Transform my living room! - Page 3

The idea was you watch the movie and the commentary tracks simultaneously play from around the couch area, like you had friends sitting there making jokes. The commentary track is mono, actually. They publish an OS X app that will simultaneously play a DVD and the commentary track properly synced, so that is actually the easiest way to get it to work. As for mixing into the surround differently...you're right, probably not worth the effort.

I did update the firmware in the receiver with a temporary cable. I don't think the projector is networked.

Everything else is on WiFi.

The access point is only 20 feet away from the audio cabinet, so I think it'll be ok. Easy enough to run a concealed-ish network cable along the wall if it comes to that.

Working on mounting the surrounds and running the flat wire today...is there an appropriate way to join the flat wire to stranded? I was planning to solder the stranded to the flat and cover it with a small piece of molding. Termination blocks all looked kind of sketchy to me.

Or should I try to keep the runs completely intact even though it looks weird to have the tape going directly to the receiver, etc.? The tape is about 2" wide, two solid pieces of 3/4" copper.

Baby screen working well. Will gather up some pics. Although apparently the menu from the Onkyo only appears on the "main" HDMI output? I don't want to add an HDMI splitter in the mix but this is annoying.
Edited by Pyxle - 6/24/12 at 5:00pm

So...the flat wiring was a bad idea. There's no good way to make the ends look tidy without severe splicing, and the wire is so sticky that you can't reposition it at all without tearing the paint off the wall. Furthermore the sheer length of the runs makes me think that it would be pretty noticeable even when painted.

Will have to call the electricians to get the wall scoops put in this week.

Not an adventure I really had time for...
Edited by Pyxle - 6/24/12 at 7:47pm

It's worked out well for Monoprice. Every time I think it's REALLY the last order, just wait two days, oops need another $50 in parts.

Aperion Grand Verus towers arrived today. Hooked things up for stereo only as the rest is unconnected. I am very enthusiastic.

Electricians did the in-wall yesterday and the plasterer/painter is here today. Also the rug and coffee table arrived and I put them in place. Very excited.

I took the opportunity with the in-wall to upgrade to wired and switched networking. Nice to shave those 4ms of latency off of online gaming.

1080/24p blu-ray looks really, really good.

Only thing I'm waiting on is a better hard drive enclosure (Rosewill R2-JBOD I got was unreliable and going back Newegg), and have to measure and install blackout blinds.

I feel like the rear surrounds (Verus Grand Bookshelves) are overkill. Would it have been better to go with the Verus Forte Satellites? They have the same drivers as the bipole/dipole Verus Surround sides.

First, the failed experiment:



What exactly will happen at the end? Need some kind of junction box, right? Might as well do in-wall then since there is crawlspace access.



Surround mounted. The wiring is directly behind the speaker and invisible:



Rear surround:



Tower and cabinet:



Center channel:



Full setup:



Ready for painting:



Cat-based calibration system:



The true final cost for this project is turning out to be $11,000-$12,000, furniture excluded. I'll do an inventory at the end and calculate exactly.

Ok. I guess my concern is that the side surrounds don't have the greatest bass response, and I don't want the rears to go to waste. But I assume Dolby will matrix-decode a center rear channel that would have a lot of bass in most cases.

For the crossovers, it looks like the Verus Surrounds should be at 100 and the Verus Grand Bookshelves should be at 60 or 80?

Thanks, ok. I also would have preferred a Verus Grand Surround if there was such a thing. But so far I am liking the dipole mode.

Thanks for the list of formats. I've noticed that the content negotiation can be spotty along the HDMI chain and you often have to manually set a component into the optimal mode for your source data.

For example: setting the blu-ray player to 24fps "auto" and the receiver to either auto or 1080p/24 is not sufficient to get 24fps output. I have to force them both into 24fps. The projector is the only thing that adapts automatically.

That is per input AFAICT, but then the Onkyo upscaler won't be on if I put in a DVD. I get the sense that for the Onkyo "auto" doesn't mean "adaptive". It just means "default".

Done!*







*Not actually done.

The walls are actually already repainted although it's hard to tell on a cloudy day. They are a very pretty mocha color now. I think it will be a big improvement. Reluctant to go darker or change the box molding colors. I need to solve the light leakage from the windows first and then we will see.

Does the sub placement look ok (in the corner behind the front right)? There's not really an alternative that I could envision.

I haven't run full audyssey yet. Sometime this week.

Yeah, at first we were thinking eventually in the next house we would build a dedicated home theater but now we're not sure. Really like that it's part of the living room, in the middle of the house, and has a cozy feel. It's not like I actually like the movie theater vibe.

I like the gloss cherry finish. It is very warm, orangish almost. It looks more like a violin and less like a piece of furniture. Seems appropriate.

A temp sensor on the fans sounds good. I haven't installed any cooling yet. I haven't noticed the Onkyo overheating--apparently some of the 809 line actually runs pretty cool. Since the entire back of the cabinet is open I decided to wait until I have a problem to worry about it.

It would be nice acoustically seal off the room when desired...more for the rest of the house than for the audio quality. If it was still in the living room maybe I could try to make it sealable with pocket doors on the openings. I don't actually need a lot of seating as we rarely have a lot of guests. It just seems kind of sad to me to sit by yourself it a big black room in the basement and play Battlefield 3.

I'll keep the professional design in mind. This one was in my comfort zone but still took too much time. Next time around would be undoubtably worse.

Hmm, good thought. Any solutions that can seal off a large entryway and not look awful or be annoying? For future reference.

On Friday it sounded impressively good with just the Audyssey Quick Setup.

At long last I return!

I got all the blinds, and hung them this weekend. Furniture arrived about 3 weeks ago.

Additional expenses, although not really included in the budget:

• Blinds and solar shades, living room and dining room $1500
• Furniture $3500-ish

I could've saved at least $1000 on the blinds if I just put cloth blackout shades underneath, but we wanted to change them up in order to get solar shades on the window interior. The dark brown wood blinds with blackout liner are incredibly heavy but really help the room. It is quite dark and the dark red wood blocks reflections. The solar shades also look great during the day (14% openness).

I ran the full Audyssey calibration with the heavy upholstery in place and the sound is much improved. Pretty great, in fact. I'm very glad I got diffuse side surrounds. It makes a big difference. I leave them in diffuse mode even for music. Still too bad they don't have larger drivers; I feel that the rears are underutilized especially when you are playing something that has a 6.1 or 7.1 native track so there's no steering of side sounds to the rears.

I haven't bothered to calibrate the video. It seemed like a fool's errand given that it changes by the source and the time of day and lighting conditions. Although I usually only use 2 different modes on the projector so maybe it would help after all.

There a couple things I haven't used yet:

• Blu-Ray drive on the Mac mini. I don't actually have access to a ready source of DVDs for use with Rifftrax. Does Netflix still do this? Or maybe I can find a Redbox near me and just take a list of Rifftrax with me.
• Universal remote. Just haven't bothered to program it yet. The annoyance of the 3 or 4 separate remotes isn't quite high enough.

And in hindsight maybe I should've got a different screen. The 1.3 gain is completely necessary, but the Vuplex Pro material is grainy. Potentially a more expensive screen like Da-lite would have less grain. The 110" size at 11'-12' view distance is perfect for 16x9, a tad small for 2.39:1", but definitely not worth the trouble of an anamorphic lens.

So, aside from the valance returns, which Blinds.com forgot to send, I am done! And very happy to be done, too. Quite a bit deeper in the hole and a lot later than predicted but happy with the outcome. Everything sounds and looks great, and is reasonably stylish.


West window with solar shade down. Incidentally the solar shade does a good job of cutting the reflection from the window at night; no need for the blackout blind to be drawn:




Cat:



I need a piece of art for over the fireplace:



Equipment cabinet. It does not overheat due to the open back:



Looking back at the projector and couch:



East window:



Screen down:



Wooden blackout blind down:



It is quite dark even with shades up in the rest of the house:



PS3 dashboard in blacked-out room:





Now, I wonder what upgrades are available........

...just kidding!
Edited by Pyxle - 8/20/12 at 8:06pm