My New Home Theater 2.0, Staggered Wall HT. - Page 10

The window french door is mainly WAF. And it's not an exterior door neither, just a regular interior door. So no good sound proofing there. However, when we built the panels for the doors, we mounted the panel as close to the floor carpet as possible to seal the gap in between the door & the floor. If it's only my choose, I'll just do a single solid core door instead.

The rear wall diffusors are from Auralex Q'fusor which I'm sure someone with the skill could DIY it with even better result. And yes, sounds is optimized for the 1st row. 2nd row is for occasion sucker.....cough cough..... guests.

Oh, I like your 11.2 sound thread and good info there. I'm one of those guys who doesn't like DSX processing too! I mainly use DD PLIIz as I only have a height channels. And depends on the contents, some movie you didn't notice it's there at all, but some does give a good "above you" effect like the famous First attrack/Cannon battle scene when people walking on the upper deck from Master & Commands in most demo disc.

I tried a A/B comparison on DSX vs PLIIz on DirecTV materials, didn't like the DSX at all IMO. And I only tried Neo:X on Dredd, pretty good. I'm gonna give Expendables 2 a try later on.

And yes, she's turning 15 months is a couple of days. Time really flies when you are looking at the little one. #2 & #3? Not any time soon. LOL

Just had my first public opening of the HT. I think it was a success.

Thanks guys. I think everyone really enjoyed even my friends that have a HT of his own was very impressed with the room. (credit to Big again!) Oh, I still have a lots of kettle corn leftover brought from the guests.

Oh I forgot to mention I've finished programming the Insteon with the Harmony yesterday just in time before the guests come too. Super easy to set up different scene and to program it to the Harmony remote. I think I'll be getting one of their keypad switch for the wall too later on.

Total sound proofing would be the icing on the cake but I'm fine without it too. My family isn't sensitive to noise at all, even my 15 months old daughter could sleep through a heavy action movie in her room (2 stories up). I could definitely tell when someone is watching a movie in the HT. And I could sometimes hear it right above the HT room. In the 2nd floor where all the bedrooms are, we can't hear anything beside the strongest bass. And even then, it just sounds like it's having a big thunder storm outside. Nothing intrusive in my family's opinion. Plus I don't normally crank up the volume at all, we normally watch movie at -15~-17db and I've never touch above -10db. Therefore, sound proofing isn't my first priority in our case.

So far, I only have 3 zones (will have another one when I'm doing the ceiling).
1 for the lights above the screen
1 for the lights at the backwall & the aisle
1 for the ambient ropelights

Using 2x Insteon Dimmer switches for the ceiling lights, and 1x of their Outlet Dimmer for plug in the ropelights. Easily control with Harmony (they have it in their database already) using the IRLinc Receiver.

FYI, my LED poster frames are also controlled by Insteon using their OutletLinc & the motion sensor to automatically turn on & off those posters when I walk into the area.

It's very easy to setup not just for remote controlling each individual lights, but also to setup "scene". And when I'm ready to add more lights (e.g. ceiling), I could just get more of their switch/outlet. If you'll need help for setting up, just feel free to contact me. I've been using Insteon through out my house. E.g. our walkin closet also has their switch & motion sensor so whenever we walk into the closet, the light will turn on itself, and will turn off after a pre-set time. The kitchen pantry door use their door sensor & switch so it'll turn on the pantry light when my wife open the door & turn off when she close it.

BTW, sign up their newsletter as they will email you coupon code (10-20% off) from time to time. I think I paid a little over $200 for the whole theater's lighting control (2 dimmer, 1 outlet, 1 IRLinc converter) with a 20% off coupon.

Thanks! Steal away as you will. I was a little nerves about the outcome too as I've never see anyone (beside one photo I found on the internet) do this before. However, I was something "different". I don't want a wall with 2-3 column sticking out just like almost every HT out there. At the end, both me & Big are very pleased with the result.

Yeah, you did mention it quite a few time during the build. And I too want to see what others could/would do with this idea too.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, those above & below the panels ropelights got a lot of compliment from my visitors too!

Thanks buddy! Yup, contact me whenever you'll need some photo tips.

Yes, we did end up with 1", 1.5", and 2" thick for the panels. And yup, that's the famous BIG working.

Thanks for the kind words RT.

The rear diffusor panels are from Auralex Q'Fusor http://www.auralex.com/sound_diffusor_qfusor/sound_diffusor_qfusor.asp

p.s. hope you'll fix your sub in no time bud. btw, it's a FV15HP, correct?

Since I've crossed the 100hrs mark on the projector, I finally had Tom Huffman (from ChromaPure) to come over to do the calibration for me.

Before Tom's professional calibration, I did some quick and dirty calibration myself using Disney's WOW disc. And thought the factory setting & my calibration was pretty good. And later was confirmed by Tom that the gray scale tracking was pretty good to start with using factory's User1 setting.

However, one thing I wasn't too please from my JVC was the black level and contrast which they are famous for and part of the reason I bought into JVC versus other manufacturers like Sony. When me & Big were working on the HT, he mentioned how beautiful it is the latest Bond film, Skyfall, looks. Especially the night scene in Shanghai & Macau. When I watch those scenes, I wasn't 100% impressed. I even tried to close down the aperture, still wasn't 100% happy. I expected more.....

Now after Tom's calibration, I must say "Now this IS what I'm talking about!". The color is much much better which I thought it was pretty good from the factory, but Tom really like crank it up a couple of notches. Color are much more "pop" now, with very natural skin tone. And the contrast, black level, both are much much better even we now had the aperture open up all the way to -3 instead of my previous -11 (attempt to increase contrast & darker black). Now I ended up with a much brighter picture (approx. 13ftL) and super black with accurate color to boost!

I must say I would HIGHLY recommend anyone invest the money for a professional calibration especially after you've spent so much money on the HT, you really own yourself the best possible picture on your shiny projector! With a before & after comparison, even my wife said "It's money well spent honey!" (and we all know how rare does it come along)

Here's some number for comparison:
Before After
Gamma 2.01 2.25
Color DeltaE 6.7 2.2
Gray Scale DeltaE 2.8 1.7

Tom at work.





P.S. HOWEVER, I must note that Tom was having trouble to get the Green color to reference level tho! Regardless whatever the projector allows him to do, Tom just couldn't get the Green to be spot on, and also it slightly affect the Cyan too. He said it's not the first time he's having problem with the Green as many display manufacturers try to boost the Green to get as much brightness for their projectors.