Chasen the Dream Theater - Page 3

Thanks for the kind words. Here's the pics you requested:





We did not use any kind of prefabricated portal. A hole was cut in the fiberglass panel and the panel was thinned out from the back in the area around the hole to create a recessed pocket in which to place the glass (which would also serve to hold the glass at a slight angle). The fabric was wrapped around to hide the edges of the cut out in the panel.







Then, some simple wood trim was made and painted to close up the opening inside the wall.

The actual opening is 10" x 6" and the glass we ordered was a 12" x 8" piece of 6 mm thick "water white" projector port glass from opticalcoatings.com.

Some more Pics and Details for those still following along.

Here's a pic of the basement area directly outside the theater:



The door on the left is the AV closet which contains my equipment rack and also the Lutron Grafik Eye QS controller.
There are vent openings on the bottom of the door since the closet contains a thermostat controlled bathroom exhaust fan to pull out the warm air.
The door all the way to the right is the entrance to the theater.
The Samsung LCD is hooked up to the Zone 4 HDMI output on my Denon AVR-4520CI so it can watch any of the same sources that feed the projector in the theater. You can watch a different source, or have it mirror what's being shown in the theater for overflow seating (or so you don't have to miss anything when you go to the kitchen or the bathroom- which are also in the basement).

Here's a pic with all the doors open:



The Oppo Blu-Ray player is housed in the lower cabinet on the left under the LCD so my kids don't have to open the AV closet just to pop in a disc.
The lower cabinet on the right under the LCD is for movie storage. We only really need to keep the 3D Blu-Rays there since all other movies are just loaded onto my NAS for playback on the Dune Smart media player.

Here's a closer pic of the equipment rack:



To the left of the rack you can see the Grafik Eye, and just behind that is the thermostat control for the exhaust fan.

From top to bottom the rack contains:

• TRENDnet 450 Mbps Wireless N Access Point TEW-690AP (mounted on top of rack)
• Panamax 5300 voltage regulator and AC line conditioner
• TRENDnet 16-Port Gigabit Web Smart Switch (hidden - mounted facing back of rack)
• Motorola DCT-6412 III cable box DVR
• DC-300 Dimension Digital Controller for Runco LS-12D projector
• 3x Stewart Cinemasonic Processors to compensate for AT screen in front of Triad LCRs
• URC MRF-350 base station for MX-850 and MX-980 remotes (hidden behind Stewart processors)
• Dune HD Smart D1 media player - Apple TV Gen 3 - Roku 2 XS
• Denon AVR-4520CI
• Storage Drawer
• Panamax 5300 voltage regulator and AC line conditioner
• 2x Triad RackAmp 600 DSP subwoofer amps
• Emotiva XPA-3 Amp for LCR's

Funny story about the SnapAV Strong 37U rack. Just after we had put the finishing touches on all the equipment and wiring for the rack (thinking, "Yeah! We're all done!) we went to push the rack back into the closet and... one of the casters EXPLODED! OK, maybe it didn't explode, but it did fail pretty catastrophically. Now we had a leaning rack and no way to move it back into the closet. Luckily I had kept a really heavy duty set of casters that came with a garage refrigerator I had purchased several years ago. We jacked up the rack and drilled some new holes in the bottom to line up with the mounting pattern on the new casters. I ran to the hardware store to get the proper nuts and bolts to attach the new casters. We were back up and rolling in under an hour. Times like this make me glad I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to spare parts.

Here's some pics of one of the original casters next to a replacement caster:





I think it's pretty clear who wins.
Edited by jchasen - 10/14/12 at 7:01am

It's debatable whether or not the Stewart processors are needed since Audyssey could theoretically achieve the same affect. But, they were included for no charge with the screen, and who really knows what secret sauce they may contain. I suppose I could do some serious testing to determine if there is any audible difference between Audyssey with the Stewart processors and without, but why bother. Maybe one day if I'm really bored.

The Denon is no lightweight at 36 lbs 6 oz, but it does weigh less than the Emotiva XPA-3 (57.2 lbs) powering the LCR's and the Pioneer Elite SC-35 (40 lbs 13 oz) that powers my family room setup .

The LCD is a 52" Samsung LNT-5271. That TV was put in in early 2008 when we finished the rest of our basement (with the exception of the home theater area which was set aside until now).

Here are some pics of the rest of the basement:

Officially Done!!!

A small package came in the mail from Lutron the other day, and inside was the final piece to complete our theater.

The package contained the custom engraved buttons for the SeeTouch QS Wallstation:



I know a home theater is never truly completed, but for now, this was the finishing touch.

I've also slightly updated the "completed theater" pics in post #40 if anyone wants to get a look at the whole room.

Photo Flood:

Stuck at home due to impending Hurricane Sandy, I decided to try to improve on my home theater photography skills.

Here are my latest efforts (mixed in with some oldie but goodies to collect all the greatest hits in one post):

























I'm still experimenting and learning with my photography so any critique, tips, or requests are welcomed.

The columns were put in place and the crown molding was mounted to some wood blocking so the panels could slide up and under the crown molding (the top 1/4" of the panel is behind the crown). The chair rail was put on after the panels to cover the bottom edge and to further hold the panels (which were already well attached to the wall). Check out post #27 for some pics that might help you visualize. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the kind words, although much of the credit needs to go to the guys at AcousticSmart and the AV wizards at Design Installations.

Sorry about the delay in responding, I just noticed that I somehow missed your post.

So far, I'm pretty happy with the S4S subs. They don't provide the earth-rumbling, body-shaking bass that I know a lot of people like, but they do sound very good to my ear and integrate well with the rest of my system. I don't know how much better you could get from a sub that fits in a standard 6" wall. I certainly think they would do great as a supplement your S1S-EXs.

Almost all my photos were taken with a Tokina TO111628PDXN (11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X 116 Pro DX) lens on my Nikon D300. I've been very happy with this lens so far.

None of my shots used HDR or other "trick" photography. I found I got the best results by setting exposure time to 3 seconds, aperture between f/5.6 and f/8 and then playing with my multiple zones of lighting to get the best result. Since my sconces are divided into 3 separate zones, I would set any light source not in the photo to maximum brightness to better light the room, but would adjust down the brightness of any light source visible in the picture so as not to cause blow outs. Initially I wasted a bunch of time trying to get good pics by tweaking camera settings. Then I realized that it was more important to have the room lighting properly balanced to prevent the bright areas from being overexposed and the dark areas from being to dark. After that, I definitely spent more time playing with the room lighting than I did playing with the camera settings. My first impulse was to put all the lights at their maximum brightness to get as much light as possible into the room, but this resulted in the areas around the lights being blown out and there were still a lot of areas around the seats and in the shadows that were underexposed. Dimming the lights significantly and increasing the exposure time evened everything out and got me a much better end result without having to resort to HDR.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks!

• a few weeks of sporadic interviews to find the right company to work with
• about 5 weeks to draft and finalize plans
• about 2 weeks to make color, finish and trim selections
• 3 months from start of construction to finished product