Kinetic River Cinema

AT screen at the poles makes sense to me - if you're planning on two rows of seats, second row on a riser, I would think you'll need to narrow down what seats you're planning, so you can plan the depth of the riser, and that will dictate where it makes sense to put the entry door.

Does the alcove have windows? If so, how high from the floor (i.e. would they interfere with the riser)?

You could use the area between the support posts and wall, as an aisle and go with a rear entry at riser level. Have to deal with how to access room 1, but a couple of steps could go in the storage area. (The storage room door could be a hidden door, to get one "less" door in the space.)

Steps in the hallway could allow another seat in the front row....

So what way do those steps go up or down? And exactly what is the function of the room beside the stairs?

The ceiling in the hallway could be at the height of the soffit and hide the ductwork completely.

It could work if you do a very shallow front AT space and whether you can live without recliners, and on the stairs themselves. It'd be a tight design but could be managed.
I prefer offset seating when it allows for a lower riser. Otherwise, I prefer not wasting money on a chair that will go unused.


Won't the support poles in the front stage area have a serious impact on audio? The poles will box the mains and (I'm guessing) they will have an impact
on sound pans and imaging. And won't the support posts will be a conduit for bass to get to the home's framing (and spread)? You also have the seats on the rear wall
and viewers will be right on top of the rear surrounds. Those surrounds will be very distracting to anyone seated nearby.

BTW, where are you planting the av rack? That alcove might work...

I like the layout. A few comments:

-You need to make your riser much deeper if you plan on reclining theater seats. 5' deep is not enough. Shoot for at least 6'-6", but more is better as it will pull your seats further away from the rear surrounds.

-HVAC supplies are more common in the front of the room, or on the sides if you can keep air flow from blowing directly on the seats. Seems like you would get better circulation if the supplies were on the opposite side of the room from the return, but I'm not an HVAC expert.

-Be careful when planning the locations of your can lights, supplies and columns. You most likely want a symmetrical look when done, with either your can lights centered between the columns (washing the walls), or centered on each column. Or, you can have them centered on AND between the columns if you need a little more light. However, you don't want your light spacing to seem random relative to the columns or it's going to look funny. Once you figure out the spacing of your lights & columns, locate your supplies in a location that doesn't conflict.

-If you are going with a curved stage, you might consider a curved soffit to hold your lights above the screen. Here is an example from my build.


I don't know if the dimensions would work, but have you looked at flipping the room and hiding your support posts in decorative columns of a rear row bar? I think you would only have room for one row of seats in front of the bar, but it might be an option.

I like this plan but you need to be sure the hallway at the bottom of the stairs is reasonably wide, not only for code but for getting things up and down the stairs. It looks like you can sacrificece some width to make it reasonable. The door to the theater should be ahead of the first row and that decorator column may need to be moved. I didn't see mention of your choice of seating but as mentioned reclining HT seats require a riser at least 6 1/2 ft deep even then having your head at the back wall is not the best for surround sound.

Draw that plan more to scale for another review.

Glad to have found this thread - was following you on the other one, subscribed.

replace the metal duct up in the ceiling with flex. Attach the flex to a metal collar and bring through a hole in the drywall. Then attach your soffit flex duct to the end sticking through. Caulk around the perimeter of the metal collar. Build your soffit inside the drywalled room. Not sure I see a benefit of the MLV if the soffit is drywalled.

What I've done in the past is to attach the metal collar to the ceiling duct work and leave hanging up in the joist space. After the double layer is up on the ceiling cut a round hole and reach up and persuade the collar to join the party in the theater. I've also just cut a snug round hole and pulled the flex duct though the hole. Not totally sure which provides the best sound barrier

Don't forget you need a return or all this effort is wasted.

Triad will custom match the grills of their on-wall surrounds to any fabric color so you can hide them in plain sight.

You can use in-walls and hide them behind a fabric wall, obviously there are limits of which fabrics you can use.

You can use in-walls and paint the grills the same color as the walls.

You can use In-ceiling speakers

I have one of my two Dead Vents behind the screen wall. It's the return DV. I pull air through the screen wall. Since I have a furnace filter on the supply DV, I don't have much dust collecting on the screen wall fabric.

That would be plenty. A lot depends on the size of the ducts and the pressure pulling / pushing. The flex duct increases resistance, so I have a fan in each DV. I run them each at 1/2 speed.