craig john's theater

I have recently upgraded my speaker system with a full set of Triad speakers. The fronts are Platinum LCR's with a Platinum CC





The stands were custom built by a good friend and forum member, DMark1. I helped, but my woodworking skills pale to insignificance compared to Dennis'. Dennis has a side business building drum kits. He has honed his wood working skills by making some beautiful drums kits. http://www.markleycustomdrums.com/ He's also a professional drummer and percussionist, so he has a great ear for music and has helped me significantly in fine tuning my system.

The stands are 1.5" thick plinths with columns supporting the speakers. The columns are 1 layer of 3/4", 9-ply plywood with an inner layer of 3/4" MDF. The two layers are adhered with Green Glue and the CC column is additionally lined with No-Rez. All this was done to reduce resonance in the columns. (Doing the knuckle rap test shows that the efforts were successful. The columns are very dead.) They were painted with the original factory paint used on my speakers. We bought the paint directly from Triad and got the application instructions directly from the lead "paint guy" at Triad. Dennis has a spray booth in his drum shop, and he applied the paint there. The final coat is a textured "spatter" coat that required some specific painting skills. Fortunately, Dennis has them. Here are some pics of the stands:





As you can see, the paint is a perfect match. What's even more amazing is how good the texture match turned out. Needless to say, I am extremely happy with how they compliment the speakers!

I've also added Triad surrounds. I used the Silver Monitors because they use the same mid-woofers as the LCR's and a tweeter that is almost exactly the same as the Platinum's but without the dispersion lens. I used 4 Silver Monitors placed as Wides and Sides. The Wides are supposed to be at 60 degrees to the listening position, but as you will see in the pic below, I couldn't quite get them that wide. Due to wall constraints, they ended up at about 50 degrees. They still work quite well there. Here is a pic of the right Wide:



I have 3 Submersive HP's for subwoofer duties. They are placed somewhat randomly around the room and EQ'd with Audyssey XT32. Here is a pic of the right, front Submersive HP:



In the first pic of the theater above, there is another Submersive on the left side of the CC. That sub has since been moved to a point on the left wall beneath the left Wide. The 3rd Submersive is on the right side wall behind the LP at about 3/5 of the long dimension of the room. After gain-matching the 3 subs, EQ'ing them with Audyssey XT32, optimizing their Distance setting, and invoking the 2nd DSP program on the Submersives, I get the following combined frequency response:



and here is an RTA of the full bandwidth of the system:



The rest of my audio equipment consists of:

Oppo BDP93
Integra DHC 80.2 Pre/Pro
Earthquake Cinemova Grande5
Emotiva XPA-5
Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD Player
Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD DVR
Crowson Technology TES 100 Shadow 8 Dual Motion Actuator System
Buttkicker BKA 1000 Amplifier

Here is a pic of the equipment rack:



The video system consists of:

JVC RS-55

Darbee Darblet Video
SeymourAV 120" Diagonal 2.35, motorized, drop down Acoustically Transparent screen
Panamorph UH 480 Anamorphic Lens

JVC 3D Glasses

Here is a pic of the screen deployed:



The room is acoustically treated with 8" thick acoustic cotton and fiberglass bass traps in the front corners, (they're behind the burgundy drapes.) The front wall is treated with 2" of acoustical cotton, as are the first 4' of the side walls. The ceiling is a dropped acoustical ceiling using CaPaul Open Plan 1" thick tiles with a black nubby finish. Above the dropped ceiling, the overhead joist spaces are stuffed with fiberglass insulation, making the entire ceiling a large bass trap/broadband absorber. The floor is concrete with dark brown carpet over the thickest pad. With all the dark surfaces, and all the acoustic absorption in the front of the room, when the lights go out and the movie starts to play, the front of the room is on big black hole for light and sound.

There are other acoustical treatments placed around the room to reduce slap echo. Here is a pic of one of them:



The seating is a 4-chair row of Acoustic Innovations Traditional seats configured as in this pic:

 

The seats are a Burgundy leather. They sit on an 8" riser. This gets my eyes to 1/3 screen height, my ears to tweeter height, and allow the transducer system to shake the entire riser.

I have been an HT enthusiast for about 25 years. I built my first "HT" in 1987, (before the term "Home Theater" was even in use), using a 50" Pioneer RPTV. At the time a 50" TV was unheard of, and my "HT" had a huge "WOW Factor." Soon after, I acquired a LaserDisc player... and the rest is history. I have been through quite few different systems in the ensuing years. However, the above system is far and away the best I've ever had in my HT. I have a few things to do yet, but I am close to the point that my "upgradeitits" is almost cured. (Yeah right, she said!)

In the meantime, I am thoroughly enjoying my system!

Thanks for reading.

Craig

Edited by craig john - 8/14/12 at 7:06pm

Thanks Claude, Frolich and Roger That!

I have reattached the pic's of the equipment rack and the seats. Please let me know if you can see them. Are there any others not showing up?

Craig

PS. Claude, I'm following your thread and will be interested to hear what you think of the JTR's. Frolich and Roger, I have checked your threads as well. Awesome theaters guys!

I re-attached that one too. I'm not sure why they didn't attach to begin with, but they show at the bottom of the post now, and they didn't before.

Thanks!

Craig

About 11 ft. It's *immersive*!

Thanks!

I'll pass that along to DMark1. He deserves the credit for 'em.

Craig

Thanks! I listen to a *lot* of music on my system, both multi-channel music and 2-channel. It's a terrific music system as well as a great HT.

Craig

Thanks htg! Good to hear from you!

The Wides can add a level of immersiveness I've never experienced before. They can make you feel like you're in a 3D hologram of sound with a very cohesive front, side and rear surround effect. They can make you feel like you're in the *middle* of the soundfield, which is something no 2-channel system can do, and it's better than a 5.1, or even a 7.1 with rear surrounds, can do.

Note that I said "can." I said that because they don't always do that. When they do it, it's phenomenal. However, they can also cause the imaging to become "unfocused." It may be that the less focused imaging is more "real", but it's not what I'm used to.

Because of this, I don't use it at all for 2-channel listening. Also, in order to use it for 2-channel, you need to use PLIIx or DTS Neo before you can add DSX. The resultant sound is too "processed" for me. It sounds kind of fake. For MC music, it's definitely beneficial on some content... not so much on others. For movies, it generally excellent. In fact, there have been moments where it's jaw dropping.

Bottom line, I'm keeping them, but I don't use them for everything.

Do you still have those Forte's? I loved those speakers!!! My son still has them so I get to visit them occasionally.

Craig

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the kind words. Coming from you, and knowing what a fantastic theater you have makes this high praise indeed.

Craig

Hi Mike,

Thanks. As soon as I get the new seats, I'm planning to have you and few other forum members over. I'll let you know.

Craig

Thanks Roger. I have been following your posts on the Audyssey thread. Let's take the DSX discussion back there.

King kong jungle scenes. Avatar jungle scenes.

The sides are at 90 degrees and the rears at 140 degrees, just like the Dolby rec's.

Craig

I watched Sherlock Holmes last night with some guests. I gave up the primary LP and sat outside the sweet spot. The first half of the movie, I had the Wides off. I noticed that the side surrounds were out of balance, with the closer right surround being louder and more prominent than the left. When I turned on the DSX Wides, that completely changed and the surround field was more symmetrical, even sitting outside the sweet spot.

Just thought I would mention that.

Craig

Hi Mike.

Yes, I could get a bigger screen and have it extend past the L/R Plat's. However, that gets to be a very big screen. At my 11' seating distance, 120" diagonal is already plenty big. My wife actually thinks the current screen is a little too big, but I think she's gotten used to it. To go bigger and get the speakers behind it, (without moving them), I would need to go to about 146" diagonal. That's a very big screen... too big for an 11" viewing distance.

Also, I wouldn't want the bottom of the screen any lower, so the added 10" of screen height would have to go at the top. That would force the viewer to look up too much and cause some neck/eye strain.

I could also move the L/R speakers in so they are behind the current screen. Actually, when I first got them, that's were I placed them. However, with the Plat's outside the screen edges, the front soundstage is noticeably wider, and I like that better. It seems just right.

I'm pretty content with my screen right now. A new projector is definitely on the horizon though.

Craig

Actually, in a larger theater, with a greater viewing distance, a larger screen makes sense. Here's a calculator that can help determine the optimal screen size for the viewing distance:
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/v...alculator.html
You'll see that I'm actually sitting a little too close to my screen... but I'm OK with that.

Craig