Calvin's Games & HT construction thread - Page 7

Brendin,

Sounds like you were doing some shopping Hope you get your minor PJ issues worked out and start enjoying your new toys.

I have 4 sconces in the basement HT for lighting. They will be 100 watt lights on a dimmer and should hopefully be all I need down there. I don't have any photos of them so I'll have to wait till they are installed before I can show them.

Cheers

More pics.

Basement HT Back wall





Fireplace downstairs



Storage area where I think I'll be putting in some racks to house my movie and games collection. This is at the foot of the stairs when you descend from the main floor, its around 6' x 6'.



Door for the AV room beside the screen.

Brendin,

In that first photo showing the back wall the "soffit" is actually a section of the ducting. It is very low around 74" I will have space for a small cabinet and popcorn machine there but little else.

Here is a shot of that section with out the drywall.



The ducting run on the opposite side of the room is around 92" off the floor and total ceiling height is 104" where no ducting is present.

A couple more photos the wife just sent me. Gives a better view of the basement HT area screen wall and AV room.






Final dimensions are 20' long - power plug in floor at 16' back from screen wall.
Back wall is 185" wide and 150" wide where ducting boxes out as discussed above.
Not as big as I had hoped I ended up losing alot of space with insulation, drywall and various other things done in the basement. These are the final numbers I have to work with though so I'll have to make it work.

Update:

Finally received confirmation from my Broker that my chairs will be in Edmonton November 30th. I hope to move a couple into my "testing" room Dec 1st or 2nd and I'll have a few photos and my thoughts on them once I get a chance to test them out.
The 8 chairs are 1620 lbs according to the shipping manifest.
Think I'll be taking the backs off them so I can move them around in 2 pieces so I don't wreck my back going up and down the stairs.

I can only move a love seat into my testing room and the rest have to go into storage at a friends house in his basement until I move into the new home so I'll be lugging these things up and down a few stairs a couple of times.

I'm pretty excited to be finally getting them (on my B-day no less if they come on the 1st so it will be my B-day present to myself )

Thanks for stopping by nyprimus4 I'm getting anxious to see the final product as well but its still going to be a few months I'm thinking.

My wife will be doing a walk through tomorrow and I'll be doing one on Dec 2nd so hopefully I'll have some new photos showing everything coming together soon.

Cheers

Hello javry thanks for stopping by. I think I'll have possession of the home either the end of January or the end of March. Once I'm in the house I have to build and finish off the riser, build the screen, work with my A/V installer to finish off the acoustic treatments in the basement and also select and install new displays in the main floor and bonus room HT's.

I hope to have it all done by end of March or April if everything goes according to plan.(depends heavily on when the builder is actually done and the house belongs to me )

Sadly my wife didn't take any photos yesterday she said the mudding and taping crews were in the house working and she didn't want them to stop so she didn't do the walk through. (For insurance reasons when the owners enter the home the trades stop working and leave and usually for the day even if the owners just come in for a 30 minute walk through).

I'll keep the updates coming until its completed.

Cheers

Thanks Javry. Hoping it all starts coming together soon

Hi Wakefield103,

Good eye spotting those issues. I mentioned that cut out to my installer. The issue they had was they gave the wrong drawing to the installation tech and he went with my initial drawing from long ago that was showing a center channel (which I had originally planned) instead of the the 3 identical speakers I've planned for now. They were trying to get in and put in the last bracket before the drywall crews but were to late. The 3 identical speakers will be installed after the fact now (even the 2 cut outs that are there are wrong the install tech didn't bother to read the bracket installation instructions in the boxes and he "butted" them up against the studs and they were supposed to leave a 2" space between the edge and the stud for proper install.

Regarding the subs they didn't ask for them or the cut outs so I guess they will be fitting them and doing any touch ups after the fact. They are not like the proficient shown in the main floor by the fireplace (that is the back box with out speaker). The Thors will attach directly to the stud and then have the entire speaker exposed with no drywall cover in the front surface area.
The studs are 16" centers (I'm pretty sure) for the front screen wall. I do have 24" on the exterior walls though through out the home. The screen wall is a second wall I had built specifically to house the speakers and it was to be built on 16" centers (Which now that you've mentioned it I'll have to confirm on saturday as I'm not 100% sure )

There is still some work to be done that is for sure.

Worse case scenario is I have to take off the drywall and redo the screen wall which I may have to do anyways as they have messed up the bracket installation.

On a side note my chairs have landed in Edmonton the carrier phoned me today and confirmed they will be dropping them off Dec 1st in the afternoon I'm excited to finally be getting them.

Cheers
Calvin

Wakfield,

I hope it doesn't come to that as well but as it is with most things there are very few things that can't be fixed by time and money. I would rather spend some more time and money in this case then live with things done poorly but I'm sure I can work something out with the AV company that will work for me.

I choose the Earthquake thors after doing some research on them and deciding that they were a better bang for my buck then going with the Proficient and the back boxes like I've done in the main level HT. I'm interested to see how they will compare honestly one on one (I'll have my AV installer at the house with thousands of dollars of calibration audio equipment and I'm also blessed enough to get their top Acoustical Engineer to be doing my house personally so these are answers I hope to actually get )

Regarding the definitive IWsub 10/10 didn't even look at them but I wouldn't be surprized if they are very similar to the Thors (it seems to be the way of the industry where when something works they often quickly get similar products into the market place from competitors.)

I did take one out of the box when I first received them but that was a while ago and I don't remember enough to answer your questions for certain right now. If you need an answer right away I'm sure Kevin "the sound broker" the fella I bought them off of can answer that for you (he gave me an exceptional price on my components that is why I bought 4 I was only going to get 2). You can PM him here at AVS under "Soundood".

If you can wait I'll be home in a few days and I'll take them out of the box and take a couple photos for you and let you know what I think.

Cheers

Hey Kevin, Thanks for swinging by. I've sent a few people your way via PM since I've started this thread. I certainly will give you a shout next time I'm in Richmond I think I'm heading up the 1st week in January again so perhaps I'll make a day trip down to see your "beast" in WA
Its starting to come together now and of course if your ever in Edmonton give me a shout I can show you the HT's in person.

I'm not sure if you read through the whole thread but I was wondering if you had any thoughts about my plan to put the 2 Thors in the riser ? I asked the question here and then again in the subwoofer forum and have received zero response
Have you ever done this or seen it done just wondering if there is something I should know.

Thanks
Calvin

Vincent,

They will be placed facing up under the chairs so I really will only be worried about the depth of the subs which is under 4" and my overall riser height will either be 11" or a high as 16" depending on how I need to work with the 2 rows of chairs. Once I get the chairs in the basement my plan is to set up the screen and then try several different elevations to see both what works best for screen size for the back row and also what riser height works best and allows for the back row to see the bottom of the screen and over people seated in the front row.
I have outlined my basic planned layout back in post #115 of how I'm hoping to have the subs installed.
This is no doubt one of the areas where I'm really not sure of how it is going to "shake out" until I get into the basement and start playing around to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm hopeful the subs in the riser work out ok, but I've never seen or heard of it been done so its all a learning experience for me
Cheers

Thanks for the b-day wishes getmyrunon

I'm having some issues with the local carrier (Byers Transport) they did not deliver my chairs on Friday the 1st as instructed and have been closed over the weekend
I hope to get them delivered and sorted out tomorrow but pretty unimpressed after setting up friends to come over and help move them etc...
I had talked to the shipping manager several times and they assured me they would load and be delivered on the 1st sadly it just didn't happen.

I hope to have some new photos up of the mudding and taping (still ongoing) and the chairs if they arrive tomorrow.

Cheers
Calvin

Update:


Mudding and Taping is ongoing, here are few shots mid way.













At long last my chairs have arrived !!





More on the chairs in my next post - Have to break up the posts due to size limits on forum.

I just took out 2 chairs to bring down to the testing room and put the rest into storage. Due to the cramped quarters downstairs I just used a left and right to make up one love-seat to try out over the next few weeks while I wait for the house to finish up.
Here is the love-seat set up next to my other Italian leather seat.





They come in 2 pieces which is nice for moving them around but the bottom is still very heavy with the motor and other steel components. Once I had them together I plugged them in and tested out the power recline (each chair has a separate plug). The recline is very smooth and quiet overall I'm quite impressed.

Moving on to the lighted cup-holders.
Under the chairs they have another 12 volt line that runs in a series from chair to chair (I'll have more pictures on this later).

Once I had run the chairs together in a series and plugged them I went through the process of trying to figure out how the light works. The instructions for the chair don't really tell you anything about anything really so I had to figure it out by trial and error.



First off I thought they were by pressure and the drink in the holder would turn it on. I played around with it an the light kept coming on and then off and then I thought maybe there was a small IR sensor that when blocked by something (like my hand in the photo) would make it come on. That didn't quite work all the time either and I finally figured it out when I turned the lights off







There is a small sensor that I was covering with my hand and that is why the cup holders came on I realized later. Once the lights go out they are on all the time (if they are plugged in).

I am having issues with one of the chairs so I'll have to call Kyle later this week and see if I'm doing something wrong as far as set up as the instructions don't really say anything about how to set them up.

I'll have to do a lot of game playing and movie watching in the next couple of weeks before I can make an informed opinion on them but so far I like them

I'm back to work just for a few days but if anyone has any questions or comments let me know
I'll be back soon and I will take more photos and go into more details on these chairs for folks that may have questions (I know I recieved a lot of PM's on these but for the sake of not repeating a lot of PM's please post your questions here on the thread )

Cheers

Felgar,

I can answer a couple of these now and I'll get to the rest once I get back home and can look at the other questions very specifically


I'm quite certain it will hold a larger bottle with no problem (EG: a 1 liter pop bottle would easily fit ) I will get a few different drink containers when I'm home to see what is the largest container it will hold. I'm certain it will hold a large McDonalds cup with no issue




The comfort is pretty good from the few hours I have spent in them so far. They are a firmer seat then I expected but still soft (but not soft enough that you sink into them) and I expect them to soften up a bit with some usage as well. Compared to the Pallisars I've sat in at sears and the brick I'd say these are softer overall then the ones I tried locally. (they are not up to the build standard of the tan chair in the photo though but that is a pretty good higher end Italian leather chair). I'm still quite pleased with them initially they seem like a very good deal for what I paid


I'll have to check into these specifically when I'm back at home in a few days
I'll get back to you on these two items

The power recline is very smooth and much quieter then I expected on these chairs as well which was a nice surprize

Cheers
Calvin