Jamis' theater thread! - Page 22

I re-ran the Audessy calibration on my receiver and am still tweaking. The biggest thing I noticed is that the bass seems more powerful and the high end is also more pronounced (almost harsh at times). Last time, I turned the sub up a few db after the calibration but this time I might even turn it down a touch more.

I'll probably get an SPL meter this week and see how the graphs look.

I picked up an SPL meter at radio shack today and started playing around.

I can't get over how much more pronounced the bass is after treating the front wall. Not in a boomy way, just as if the levels were set too high. Come to find out, using the SPL meter I found that the receiver had set the sub about 10db higher than the main speakers. I turned the sub down on the receiver as low as it will go without turning the sub off and it's much better (about 4-5db higher than the mains).

When I get a chance to take the screen down again, I will turn the gain down on the sub, remeasure, and adjust to receiver's sub volume to get it closer to the mains.

I was going to try the Room EQ Wizard software, but come to find out that I need a few extra cables and connectors. They also don't recommend using the mic input and that's all I have on my laptop (no line level inputs).

No sub floor... just a good quality pad with carpet directly over the concrete. I didn't want to sacrifice ceiling height and all my moisture issues had been resolved.

On a related note, we had a movie night last night with our tallest guest to date (~6'6") and all the clearances were just right... even on the riser.

the front of the theater is about 7'6 and the rest of the basement is about 7'4 with soffits at 6'8

I'm surprised at the low WAF in your case. Everyone who has seen my theater in person (male, female, younger, older) for the first time usually comments on how they like the bar seating. It's great for parties and especially if we want to watch TV or a movie while eating dinner. Perfect overflow seating.

We had originally concidered blocking off the back of the theater with double doors and doing more like what you describe... but in the end we wanted a slightly more open space.

One alternate solution I have seen on the forum is a lower bar in the third row (higher riser though) with comfy office chairs. In fact, it's where I stole the idea for the bar task lighting.

That was one of the few things I had overlooked until it was too late. The joist bay above the bar has plumbing/sewage pipes and there wasn't enough clearance to add electrical fixtures in a good way. This means that there is no lighting directly over the bar.

The back of our theater is on a separate zone from the main part of the theater so we also can keep those lights up and not disturb the primary seating positions while the lights in the main theater area are all the way down. They just don't offer the bar much direct lighting.

Keg update!!!

Damn those Europeans and their metric system. My keg of Harp kicked unexpectedly this weekend. I blame the fact that most imports from across the pond are in 50L kegs which work out to 13.2 gallons. Given that things are always bigger in the U.S., our kegs weigh in a 15.5 gallons. Unfortunately, the prices are still about the same.

Anyhoo... I have a metric 1/2 barrel of Smithwick's arriving this week (and a tap handle).

Actually... I'm surprised we go through them as fast as we do being just my wife and I most of the time. Sure, we have gatherings for movies and RockBand... in general it takes us about 2-2.5 months to finish a 1/2 barrel. Never had an issue with it going bad or tasting off towards the end since we keep the CO2 at a good level (~12-14PSI)

Cleaned the lines and coupler tonight in preparation for Wednesday.

Its my way of saying that it's always fresh and that we must drink too much beer.... that is all.

A couple quick updates:

1. Replacement keg (Smithwick's) has been tapped.

2. Received a replacement lamp for the Panasonic AE3000 yesterday and installed it. I packed the original bulb away for use as a backup (850 hours). I was surprised how large the bulb and housing were... it was pretty beefy. The replacement process was quite painless and was about a five minute job.

I actually didn't notice that big of a difference between the old and the new. I was expecting to, but it really wasn't much dimmer apparently.

Since we use the HT for 95% of our TV viewing (and Rock Band marathons), the hours really add up. That was 850 hours since Nov 1 (just about 6 months). At the rate we use the theater, we come close to the 2000 hour lifespan within a year (ie: one bulb a year).

I mainly got the new lamp so I could have a backup lamp on hand should one die prematurely. The recommendation I was following basically says that you should get a replacement lamp soon after the original lamp passes it's warranty (in my case 90 days or 200 hours). Since the new lamp has the same warranty, you should put it in the projector as soon as you get it and keep the original as the backup. You don't want to keep a new lamp on the shelf since it is most likely to die prematurely within the first 200 hours and you want to be able to take advantage of your warranty (which goes kaput after 90 days).

Update!

I've finally pulled the trigger on a HTPC. The parts will be arriving this week and I hope to assemble it this weekend. I will post details and pics of the build.

Specs:

GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H - GeForce 9400 HDMI Motherboard
Intel Pentium 2.7GHz dual core CPU
4GB RAM
500GB hard drive (most of my storage is on a NAS anyway)
DVD +/-R drive (don't plan on playing blu ray from the PC)
Silverstone LC17B case (with rack mount ears)
Microsoft Entertainment Desktop 7000 bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Windows 7 RC1

Right now, the PS3 does a good job on bluray playback and I don't need the capability in the PC. I will probably get a standalone player later this year as well.

I'm also trying to keep costs down on this build so I didn't go all out in a few other areas as well (CPU, video card, bluray, etc). I figured that I would start off with a good system for multimedia files (music, video), internet streaming (hulu, netflix), and basic gaming. If I needed more juice down the road, I could upgrade those components.

The components were just over $625 with shipping and replacing the DVD with a bluray drive would have added another $75-80 (more than 10% of the total). Since I was splurging a bit on the case and keyboard already, I decided to go easy in a few of the other areas that I would be more likely to upgrade sooner.

HTPC has been built!

Still waiting on the keyboard/mouse and the rackmount ears before I can put it in the rack. More pics when it is in it's final resting place.

The build went remarkably easy. This was my first home built PC in 6+ years and it's only gotten easier over the years. I even got those stupid HD LED, power LED, power switch and reset switch wires right the first time!

Windows 7 installed beautifully and seems pretty slick so far.

Considering I am using the on board video (granted, it's halfway decent), I'd think of this as softcore A/V porn at best.