them to the level of the finished hardwood floor that will be installed at a later date. They are also glued/screwed to the 2x6 supports for the baffle wall (or perhaps it might be more accurate to state that the baffle wall supports are screwed to them). I had originally planned to keep them "floating" under the baffle wall, but it ended up being much easier to do it this way. Time will tell if I made the right choice.

The left and right mains are angled inward at 9 degrees with a focal point that is a distance of 2/3 the length of the room away from the baffle wall. The platform on which they rest is 3/4" OSB, and with their final resting place determined; I screwed them down to this platform from underneath ensuring they will not move. From here, I will proceed building the baffle wall around them. The plan is to frame around the 4pis, leaving them to protrude 3/4" past the finished wall so that they will be flush with the acoustical treatments that will be applied. The final size of the screen will be a maximum of 169" wide x 95" tall (194" measured diagonally).

P.S. Don't worry about the safety of my 4pis with consideration to the fact the interior is still under construction. 1/2" OSB will cover the front of the baffle wall until the space is finished, and will then be replaced by the AT screen. :-)

Here are the latest pictures of the baffle wall. The OSB will be covered with 1" black duct liner.

I just purchased 50' of Linacoustic RC duct liner for the baffle wall from the following website: http://www.fabricmatestore.com/p-154-linacoustic-fiberglass-insulation-1.aspx


I have to say...it is not easy to find.

Oh of course! It's the best sound I have ever heard. Can't even turn the bass beyond 65% of its capability before people start to complain (pansies).

As we wrap up the wiring (electrical, video surveillance, speaker wire, security system, etc) I find myself faced with the question of the best way to connect the AVR to the theater projector (~50') and the HDTV or the rear wall of the bar in the wine tasting room (~80-100').

I saw some dialogue on this in a different part of the forum, but it seemed two years old. I thought to use Cat6, but are some people having issues with this? Long HDMI cables are thick, hard to bend, and need amplifiers at that distance, no?

Time to get educated on AV distribution. :-)

You can read through this thread and find the blueprints to see why the AVR cannot be next to the projector.