The Stonewater Cinema Build Thread - Page 9

Thanks guys. It was a big relief knowing that I would regain almost 100% of my mobility without surgery. I tore my "Planter's Fascia" completely and another tendon partially, but not bad. The main "ripping" I heard was the Planter's fascia. There is no surgical repair for this because apparently it is not needed to regain almost full function. The other will just take some time to heal. It's nice to have confirmation of the path forward for now and that I won't be completely sidelined because of this.

I've never seen that place or photo before in my life. Where is this? Is it their showroom or a customer's theater they did? I'd be interested to know. Do you have a link?

Honestly, I have not actually been in a HiFi shop for years. I wouldn't want to waste any of their time with knowing full-well that I wouldn't be buying any of their products or needing any of their advice or services. So nearly 100% of my planning, design, shopping is being done online. I don't think I could do it without access to equipment purchasing options that are found online, especially since most of what I am buying is used to stay on track with my razor-thin budget. Most of the help I needed was found online (i.e. Dennis) with the acoustic analysis / treatments for the inside of the room because I don't have the appropriate software / tools / experience.

Any more progress on your house? When's your move-in date?

EDIT:
I found where you got that picture - Audio Advice's gallery section of their website. So I called Audio Advice just for the heck of it....they said the room design and millwork was done by a company called Cinematech and just the room itself was $2900 to design which was then applied to the fabrication / installation costs of $38,000. This included the millwork, the acoustic panels, the fabric, the lights and the carpet. They said the electronics they used were another $70,000 and the seating was another $9000. All totaled everything for that theater was just under $125,000. I personally don't see where the money went, but hey, what do I know.
Edited by TMcG - 1/12/13 at 10:07am

Thanks raskyred! Don't be discouraged - given enough time and effort invested in educating yourself, you too can pull off a very respectable theater. Now there are things that only come through years of direct experience, but at least there is professional help available to help you avoid money-wasting pitfalls while simultaneously eeking every last drop of performance from your system.

Yeah, I don't know why I've always been drawn to that Art Deco look, but I figured I would give it my best effort in the planning process to try to live with as little regret as possible when the theater is complete. Over this past weekend I completed a full-scale mock-up of the column "alabaster" panels with the backlit RGB LED lighting. It looks really cool. I know, I know....no proof of progress without pictures. I did take a bunch of pictures throughout the process, but have been overloaded at work to get to this thread in a meaningful way. More to come on that later, possibly tonight.


On another note, late yesterday afternoon I was officially "cleared" to resume normal activity by the physical therapists. I intend to take full advantage of that this weekend and have already reached out to my cavalry of friends for some help this weekend getting drywall strips up underneath the subfloor between the joists. REAL CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS pics are coming!!!

Thanks for thinking of me and taking the time to post that picture. You never know when you see even a small detail for any kind of design inspiration. $125k does seem like a lot for the room but I guess if you break it down into its component parts and know that there are professionals involved at every stage of the process I guess that seems about right.....and explains why many (almost all?) of us here on the Forum take the DIY route. We want the $175,000 room....on the $15-$25k budget.

I am keeping a detailed list of expenses for this room right down to the last drywall screw because I am already beyond the bleeding edge with this room, despite the deals. Don't get me wrong, I'd do it all over again but the financial bloodbath is still far from over. With our new family addition on his way, staying on track is even more important. Maybe I'll post the itemized expenses once the room is complete. I had an idea I wanted to come in around $20k all-in, but that was unrealistic for the caliber and quality of theater I want to put together. We'll see where I end up when everything is said and done.

Good luck on your house and theater - would love to see it in-person someday.

Sometimes the professionals have their hands tied when they employ a designer for these rooms. You can only point out performance issues with certain design choices and there is a limit to how much you can engineer around these design decisions. As long as the client is made aware of these potential issues at the beginning, the customer is always right. So who knows if they intentionally went for a light room with a light colored ceiling and have 100% of the lights in that room surface-mounted or were forced by design decisions. But I agree with your comment - you wouldn't catch me compromising the performance of the room (within reason) for the sake of the design.

Thanks RT! I have confirmations from one friend to help me tomorrow from 1PM onwards, another friend coming over on Saturday and then the same Friday friend coming back on Sunday for most of the day. With any luck there will be some tremendous progress to report by Sunday night / Monday as part of a weekend update. From there I will work in the evenings when I can to catch up on the three+ weeks of lost time with this stupid tendon tear.

The reason I have to watch the budget like a hawk is I want to reach the end of the project and have a functional theater that can be professionally calibrated. I had some budget flexibility which is now completely gone. Part of the lost flexibility was the find on the Stewart Cine-V and the opportunity to purchase the advanced Color Kinetics lighting system at used / clearance pricing. But the biggest overage to the budget at this point is when I made the decision to purchase the set of Procella speakers. Don't get me wrong, I would do it all over again but that one decision commands an entire subset of mandatory purchases such as more channels of high-quality amplification to drive the bass modules of the LCR and an independent external crossover to handle the crossover duties between the bass module and the P6 head for each LCR. But there are also other costs to make the most from this phenomenal speaker system which I consider mandatory such as professional calibration, acoustic treatments and a much better sounding preamp to not restrict the sound quality of the speakers. If you haven't seen already, I am a big believer in having a balanced system so I refuse to pair up these speakers with an inferior amp, preamp, wire or DSP...just like I wouldn't pair a Levinsion preamp processor with a pair of Polk or Bose speakers.

I didn't expect to go on a tangent about the budget, but aside from source components it would be an expensive and unwanted proposition to try and change out anything like the speakers, preamp, DSP and acoustic treatments which would force another professional recalibration. So I really have to get things "as right as I can" straight from the start. The number and quality of components I have yet to buy is a bit daunting to say the least. So I guess the better way to say it is that I am deep in the hole with this project and know what needs to be done to get to the finish....my objective is to get to the finish line with a fully-finished theater and not have a beautiful room devoid of projector, acoustic treatments carpet and seating. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I will keep working at it. I guess the final tally will be out of my own curiosity.

PROGRESS UPDATE:

As promised, here is this weekend's progress update. I ended up working from 2PM until early evening on Friday, 9AM until 7PM Saturday and today from 7AM until 4PM. About half of this time I had help, the other half I spent piecing in the small stuff by myself, cutting tons more screws and nails from the subfloor above that missed the joists and scraping off every last drop of Liquid Nails "ooze" from when the subfloor was originally installed and left big blobs running down the sides of the joists everywhere.

First, I plan to call the CIA tomorrow to inform them that hangiing 5/8" drywall between ceiling joists would be a much more successful enhanced interrogation technique than waterboarding. In fact there is probably a law preventing judges from assigning this task to convicted criminals as it would fall under "cruel and unusual punishment". In a word, it - SUCKED ....badly. Compounding the issue was being on ladders for virtually the entire time so my tender right foot is completely shredded as I type this. But I wasn't going to let a little excruciating pain slow me down when I had some help, so I started self-medicating late Saturday morning 354cc (12 ounces) of Miller Lite at a time. Yeah, it was that kind of project.

But enough whining....and on to the complaining!! Only three pairs of joists across the entire span of the room were parallel to one another. Over the course of an 8' span the joists could be out as much as 1 1/4". To make matters worse, some of the joists had a bow to them which meant that I had to either put the drywall up in smaller sections to follow the bow....or become a wood drywall-smith on longer pieces with my jigsaw and drywall sander which involved multiple test fittings per piece until everything fit snugly with a gap of 1/8" or less, but typically things ended up very tight. Since I was using 28 oz. tubes of Green Glue, I didn't know my exact application rate, but it was somewhere in the realm of 2-3 tubes per 4x8 sheet. Maybe it was a bit on the heavy side, but I'd rather have too much than too little for this important soundproofing step. The real time-waster came with having to recreate square again and again for accurate translation of plot points onto the next piece of drywall before cutting. I ended up being fairly proficient at this, but it still wasted time needlessly and created a bit more scrap than I was expecting.

So through monumental effort I was able to complete the first full layer 100% and start the second layer about 3:30PM today...which is when I discovered that I only had a handful of 2" screws to secure the second layer through the first and to the subfloor above. I couldn't find the additional box of 2" screws I thought I had, so my day was done....right after I went to Lowe's and picked up 10 pounds to make sure I had enough to do the second layer.

Needless to say, but I am not looking forward to the same painstaking process for the second layer. Also for the second layer I plan to overlap all the seams of the first layer and seal all of the edges with acoustic caulking FWIW. I plan to chip away at the second layer every evening this week so by the time Saturday rolls around I would have 15 - 20 hours of progress under my belt and can hopefully finish by the end of next weekend. Had all of the joists been parallel I am sure this posting would have read much differently and this part of the job would be complete. I might even take one day off from work since I never seem to get all of my vacation time in by the end of the year anyhow. At least it would be a very valid excuse to take off and get the work done.

Now on to what you have all been waiting for - the progress pics.....

The ceremonial first board installed:


What happens to Green Glue application patterns when the friend you have helping you is an engineer:


End of progress on Friday, three full joist bays and a ton of other prep work complete:


Progress as of Saturday morning. You can see some very slight gaps where the joists are bowed. This set of joists pictured were the worst offenders in terms of not being parallel to one another.


First layer complete!


Completed first layer pic 2:


Completed first layer pic 3:


First piece of second layer (you can see the white edge of the second layer):


First piece of second layer caulked at edges. Once I confirmed the fit of the second layer, I caulked the edges of the first layer, applied Green Glue to the back of the second layer, installed the second layer and then immediately caulked the second layer. I figured this way all of the caulking in the side gaps would cure at the same time. Took about 1/2 a tube just for this one piece which means I am looking at about 15 of the 28oz tubes to do the whole ceiling.

Hounding averted!

Comments, gift certificates to Massage Envy and bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label welcomed!!
Edited by TMcG - 1/27/13 at 3:55pm

Funny you should mention this. I have been a bit negligent in my thread posting duties but I had my first opportunity to hear a full Procella system in action. The company I work for has their global headquarters in Dallas, Texas and I was down there for a week of meetings. I knew I was going to have one evening open, so I reached out to Kblaw2010 who has an Erskine-designed theater with a full-on Procella system, including two massive P18 subwoofers (total of four drivers). His thread can be found HERE. I drove out to his house after work, expecting to hear the system over the course of an hour or so and then I would be on my way. Well, we ended up "nerding out" (as my wife calls it) on different demo material for the better part of four hours with all kinds of different source material, including music. Here are the conclusions I drew after hearing his system:

• Dennis designed an amazing room which was executed extremely well by kblaw2010's DIY efforts
• Adam Pelz is a master at room calibration
• Gerben Van Duyl and Anders Uggelberg of Procella Audio designed an amazing speaker system that beats any system I have ever heard.
• Phenomenal is not a strong enough word to describe the experience

Every demo piece offered detail and enveloping sound I had never heard before, even if the section was very familiar to me. But out of all the demo material, three demos in particular really stood out. First was the beginning of Polar Express. I have never seen this movie so I did not know what to expect. The beginning scene has some very quiet, very detailed passages with well-placed and localized sound effects....and then.....the train starts to roll in..... I have never - NEVER - heard bass that powerful, clean and well-defined. Talk about pressurizing a room! The seats actual felt like they had Buttkickers, but they didn't - ALL of the power, vibration and chest-pounding thunder of this train came exclusively through the two Procella P18 subs. What an incredible experience. I am still blown away two weeks later. Unfortunately, Procella's subs are the one part of the system I just couldn't afford, but that was one unbelievable justification to want to own these subs at any cost. The rest of the system was incredible as well - the bell for the train coming into the station was as clear as...well....a bell, despite the Earthshaking thunder.

One other movie demo that clearly stood out was the pod racing theme from Star Wars I. Despite being a Star Wars fan, I have only tortured myself with this movie a couple of times. I remember seeing this movie in the theater and finding the pod racing scene tedious and boring at best. But what an incredible demo on this Procella speaker system and the talents of Adam to extract maximum performance from the QSC DSPs. You could distinctly hear the different sound of each pod "engine", the difference between racing through the canyon and in open air and most notably, the imaging as different pods were coming up from behind, being passed and moving from left to right. This brings me to my second point - I have never heard an audio system image so well. It truly puts you right in the middle of the action and it made the entire scene really enjoyable.

The other notable demo was music. Not that the theater acoustic environment is even remotely appropriate for high-quality 3-dimensional music, but for the few songs Kblaw2010 played, I was very impressed and pleased with how nice the system sounded. The reason for this is I can see myself sitting in my future theater listening to music while I work on my laptop in the evenings and I had some concern that listening to music on the system would be intolerable. But again, the soundstage was extremely good and gave a very nice jazz club atmosphere when using all 9 channels.

All-in-all it was a great evening and it was nice to meet another enthusiast who is also one heck of a nice guy and who has a beautiful family. I won't be in Dallas that often, but I definitely look forward to getting together again.

So take this informal review of the Procella speakers FWIW. Given your size room you would definitely be into the P815s for the front P8s for the sides/surrounds and two P18 subwoofers. You could potentially "downgrade" (if you can call it that) to P6s for the sides / surrounds to save a bit of cash. It is my understanding from talking with different people in the industry that the Procellas give you the performance of Genelec at half the price. Still expensive, yes, but also a great value on an extraordinary system. I am glad to have committed to the speakers when I did and look forward to getting my system set up. Depending on when your theater project picks up again, I might have my system running by that point so you could drop by for a demo.

That's tough to say, but definitely a bit of a premium. I am getting most of my "look" from period-correct moldings, so the cost is really no different than other molding profiles. The decorative metal inserts are unique and an added cost. And the deco doorknob (shown in previous post in this thread) is $400 vs. a standard one that would be about $75. So there is a bit of an uptick in cost, but nothing unmanageable. I'd say the big savings between what I am doing and a modern take is that you probably would not have very much wood or finish carpentry.

I really appreciate that, but trust me - you don't want this kind of job to help with, especially in your condition right now. The ladders and lifting onto ladders will kill you. I don't plan to use clips for the walls since my theater is already completely decoupled as-is, but I will be decoupling the ceiling with Kinetics Noise Control WAVE hangers as a soundproofing technique. Once I get over this ceiling drywall hurdle you should see things move rapidly as I mainline caffeine and stress to keep things moving at an aggressive pace. I probably won't be done by baby time, but I would like to be well into the finish carpentry stage at that point. We'll see how I hold out because I am also diligently working on finishing the basement at the same time. I haven't included many pictures of that progress, but I probably should. You are always more than welcome to visit and help out, but I think most of the heavy lifting will be done in the next couple of weeks....at least that's how I have it planned in my head.
Edited by TMcG - 1/27/13 at 6:18pm

Well, I didn't want to get greedy....

That was my sole point of focus in posting tonight was to make sure I didn't distract you from a productive work week! LOL! I appreciate you keeping me honest and on the straight and narrow path.

Everyone that has or has heard about an IB system has walked away very impressed. And KNKKNK's system was one of a handful that really pushed me in that direction (Moggie's and StockMonkey's are the other ones). They seem like a tremendous amount of bass "bang for the buck". However...and I don't mean to drop a bomb on you and everyone else following this thread....but I have a second non-IB option in my hip pocket that I am definitely going to take a look at before constructing the IB chamber. I made the mistake of somehow stumbling on notnyk's thread which has some incredibly serious firepower with four massive DIY subs using a high-end subwoofer driver, the LMS Ultra 5400 from a company called TC Sounds. The motor alone is 68 pounds and are extremely linear. Notnyt also posted a cut sheet for building the cabinets so I might go this route instead of the IB chamber. But like I said, as of now the plan is IB with Fi Car Audio IB318 but I am still exploring options until I pull the trigger on the purchase here at the end of the month. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for the offer of help. There's not anything but pain and misery right now, so just be thankful you are far away. You know what they say about misery loving company.....

I'll keep posting progress updates throughout the week as they come. Mainly it will just be not-so-exciting shots of drywall in between joists....but I know how you love pictures and I want you to continue to have a productive week. I could post pictures I took of my full-scale column alabaster panel mock-up.....how's that for a teaser? Oh darn, did I just make your productivity go to zero?
Edited by TMcG - 1/28/13 at 6:26am