My converted bedroom theater

This is my home theater. It is nothing more than an unused bedroom that was slightly modified during construction so no closet would be inserted. The equipment and bookcase is the section the closet would have been. The room is 13x12x10ft high. The floor is maple (the ends) hardwood and the curtains are ikea.

Enjoy.





Victor

The room is 12x13x10 high. So its a 13ft distance to the screen from the back wall. The three surrounds are simply mounted on L-brackets and screwed to wall facing up. I'll post more pix soon.

Thanks for your comments

Victor

The ceiling and the screen wall are all painted flat black background to minimize reflection.

The painted wall makes it easy when my kids do something like this



Victor

Equipment and costs
Projector: Sharp A10x- open box $800
DVD players: Sony 400 disc Cx985v open box holiday return at CC - $175
Toshiba 6 disc from craigslist $25.00
Cyberhome DVD recorder- Xmas gift $0
Samsung T151 OTA HD receiver - giveway $0
Carver TFM15 for transducers $150
Aura transducers $0 remnants
Pioneer 6.1 D810S receiver $200
Yamaha dual 6" powered sub giveway $0
DIY Audio Concepts Speaker system from college system $700

Total costs= $2050

Furniture from Levitz closeout- $300
Rack and tables from Target $150
Artwork $350 (told you it wasn't cheap)

Victor

I work at a high end picture framing company in SF. I designed the layout and they did the rest.

Victor

Update: I removed my Carver TFM-15 amp which was powering my (4) aura bass shakers and replaced it with an old Kenwood a/v receiver sitting in my brother's closet. Initially, I plugged the inputs into CD, thinking now that I had more gain control (aka volume) I could get better responsiveness from the shakers. Yes, there was some but not much more, even when I turned the volume so high I practically shorted the receiver and its goes into protection mode.

Then I changed inputs and plugged the rca jacks into the PHONO input. WOW!! A Huge difference in response! I'm barely above minimum volume and already these shakers are movin!

If you are going down this route and using a stereo receiver to power your shakers, try using the PHONO input and see if the responsiveness of the shakers are better than using TAPE or CD. You'll be quite surprised as I was!

Victor

Some have asked: "Where are the surrounds?"



Well, here they are. They are mounted on L-brackets and pointed up. The lucky part was that the subwoofer was the same thickness, so I was able to hide it back there also.

I have also added another update to my system. My friend was unloading his old tower speakers, of which they were the same Audio Concepts design as the rest of my speaker system, to me for free. I was also having the problem that my center was a little too low soooo-

I killed two birds with one stone and used the main towers as my new left and right, kept the original center but augmented it with another satellite speaker not being used and mounted above the screen. Now I already know about the don'ts of having 2 centers in a ht system, but I've broken enough "established" laws of ht so why stop now

Victor

A new addition to my theater, a diy backlit cardboard Darth Vader with a motion-activated voice box. Cost my wife $10 at the local thrift store and practically nothing for putting it together.

At day


At night

The usual Vader lines from EP4-6 like:

"Release your anger..."
"You are not a jedi yet"
"Impresive, most impressive"

lines like that

Victor

The entrance is sort of a mini lobby with two doors on either side: One to the theater, the other to the my son's room.



Victor

Steve,

It's actually done. The pj is a 800x600 model with really cool features like remote zoom and focus.

Now that I've fired a few movies under the stars I'm seriously considering upgrading to 5.1, if I get one cheap enough

Victor

The bass add fullness to the sound. You'd be very surprised just how much better a sub, even my puny 6" sony htib orphan powered by a 45 sub amp from partsexpress, will do to any outdoor system. My nearest neighbor is about 50' away and he can't hear it the reference volume we set it at, which isn't very loud to begin with.

No need to crank the bass, just balance it with the rest of the system and you're all set.

The XGA should be a great pj for outdoor use. Warning: If you set it up now and your outdoors are very warm at night, don't be surprised enjoying it as much (if not more) as your indoor (when its done) ht.

Its a terrific experience watching a movie outdoors. Enjoy!!

Check out the other setups at backyardtheater and see which app might work for you. You don't need to spend a lot to get a lot.

Victor

The screen color was based on research on diy screens forum. As to the walls, they are a personal preference and I wanted a room color scheme that integrated with the rest of the house in terms of color and decor.

Victor

Here is my latest addition to my theater. Framers refer to this as a sandwich frame. It is primarily 2 pieces of large plexi with screws all around to secure the pcs together. Another 2 small pieces of plexi is used on the back to hold up the frame to the wall. To frame a poster, simply tape the corners of the back of each poster and center on the rear plexi. Then place the front plexi and screw in place.

It cost me about $150 dollars at my local plexi fabricator to make.



I like that it has a very thin profile, so it clears the door knob when opening or closing. Also, at a future point I can backlight this poster quite easily.

Victor

This is the end of this theater. Stay tuned for its ht makeover conversion which will hopefully be completed by Thanksgiving 2008 or earlier.

Thanks for looking.

Victor