Gorilla83's Humble Basement Hangout

Updated 5/11/13:

Now that I've finally gotten most of this room roughed out, I figured it was time to post some pictures and some basic info. As my wife can attest, this room is a constatnly evolving projecting - the setup is subject to change at any given day, haha. This is the 3rd listening/media room in my house and the most recent. There are 5 total rooms in my house with audio/video setups in the house ranging from the garage to this room, but this is my favorite so far. I'll post up some info on the other rooms sometime soon.

The room before - light yellow paint, shelving in the corners, Mitsu 65" DLP, basic Polk Monitor 70 setup, HK receiver, etc.



Setup as of today:

A few months ago the wife and I decided we wanted to change to a projector. At first, this was going to be a simple ceiling mounted install that would be a directly replacement for the DLP you see above. The project evolved into removing the shelves, restructuring the corner frame/drywall, paint (entire basement!), new dedicated 20A lines for the equipment, remote triggered relays, moving furniture, new decorations, etc. I'm sure MANY of you can relate!

Notes: While I'd like to do something with the ceiling, converting to black is likely not practical since this is a multi purpose room.

Viewing area: (open) 13x22
Bar area: 19x22
Hallway: 5x20
2 other rooms are in the basement comprised of a a gym/play area and a workroom

Electronics:
Receiver - Denon 4311ci
Media - Sony PS3, Xbox 360, Verizon FIOS HD DVR
Power - Panamax 4400 20A Conditioner/Surge protection X 2
Projector - Epson 8700UB
Screen (updated 5/1/2013) - DIY AT screen using Seymour XD fabric, 130" in 16:9
Sub Amp - Sanyway FP14000, LG clone. Backup amp: Crown XLS5000, driven by remote triggered relay in utility room.
Mains amp: Crown XLS2000
EQ - MiniDSP, balanced. Currently used for a small +3db LT

Speakers:
Mains - Now DIYSoundGroup B&C Sentinels
Center - Now DIYSoundGroup B&C Sentinels)
Side Surrounds - DIY SEOS based Gorilla design using 10" Selenium woofs and Denovo DNA350 CD
Rear surrounds - Currently Klipsch RS-35's
Subwoofers - 4 x Dual opposed Dayton 18" HO's, sealed cabinet each 7 cubic feet

Room Treatments - DIY
All treatments 4" thick 3# rigid fiberboard with 1x4 frame and covered with black speaker cloth. Most are 2x4' in size.
4 X front corner bass traps (nearly floor to ceiling)
3 X rear corner bass traps (floor to ceiling)
4 X side wall traps
Ceiling - 1 foot thick R38 above tiles over entire ceiling
Coming up - front wall treatments behind new AT screen

Other:
Plateau Equipment rack
Omnimount Projector Mount
Wood Technologies Center Channel Stand
Dayton Omnimic V2
Euroboom Mic Stand - for room sweeps
Logitech Harmony 880 Remote
Monoprice IR Extender
Monoprice 12gauge oxygen free speaker cable (all)
Monoprice Coaxial cables
Monoprice Wall plates, assorted

Gym area
Hafler DH-200 Power amp and matching pre-amp
Bose 301 speakers
Energy 10" Subwoofer

Pictures

Corner 'shelves' removed and bases cut down and reframed:


Wall sealed and primered


Room after paint - Sherwin williams Flat black and Harbor Grey Sides


Corner area made into custom speaker stands, flat black


Screen assembly





Projector hung, near flush mount


Custom wallplate behind rack


Screen hung on the wall



Main view of the room




Bar area leading into theater



Screen



Equipment rack


Back hallway



Gym area

Edited by Gorilla83 - 5/12/13 at 4:11pm

Thanks man! Yes, the room is indeed 44 feet long so it's quite a space to fill. As you can imagine, bass is sucked up pretty easily. Right now I'm sitting about 18 feet back, but may be moving the primary seating up a few feet.

The gym is actually 2 separate rooms - the other room has mostly accessory and cardio equipment. As a powerlifer, unfortunately I'm forced to keep up with squatting, ugh. It's fun most of the time but it sure takes its toll with age.

Thanks! I expect the GTG to be a blast and I'm happy to have the room ready in advance. There is still some tweaking to be done, but overall I'm happy with the progress.

Thank you Bunga!


Thank you! I'm thinking about doing some experimenting with a black sheet/cloth for now to see the impact on the picture. I may head over to the fabric store sometime in the next few weeks. My only fear is that if I change only the first few rows it won't look right with the rest of the room. Changing the panels sure is easy enough though, so no issue there.

Yep, I'll be 30 in January and *hopefully* have some good years ahead to set some personal bests.

As for the seating - If/when I build risers and stagger the sofa/loveseat, the first row will be 14-16' away and the second row around 20-21. Good news is acoustically there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between 18 (Current LP) and 16'.

Thank you! Actually, I'm watching game day live right now and you're more than welcome to come by for this game or any others.

Thanks Jim, the bar is a favorite of mine as well. I'm thinking we'll put it to good use at the GTG.

Thank you sir. The stands were pretty well reinforced to hold the weight of the caps easily. I can stand on them now with the subs too with no stress at all.

As for the deftechs - running them as small and crossed at 80hz allowed them to best integrate with the rest of the system.

Thanks Ryan. I've been really enjoying the room (every night!) so far. I'm completely excited for the GTG as well, looking forward to hosting you guys.

Update to the setup - The miniDSP is now installed. For now I've simply applied a 19hz HPF to keep the Caps from making ugly noises below tune. This weekend I'm going to run some Omnimic sweeps again to see if any other tweaking is needed. I'd also like to experiment with the subs in 15hz tune again.

Updates! I've begun building the frames for my bass traps/panels. The first areas to be treated with the front corners and first reflection points. I'm supposed to receive my OC703 board sometime this week, so I should have at least a few of them up and running this weekend!

Frames built and burlap backing applied:



Mount installed and test fit in the corner:


The front 3 speakers have also been swapped for SHO-10s.

Thanks Mike. Yes, I'm building my own and I've got plenty of material to built a bunch of them! I think I have enough for 7-8 traps/panels to start with. I looked at buying from GIK or ATS, but the frames are so easy to build. This way I can also custom size them if I need to as well - which I will have to in some areas. First areas to be treated will be the front corners, rear corner by the LP, first reflection points, and probably some insulation above the ceiling/wall perimeter. I should have 2-4 of them done by the GTG so you can check them out. I don't mind re-EQ'ing as i'm constantly tweaking and experimenting with different setups anyway.

Project list, upcoming:
1) Finish front L&R bass traps
2) Reinstall white trip under corner stands
2) Build Speaker stands for the SHO-10s
3) Experiment with the JTR caps positioned mid wall
4) Continue with room treatment building for first reflection points and rear corners

Did you do them all at the same time? I imagine that would be a drastic change! My walls right now are completely uncovered and there is a substantial amount of reverb/echo on the room. I'm hoping it will be a substantial upgrade!

I'm going to knock out the front corners and probably the bottom wall/floor area behind the center channel hopefully by this weekend. I'm also thinking (per Ethan's recommendation) of stuffing some R-38 above the tiles in my ceiling around the wall/ceiling perimeter. Supposed to be very effective and it's relatively inexpensive too.

OK - Got a bit done last night! My fiberboard got delivered and went to work. 2 traps done, 2-4 more coming up this weekend. Figured I would share, here is the progress:

Details:
1x4 pine board for frame, 1.5" drywall screws
Black burlap backing for rear of trap. This was 2.99/yard locally at JoAnn fabrics and was something like 32" wide.
Johns Mansville 814 2" Board x 2 per trap. Pretty much identical to OC703. I actually ordered OC703 but they wound up giving me this stuff. After some research I found it actually has slightly better absorbtion coefficients across the board vs. OC703. It comes in a 9 pack of 2x4x2" panels instead of the normal 12/pack in the OC703.
Black speaker grill fabric from JoAnn fabric - I liked the look/feel of this a LOT better than the burlap. It was 8.99/yard locally at JoAnn fabircs. It was much wider than the burlap at 60" wide so I got a lot more out of it per yard. It took less than 1 yard per trap to cover the front/sides. It also masks the yellow insulation much better too.

1 trap stuffed with 4" of board:


Back side of stuffed trap - burlap backing:


First (prototype) completed trap:



Special thanks to my wife who helped me get them wrapped. I did warn her that this is only the beginning, LOL.
Tada - two completed traps!

Edited by Gorilla83 - 10/10/12 at 5:28am

Jim - I know I have been slacking. I will try to step it up in the next week. Yes, my wife does think I'm crazy but lucky for me she seems to have accepted that fact. She does like wine but you really don't have to go through the trouble. I will have to figure out how to thank her for giving me the house all day/night though, heh.

Thanks for the kind word. I'm hoping to have a few more updates this weekend sometime. The shipment of panels I received was 9 pieces instead of the 12 I originally ordered, so I'm looking to get another 9 this week or next to complete my panels for now. We're all excited for the GTG and hopefully we'll have some valuable feedback for the community.

Ok, UPDATE. Put in a ton of work this weekend around the house and of course including the basement. I really need to take some better pictures other than my camera phone, ugh. Sorry for the crappy pics below.

Key basement accomplishments:

1) Built speaker stands for SHO-10s:
Picture before they were stained black -


2) Reinstalled top trim for L/R speaker stands and painted them black.

3) Cleaned up terminals/wiring under each speaker stand. Moved Caps down from the stands for now. Did some quick sweeps with the Caps in front of the stands and the FR is tremendously improved. They will be staying there from now on.

4) Started playing with/breaking in the PSA XS15 in time for next weekend's GTG.

5) Constructed a total of (8) frames for bass traps. I completed all 4 front corner traps with insulation and wrap. I did run out of the speaker cloth material so I couldn't fully complete the others, but I'm getting more on Wednesday.

Frames for rear corner:


Front of the room - please don't mind the wiring exposed for now - it will not be staying there. I think the traps blend in rather well though.