The Stonewater Cinema Build Thread - Page 6

Thanks Reddig. I bought some 5/8" particle board melamine shelving at Lowe's a week or so ago to do a full-size mock-up of the column to complete the internal "engineering" work for properly backlighting this stuff in full-scale. I don't think I have ever done a mock-up in my life, but I absolutely have to know how things are going to look in full-scale before closing up the walls. I may need additional wires, lights, power supplies, etc. to get everything to work the way it should, but I won't know that until it's fully set up in scale. My only concern is that the backlighting won't seem bright enough to get the desired effect. I don't know, I guess we'll find out in the next couple of days when I get the mock-up together. I am very anxious to see it actually.

Updates forthcoming in just a few minutes....

Hey, hey, hey, hey now!!! I was working like a machine over Christmas break during every available opportunity outside of official family functions, but unfortunately Wednesday night, December 26th I tore a couple of tendons in my right foot which completely shut down any progress for the last 6 days. This has set me back significantly in my aggressive timetable to complete the project. To make matters worse, 24 hours later I started to feel a bug coming on which ended up being the flu. So between my right foot / ankle and being sick I haven't really moved from bed in the last five days except to see an orthopedic surgeon about getting things fixed up.

Let's just say the theater budget took a hit as well....the heavy-duty boot on the right was $700, the lightweight boot on the left for nighttime sleeping was $300 and the crutches were just under $60....not to mention a $280 appointment for X-rays, evaluation and diagnosis. The MRI hasn't taken place yet, but that bill will be coming as well.... All of this was cash out-of-pocket since my new insurance plan didn't kick in until January 1. Even then, the boots are not covered by most insurances. It really sucks to have $1000 in boots that you only need for about 4-5 weeks.

To say I am frustrated is a complete understatement. But I will be doing my best as I heal and leaning on friends and maybe even paid labor (i.e. $8 per hour "hold this & carry that" labor from some of the neighborhood teenagers). That drywall lift purchase I have been putting off is now going to move forward.

Hey Bud. Thanks for following along. I really liked that exit light as well and just had to have it for my theater when I saw it. I may have mentioned this before in my previous post, but without looking it up I will tell you the light was made by a Cleveland, OH company called Perfeclite who is now out of business. If you Google Image search Perfeclite exit light you will see lots of different variations. There was a different style that has a "cage" around the front of it to protect the glass from damage, but I couldn't find one that was reasonably priced and decided the chances for damage to the glass in my theater was slim so I just got the regular one.

As I said above, much more to come on the backlight panels as I move to a full-size mock up later this week.

Looking forward to your feedback throughout my build.

PROGRESS UPDATE:

As promised, I am out of historical "build" pictures to post and virtually all pictures from this point forward are of actual real-time progress. The very first item on my "to-do" list was to install two layers of 5/8" drywall in between all of my ceiling joists to deal with the potential footfall noise from the hardwood floors immediately above the theater. Furthermore, right above the theater is our main two-story foyer so any sound that would escape the theater through all the ceiling layers would be in the main part of the house and potentially heard in the bedrooms and everywhere else.

Unfortunately the Brazilian Walnut hardwood floors we have installed upstairs had to be installed with beefy flooring staples that are about 2" long, so there are over a thousand (at least) of these staple ends poking through the ceiling of the theater in between the joists that have to be dealt with. There are also tons of missed nails, gobs of Liquid Nails construction adhesive and plenty of other obstacles in the way for the first layer of drywall to make intimate contact with the underside of the subfloor and allow the Green Glue to really do its job.

A few pictures of the "stuff" I had to deal with...

TONS of missed subfloor nails like this


Hundreds of staple ends poking through


Glops of Liquid Nails ooze everywhere (this is a relatively small amount pictured here), especially near the ceiling where the drywall will go which must be removed


And this shatstorm of finish nails that I don't know what the builder was doing (although it is under the newel post area of our upstairs stairs


I planned to take some pictures after I was done, but considering I can no longer climb a ladder for the time being, you'll just have to know that it's all done. Luckily, there was a bit of "blow-out" where each staple was poking through which allowed most of the staple ends to nest in the recess when hammered down flat. I was originally using my standard framing hammer but switched to my mini 3-lb. sledge hammer for greater...uh..."influence" for the staples to lie flat and embed in the OSB subloor. I also took a couple of my trim prybars and my framing hammer to remove the globs of Liquid Nails which worked very well - I'll post a few pics of what I did to make it a relatively quick and efficient job. I then used my Sawzall with an 18" metal blade to flush cut all protruding nails. I don't have it pictured, but the only other thing I will probably do is to square-up the spray foam that is against the rim joists for a tight fit against the drywall. I won't remove much, just enough to get a square edge for the drywall to lay against.

I also FINALLY located a metal fabricator that will produce my decorative metal inserts for the columns at a price I can live with. In fact, they said they would actually be cutting all six 1/4" panels at once in a single shot with their laser cutter. I asked if I could watch the process when my job goes to fabrication, so I should be able to post pictures. I am still not settled on a design, but I did make a highly-detailed sketch of my columns to scale to work out all of the dimensions once and for all. I'll be posting some pictures of my designs for everyone's opinion when the time comes.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Hi Roger. Sorry I missed responding to your post a bit earlier. This will indeed be my first system using two sets of side channels. Technically speaking, at this point I will have 9 channels by adding the second set of sides. I may wire for front widths and heights, but the reviews as to how much they add to the movie experience have been mixed at best, so who knows.

I am having a bit of difficulty in selecting an appropriate preamp / processor for my system since most of the ones I see use the extra set of channels for front width or height channels. I need to talk with Dennis about this, but perhaps the side channel output from a 7.1 channel processor is duplicated for the other set of side speakers and then the QSC DSPs work their calibrated magic. Do you know if most systems that use two pairs of sides simply duplicate the original output for both front and back side channels which are then optimized through DSP or if they are truly discrete (from a surround processing and not a source perspective) that if a plane was flying over my head that the sound would move from the fronts to the front sides to the back sides to the rears?? Still a bit of a mystery to me at this point, but I assume that it probably has been done both ways since there is no consumer-level truly-discrete 9.1 source material. Current preamp considerations are from Denon, Marantz and Integra....but that could change down the road as it gets closer to the time to actually buy the equipment.

Regarding my line drawings with the audio angles - when I first entered discussions with Dennis he said that because I have Procella speakers that the sides should be placed a bit more behind the ear and not at 90 degrees. He then sent me a quickie acoustic analysis with some multi-colored lines that he said indicated certain doom for the sound quality of my system with this speaker positioning. Specifically, he said that the side speakers would be "overheard" if not placed slightly behind. As I was working in pencil on graph paper and not in CAD, redrawing everything was not in the cards so I just made a mental note to put the speaker back further or advance the seating toward the screen to get the desired audio angle. Dennis and his team translated my line drawings into CAD and made subtle tweaks. I cannot share the drawing here per contract without permission, but to my eyes neither the position of the columns or the seating moved to effectively put the side speakers slightly behind the listener's ear. This is something we will be discussing prior to finish carpentry going in.

The primary listening and viewing position is 100% geared for the second row of seats. Every other seat gets what it gets, so there may be subtle compromises outside of the second row of seating. In fact, I might even eliminate the back bar behind the second row - I'll have to see how it works out with the perimeter soffit, the riser base and the projector all coming into play. I wish I had 10 foot ceilings, that's for sure!!!

What do you mean by Hawaii? Not sure I follow....
Edited by TMcG - 1/2/13 at 4:41pm

Did you ever see any of the Die Hard movies? It was kind-of like that, only without the exploding jetliner

Yeah, I'd like to say that I injured it while doing something exciting and extreme but unfortunately the reality is...well...just more real. We had just dropped our inlaws off at the airport hours earlier while they flew to California to spend the back half of Christmas break with my wife's brother. They have three dogs we were watching for them while they were gone. Their dogs know us very well and get along great with our three dogs. But a couple of deer running through our lawn during their last outside "potty break" at 11:30PM freaked out their oldest dog - a 14 year old Chihuahua - and she bolted away. Not good. Although I thought her to be a rather sedentary dog, in my opinion she became the Usain Bolt of Chihuahuas and was beyond my sprinting. Temps were going down into the twenties that night, so it was important that we find her. After an hour and a half of looking I spotted her far away and made a break for it. She was cold and tired at this point but made a couple of moves to get away since she was still frightened. She zigged when I zagged out in the woods and there was an audible tearing sound - even above the sound of the rustling leaves. I got her, but I knew immediately that something was very wrong. It didn't hurt at first but then throbbed for the next two days until my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. They are letting the swelling subside a bit more for a clearer MRI, but it's definitely not a good situation. I've never so much as fractured a bone or pulled a muscle in my entire life, so hopefully this is not the onset of old age! LOL!

Thanks guys. I am determined to make my deadline, so I will have to burn the midnight oil a bit more often than I was hoping. This orthopedic boot is pretty amazing - somehow almost completely isolates the injury without any pain. Perhaps it is the medication talking, but I honestly feel like I could be back in action by this weekend, although not working nearly as quick. It still really stinks that I completely missed the last six days of construction of completely free-and-clear construction time. I thought I would be able to get most of the soundproof shell done to this point but I guess the big man upstairs had other ideas.


And JPA ... I will absolutely do the physical therapy. I've had a few friends get things surgically fixed and then half-heartedly go through the therapy - they aren't the same by a long shot compared with the couple of others that really put in the effort to get back to normal. My big fear is tripping on microscopic pebbles on seemingly smooth surfaces for the rest of my life, plus I have a baby boy coming my way in April who I have to train to be a first round NFL draft pick so the pressure is really on!

Right now I am just hopeful that I don't have to have surgery, but we'll see what the MRI comes back with... OK, back to theater talk!

Fantastic feedback Roger, thank you. And thanks as well for confirming my suspicions on how the Side1 channel information is derived. I haven't posted an all-encompassing equipment post yet as much is still being determined, but I had planned on using two QSC DSP-322ua to handle all the DSP / EQ / Crossover for this system. Other potential option was a series of Xilica XP-3060 or XP-4080 to handle the job, although the calibrator I am considering is extremely well-versed in the QSC Control Net software (as are most calibrators) which leads me to give preference to QSC's equipment.

I understand your point perfectly about focusing on preamp / processor features that are important to me since the QSC products will be doing the acoustic "heavy-lifting". So I am completely open to any suggestions that balances all-out performance with price if you have any. The Integra DHC-80.3 is known to offer strong value with its tons of features, but lacks performance treasured by audiophiles. This could easily be a limiting factor in realizing the full potential of the Procella loudspeakers and is a scenario I would like to avoid. As one of the features I am looking for is good quality sound that won't limit the Procella speakers, selecting the right preamp will therefore be critical IMHO. I am interested to hear your thoughts.

If I were to pick your brain on one other topic, it would be regarding your impressions on an infinite baffle subwoofer setup which I have planned to go into this theater. Like many on this forum, I have only ever known to have free-standing subwoofers from Velodyne, M&K, REL Acoustics and others. Conceptually, I understand that an infinite baffle setup is having similar drivers (roughly speaking) but with a huge back-box. However, the IB setup lacks a bit of sophistication found in its boxed brethren such as servo control and other microprocessors controlling the magnet and effectively reducing distortion to zero. There are many other smaller, more subtle differences as well, but I think you understand my point. Have you heard or do you have any experience with IB setups? If so, what was your overall impression? Knowing that I am probably going to end up with QSC DSPs, would you foresee any integration problems with bass management / setting crossovers, etc. to integrating an IB array? Getting smooth frequency response and transition to the main speakers seems to be the trickiest part from what I have read. I just didn't know if that meant it was tricky for them and relatively easy for a professional or tricky in general to get right by anyone. Again, I appreciate your insight.

Perhaps I will pull together a post with my intended equipment list, most of which has not been purchased and is therefore open to discussion.

By the way, I'll be in your area in mid-February. It might be nice to meet and grab a beer (or three) if schedules permit!

I am going to try my hardest to make sure the only thing you have to help with is making the popcorn! We'll see....I think we all know how we all underestimate how long a project will take.