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The Larch Theater (a not-a-19.6-system)

62K views 750 replies 32 participants last post by  Nightlord 
#1 ·
Was thinking long and hard on what to call the thread... just my own project name would not be that fun...


So I was thinking on the lines of "the Crazy Swede Theater" as that's most likely how you'll regard it, as I'm doing things quite a bit differently and with other goals.


"Odd one out Theater" was another one.


But I pick "The Larch" and I do hope someone will figure out why.



Actually, I wasn't thinking of doing a thread at all, I have been keeping this a secret on my forums "back home" to avoid getting stressed into proceeding too quickly... it's so easy to shop faster than cashflow allows. But since it's sort of leaked out a little through my posts here, so what the heck...


It's 8½ months into the build now, so pressure is somewhat lowered, will soon need to just sit on my hands while saving up for the big cost called 'carpet'.


Anyway, I think I should start will saying a few things about myself and from which direction I'm entering the dedicated theater world.
 
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#2 ·
Who's the Nightlord then?


Well, he's a Swede at the same age as the CPU, a software engineer, golfer, malt whisky aficionado and an audiophile. Also enjoy finding new things to the garden ( more so than maintaining the weeding
), doing my share of Xbox:ing (currently having fun with Rocksmith) and growing chili plants.


Name was given to me on an old chat forum called Firefly, as the majority of the people there, just like here were American and felt I was up in the middle of the night.


My first contact with hifi was when I was 3-4 something and my Dad built himself a pair of Michelson (Voigt-) horns and I helped paint them - just about as tall as they were at the time. They shrunk a lot since.



Always played a lot of music, but I really didn't start having something on my own until the CD came out and after playing round with the speakers that came with the 'rack' and some old radio speakers, Dad suggested we built the same kind of speakers for me... then when the CD-player broke, I got a NAD.... and the improvement lead to getting a NAD amp too (3100PE) and then new elements for the speakers... y'know how the audiophile merry-go-round works... not so fast while still at Uni and then taking off once you have a real income.


A used pair of Magnepan MG1.4 was my first real speakers which I later combined with an NHT sub... I went through the Sunfire amp, though a Holfi amp... small home theater with NHT SuperZeros all around... finding an extra pair used when receivers went 7.1... Maggies started having a noise from wire glue starting to let go, so I spent some years listening to everything to find a replacement. Didn't have the money for the Von Schweikert VR-4 and once I did - Von Schweikert was no more (later revived in a new company, think the first one was Von Schweikert Research and today it's Von Schweikert Audio ?)... what I finally landed on was a pair of Canton Digital 1.1


Ended up on a chat forum and as confronted with people telling other truths than the hifi magazines and the dealers... One of the first things that made sense to me was how to calculate how much power you need to play music at a certain level with dynamic capability enough not to clip the peaks... and from that it seemed that the 100W I was running the Cantons on should not be enough. So I borrowed a more powerful amp (NAD S200) and yes, I could play louder without the ringing in my ears that I always assumed was ears distorting due to too high volumes!


Now it's easily to say "why didn't you calculate it yourself, you're an engineer!"... but the simple answer is that I never saw a reason to. Now that I did, I did do the math and realized that 200W was hardly enough either so I started reading what people were saying who DID go for extremely powerful amps, and the buzzword (and controversy) at that time was the NAD 208, both extremely powerful particularly bridged and had managed to be close to undetectable in some before/after listening tests that the "sound technical society" performs on amps over here. I'm not going to go into that method, it's proven extremely controversial on it's own and generated thousands upon thousands of forum posts in Sweden. Anyway, I got myself a pair of 208s and... wow.... based on the advice from the society I then also changed preamp and cd/dvd-player according to what they had found to be low-to-no coloration equipment and both did wonders for my setup. Yes, it's a big leap of faith, but I could have spent years and years on buying/borrowing things before finding them myself.

I was close on amps - I'd already taken a fancy to the GamuT D200, which (or rather the model before brandnamed Sirius) also had fared quite ok in their tests... so I was 'ready' for this kind of system - as straight-wire-with-gain as possible.


That's fastforwarded us up to November 2004... one revelation done... one to go....
 
#3 · (Edited)
At this time, there was a lot of talking about some small bookshelf speaker on the forum which I knew absolutely nothing about. It was from a cellar-firm up in Stockholm made by a man I had had quite a lot of clashes with on the forums before... but seeing a lot of people liking them (understatement) that had been the same people that helped guide me into getting wonderful electronics, I decided to have a go. I did not go to Stockholm to hear them in the designer's basement as was stated you needed to do (go once to listen, no order before having slept on it and then come to pickup as he did not ship), but I got myself a go-between through a guy who'd been to my place (I had a visit for a forum article in the spring the same year, I think) and was going there anyhow... and there was construction-kits on the shelf. So I only had to go to pick them up at his place. This is how the kit looked like once at my place:


My thinking was that:
1) Wanted to know what the hype was
2) Needed something to do with my time - living alone in a house can get lonely...
3) If nothing else - I'd have better speakers for the computer than I had

Painted them in something close to British Racing Green and put them together and then hooked them up instead of the Cantons:


And my jaw just dropped... this tiny little thing played music better than the 12 times more expensive, huge and digitally roomcorrected big brutes. And it had bass too. Deep and clean and amazing amounts from such a small box. And before dismissing me - today this speaker has gotten packaged into a different shape, has updated woofer and a new tweeter and is sold as Guru QM10... you can check what the reviewers on some papers have said about it. I'll just pick one... and I don't often agree with Art, but this time I doQuote:Originally Posted by Art Dudley of Stereophile 
“The system built around the Guru QM10 loudspeakers sounded amazing… No wonder: In addition to it’s uncanny bass extension, the diminutive Gurus had great timing, a real sense of flow and momentum and reproduced the spatial element of music with a sense of image height that one seldom hears from any loudspeaker at any price”


If you wonder about the chair mattress - this speaker is designed to be up against the wall, wall to be dampened and the stand has to be within 2" of the specified height for it to work as intended. I did not have the proper dampening, so I used what I had around.

I still have the Cantons, but they haven't been used much since and with the room correction system operating at CD sampling frequencies only, it's been hard to find someone interested enough to give a decent bid, so then I rather keep them for show...

Onto next lesson.... there seemed to be a lot of people with this brand of speakers using very large subwoofer systems and unfortunately those systems were quite expensive. But same designer had made a subwoofer design for the society based on the NHT1259 driver and that was within range - and the guys on the forum got together and bought about all the drivers Madisound had left, doing some calculations on box sizes and what money I had available - I went for 8.

Took a couple of years to build. I actually finished 6 and then the project ground to a halt, so I didn't complete all 8 until summer of 2008(!)
As you can see the mattress is still there.



I hope you can believe me when I say that this system played awesome given the price paid. Subwoofers got a couple of NAD 218 to power them and they've never broken a sweat even after a full day with a house full of hifi-nuts playing loud.


I probably would have stopped here and been very happy. I'm not fond of driving far, so going up to the cellar to listen to other models and the having to go back 6-12-18 months later when they were done did not tickle my fancy. But suddenly a guy close by ran into some financial trouble and had to both move and get rid of some speakers of this brand he'd bought... I had had a small inheritance come in, so I had a little money that I could spend without being too ashamed, so I bought them.

So, the tiny ones went upstairs to our little tv-room... had company of a center and quite a few surrounds plus four bassreflex-subs with 10" drivers - all from the same company.

Downstairs in the stereo I got the only pair yet in existance of the signature fullrange speaker that's been made in stone... I really could not avoid buying this, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. These are the speakers you see in my avatar.

As you can see, I've also made proper dampeningwalls behind now.

These speakers are for me the best imaginable. I do think the B&W 800/801/802 are extremely good speakers too and that would have to be my choice if I could not have these. But for how I listen and the goals I have to reproduce what's on the media with as little change as possible - I don't know anything else I'd rather have - regardless of price. ( Apart from the tightest of tight handpicked selection of new elements for these ones, of course. ) The Guru QM60 is about the same speaker. It has a different kid of bass port and there's probably a few considerations done for series production where mine are less compromised.

If you want to think this is brand-religious ranting, then fine - I accept that. Have heard it before. I'm okay with just stating what I like, nothing else. Given that most the speakers, apart from those two Guru variants can't be bought outside Sweden, it's not like I'm selling anything either.

The home theater setup in the tvroom is great. It's for a two seat couch and it's just outside the kids' bedrooms so even if they sleep very soundly, there's few occasions it can run at full power. The small green front speakers also sets the limit on how loud it can play, most material it can go very high, but some more demanding tracks keeps the safe limit to ref-15 somewhere.

The thought crossed my mind many times to get a projector and a big screen down in the livingroom, given the capabilities there, but the room does not lend itself to home theater very well... from hanging the projector in mid room, to windows and big openings to kitchen and hallway so it can't be pressurized for extreme low frequencies, to no good positions for surrounds, to wife not wanting wall-to-wall carpet in the livingroom...

Which leads us up to the spring of 2012...
 
#5 · (Edited)
During the spring when I - once again - went at trying to make the storage/workshop/winecellar into something else than overcrowded storage that really wasn't much to use for anything, I had an epiphany.

I said to myself... "all this things we didn't want in the house, will we be using it again, or here? If not, then why not throw some away?" Then I looked at the stacks of "good to have stuff" and thought... "this I put away when the house was built 12 years ago.... it hasn't been used yet, will it?".... Then I looked at my tools and thought about how often most of it was really used... like once every four years... "why do it need easy-accessible shelf space, it can go near the attic hatch just as well"....

All this thought... I imagined getting rid of it/moving it... and what was left? Workbench, bicycles, wine & whisky, lawnmower and ferilizer and the most commonly used tools.... and a lot of empty space.

Light concrete walls, solid floor, no windows.... Can be pressurized, surrounds can go where they need to, projector too, wife won't mind the carpet here.... this can be a cinema. Or it will get filled up with more junk again until next time I get fed up and throw a bunch away... again... again...

Now... there's nothing saying that midlife crisis can't be applied to this. My wife so much prefer a theater to me leaving her for someone half her age or get myself a Corvette or a Harley... (transposed for you Americans, I would be choosing non-american vehicles for sure
)

What also happened at the same time was that I found an ad on a large speaker system (same brand). Once going above the ones I have in the stereo (as in extended capability, not quality) you only have divided systems tops+bass modules crossed at 80. The one in the add was the middle size (out of three) and in the signature quality combined with six bass modules of the sealed enclosure type called "infra" that is to be used with an electronic bass lift ciruit to increase capability in the extreme lower range. It's also in my book the best looking speaker shape wise he makes. The 1970s Jacaranda veneer doesn't make that any worse either.
It's a big investment... this is not a cheap system, but it has capacity well beyond reference level and with those bass modules and that room, it could go very low...


I presented the idea and got a go ahead, so in the middle of march I started cleaning out major time. Don't know how many full cars I drove to the dumpsite... probably 20... But I did manage to clean the attic a bit too, getting stuff away from there as other things went up.

Another thing I decided on early was that once I was done with the basic cleaning, I would ask the speakers' designer to come down on acoustic consultancy to make the room as good as I can - and suit the speakers.

Edit: 'Smelling pistakes'
 
#6 ·
Now.... I'm no carpenter, but I'm not afraid to try and do things myself - on the contrary it gives me great satisfaction even if the result will be less visually appealing than getting pros in to do things.


Also - unless most you guys on the forum are extremely rich - there must be an amazing difference both in availability and cost of having people home to do things for you. The carpentry/wood panelling I see in so many builds here.... we don't have that in our houses here, so there's no guys doing that... apart from for hotels, banks and the filthy rich.



So this build is going to be quite different to most everything else I've seen here so far, albeit I can't claim to have looked through ALL build threads on AVS.



One thing I hope possibly to achieve is to have more people dare show what they have done... after seeing mine it might be easier.


If you've read it all above, you should know by know that I'm an audiophile rather than a cinefile(is that right word?)... at least yet. And while I'm completely unwilling to compromise with the things I care about, I have no problem letting something I don't care about be done less than perfect to reach my goal sooner. For me, watching a movie is about a couple of things: great picture, great sound, great movie and sitting comfortably with the whole family.


It does not need stage, soffits, full daylight lighting, be old cinema lookalike, have coffered(?) and/or starlight ceiling. I do enjoy looking at people doing those and be amazed on what they achieve, but I will not spend very much more time or money on design than I can more or less do in the same time as the rest.


That's why the thread got called "The Larch"... now I just wait for someone to inform us why.
 
#9 ·
So, a little information about the location chosen.


The floor is concrete.


The walls are masoned with lightweight concrete blocks, then insulated and with a single gypsumboard layer. This was done 12 years ago, so you will not see any construction of walls and such in this thread. Drawback being that all cables have to go on the outside, but I'm not tearing down perfectly good walls to hide a few cables.


I was prepared to have to add another layer to it, but my acoustics consultant was banging around on the walls and ceiling and proclaimed it solid enough. (I don't have any rooms next to it to have to do sounddampening towards, so that may be a factor woven in too.) We built it ourselves and with the family overkill taken in account, I'm not surprised if we got the walls more solid than normal, there's probably three times more screws than needed ...


The inner dimensions are 14 2/3 by 26 2/3 feet in total, but it was decided/designed to just use 18 feet for the cinema and the rest for a sound-dampening back wall and storage/machinist room.


I'm not going to upload the real design plan, they cost me a little too much to just put in the public domain - and I also don't want to rob the acoustician of future jobs by people copying the plan to detail, it's enough to show off some of the concepts here. Also, I may be doing things wrong here, so I don't want someone else blamed for my mistakes.


I did make some rough sketches in Visio to use as a backdrop for simulating surroundspeaker locations, which has already been seen in another thread, here's a cleaned up version:



Do note that the riser is not to have that shape, nor is the chairs that bent - it's just what was available in Visio. (Also notice now that the left sub stack has crept out some
)
 
#10 ·
Another things that's different to most projects I've seen is that I haven't had the luxory of having an empty room to work in, so it's been a constant moving about things to get access to the area worked upon at the moment. Due to timing issues, the furniture had to arrive early - so it's five seats and two armrests to juggle around with... plus all the speakers, the electronics, plus things that it the end will be in the storage. So, hopefully as a comfort to a few out there - messy pics !



First pic to show is after 1½ months - all 'junk' cleaned out, have stripped the front wall from it's inner wall to get the subwoofers even closer to the harder surface and starting to build a floor:


As you can see, I'm putting the flooring on top of cellplastic, two reasons... insulation and leaving the floor a possibility to move without too easily transmitting vibrations to the walls. Flooring is just less than an inch and the cellplastic is a bit more than one. Duct tape is a must, just ask MacGyver...


In the beginning of the summer I put insulation up against the front wall, a bit early I would realize later on, so parts of it had to be cut away again. Doing preparation for having a center in the future as well, otherwise that middle strip of dampening would not have been there.



The reason for not dampening the entire wall is that some reflections do have to be allowed into the room for late arriving 'echoes' or the room would start sounding strange.


Mid-summer I had put up the ceiling boards in the front half of the room:



I think I had a really good active period here, extending the floor backwards and starting on the riser/bass absorber:



Once that was done, stuffed and floored upon, it was time to build the rear wall:



With wall in place, I could saw the boards for the rest of the ceiling to proper length and put them up:



Then to cover the inside of the wall... Here a very special hatch had to be made in the wall, as that has to fold away before the hatch up to the attic can be opened...



One of the rear surrounds posing for a little while on newly set bracket:



Welcome to Cable Hell!:


4x2.5mm2 each for front left, left subwoofers, front right and right subwoofers, 4x1.5mm2 for center and for left high/wide and right high/wide, 0.7mm2 for surrounds. Solid copper wire all of it. The collection of them put together is thicker than my wrist...


Back wall stuffed with insulation, almost covered too, stack of electronics in it's final position (may be re-stacked, though, but I need not move it around anymore):



And now we've caught up to realtime after this 8½month fastforwards; cables tucked away (most of them) and some LED guiding spots assembled:



So guys.... that's what I've done thus far...
 
#12 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScAndal  /t/1441665/the-larch-theater#post_22636010


What LED lightes did you use in your steps? Those look perfect.

They're called Argo led and are, unfortunately for you, made by a Swedish company named Bolthi. I can tell you though that they are six warmwhite leds per spot and they're rated at 0.6W - I assumes that's in total. It's a 12Volt system designed for outdoor usage. They were sold in packs of four with transformer, but each cable had three extra connectors, so I bought a few extra two-packs of spots to make them seven. The transformer works to put on a dimmer too.


Most noticable thing is that they are sensitive to height to give the proper light, so I do hope I got them right once the carpet comes in. I'm a little afraid they are too low and the lit spot will end up slightly too close to the wall. But I can test that, I have a carpet sample. Just didn't think of that before....
 
#13 ·
Had a real good day the day before yesterday, got the compartment for the leftmost subwoofers done and got almost all panels for the left front diffusor part up. Had miscalculated when I was painting them before, so I was short of one - on the other hand it would not have helped me go any further as I ran out of glue at the same time. Actually, I seem to be one short in total, so that's upcoming to do.


Yesterday I re-assembled the insulation for the left dampening panel as that had to go down to make the sub compartment and then moved the screen back in position. Rest of the evening went into yet another moving things around. Have a few things that can be put away in the attic now and also need to go up to bring the Christmas lights down, so this week has been a race with that goal in mind.


Did some preparatory work too; went to a shop and looked at curtain rails, purchased a 10-outlet power strip for the electronics and weighed a front speaker to be able to order the correct feet. (42 lbs at the front, 37.5 lbs at the back). Order will have to wait until January.. it's 70 feet in total to order( out of which 10 is for the living-room speakers), so it will cost around $500 and December is for Christmas shopping.


Played some music to verify that all bass modules and the fronts were properly connected. No disappointments there and the definition will just improve with more dampening on the panels, carpet and drapes. Wanted to try War of the Worlds, but there was not 2-channel track on that, so it's starting to get near to the point of swapping the 2-channel preamp for a theater receiver.


Will need to borrow the surround-back speakers from the tv-room to get six to start with. (And find out where the heck I put the mic for the Denon 2807...)
 
#14 ·
First snow today and temperature below freezing. Have gone beyond the point I can spraypaint inside the room, so the diffusion panels had to be sprayed outside and then lifted in to dry. Never spraypainted while standing in snow before. Few flakes landed in the paint on a couple of them. They do look about the same as the ones I did five months ago, now just keep fingers crossed that they dry ok too. It looks like the last one I did, I had to stop halfway, so it's 1½ left to do. Although I think I will do more given the risk of a flutter echo inbetween the walls on the sides of the riser.


May have snagged the remaining surround speakers today
Big dent in the savings, but they aren't that frequent on the used gear market and they're latest revision and higher than standard finish - and less than half the price of them new. Hope there won't be any hickups... that would bring me up to just missing the center and that's hopefully booked when someone I know upgrades next year - if the other party is still up for buying the other speaker of the pair...
 
#15 ·
Probably back to the drawing board with the speaker wall - I have too much sound leakage, actually got a call from neighbor wife after I had tested the system on War of the Worlds at what the non-calibrated receiver called ref-5. It would probably be less just getting all the speakers onto their soft feet, but I do believe I have sound leakage too. My first guess is that the lightweight concrete blocks hasn't become plastered(?is that what it's called?) to a soundproof state, so I guess I do have to build a proper wall there. Drat. (And if it's not that... I would not know what the next guess need be...)


Got the surrounds I have temporarily up and played some 7-channel stereo music, very amazed at the tonal matching of those compared to the fronts despite not sharing a single component.


Working on the (for not) last diffusion panel. If it's stiff enough tonight, they'll get some paint too, otherwise I'll have to put a few layers more on it first.
 
#16 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightlord  /t/1441665/the-larch-theater#post_22630402


But I pick "The Larch" and I do hope someone will figure out why.

Monty Python??
 
#18 ·
Looking good, Nightlord
Whish I could focus on building my listening room rather than focusing on rebuilding every other part of the building... BTW, looks like our i32s's veneer is from the same cut...I almost had to go out to the storage to check that mine are still there
 
#19 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by hevi  /t/1441665/the-larch-theater#post_22661255


Looking good, Nightlord
Whish I could focus on building my listening room rather than focusing on rebuilding every other part of the building... BTW, looks like our i32s's veneer is from the same cut...I almost had to go out to the storage to check that mine are still there

Thanks. The veneer is probably from the same stock, yes. I'll be looking at your build for what ideas you have for walls, now that I seem to have to re-do the speaker wall... to hopefully get the neighbours off my case.
 
#20 ·
Will take the covers of the furniture this afternoon and have the family see a first movie - and then I'll pack them up again and start moving things away to dismantle the front wall. Had some ideas on the subject and Dennis Erskine complemented those ideas wonderfully in another thread - thanks once again! Just hope I can get hold of all things needed and in reasonable time. (The Swedish equivalent for green glue seems to be sensitive to cold, so I may not be able to get some before springtime...)
 
#21 ·
"Tintin" watched as first movie. Everyone happy ( too long movie according to daughter). Think this proj would be good enough for a keeper in my wife's eyes, that's good, thought she might complain about rainbows. I'm very sensitive, but I'm doing ok too. ( it's an Infocus IN80 ) and this was "just" a dvd.


Furniture back in covers, screen down and moved. Insulation and end-boards on dampening-walls torn down, front speakers and subs moved away nd covered, cables moved. There's definitely a difference in sound transmission between that part of the wall and side walls, been going around the building putting my ear to the walls. So definitely that wall to fix first and then hopefully it's good enough.


Now, where to find isocyanate-free foam spray is next on the list. And I hope one wall will not take too many cans to cover 1-2 inches worth of... Above ten cans and it will start to hurt...
 
#22 ·
Well, the can I was intending to buy cost twelve times more than the one the store pointed me at, so breathing mask and keeping the door open will have to be enough.


Got three cans to start with and here's the result:



Looks like another 12 cans might do it. Still reasonable cost.


Have looked at steel profiles, doesn't seem to exist the kind of sprung/dampened clips that I've seen people here use, though. And even if I perhaps could have some imported, there's still a question whether they'd fit our HAT channel equivalents...
 
#25 ·
Thanks! I think so too!!



It's one-component, don't think I could handle anything more serious than that. Will be about 80% closed, will have to be ok. Given there's a wall going up in front of it as well, I'm counting this as overkill. One can do everything better, and bring in experts, but I don't have a budget to land at more than $7-8000 which the projection points at right now ($5000 already spent).
 
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