***Official SmX Theater Solutions Screen Thread - Page 8

Ok, well thanks then.

BTW the guys from AVScience claim that the speakers can be mounted right up to the back of this screen because its a weave and not like a perforated screen. I would be interested in useful information on that topic.

I thought that I read something that said for best results you should have a minimum of 8 to 12 inches of space between your screen and speakers.

I've heard it depends on your speakers. From the Klipsch Forms I've read that ~4 inches is enough for horn speakers. I've got more then that with my SMX(10") but that is due to the fact that I've got 36" between the screen and the real wall.

This is the recommendation for a microperf and perforated screens to help reduce some of the combfiltering effects. With the CineWeave, you can place your speakers closer to the screen because combfiltering is not apparent due to the arrangement of the weave pattern.

Most people have 2" - 3" between the speaker face to the back of the CineWeave and are very happy with the results. I personally use 5 - 6" from the speaker face to the back of the CineWeave material in my theater due to my speakers being mounted on the wall.

Ruben

How much space would you personally need as a spacer? A couple inches or a couple feet?

This would be a great idea for people with in wall speakers but as for people who need 2 feet or so behind the screen, probably a floor stand, cieling mount or false wall would be best.

Ruben

Right my speakers are in wall. it would be good to have something easy that mounts the screen with variable distance from maybe 1" to 10" or so. i think the bottom needs to be supported to match so maybe it mounts at the 4 corners... maybe some stackable billet aluminum spacers with some wall anchor and something to mate with the screen corners.

i'll have someone machine a set as a prototype if you want to sell them. should be easy

Sandman,

This is very interesting. Just toying with ideas heare. I live in Brooklyn, in a rental so there's no In Wall option. I'd love to hide my speakers so perhaps a set of Paradigm on wall speakers would suit me fine. They need 5 inches from wall to speaker face. Another 3 inches to the screen face is what I guess your company recommends. This puts the screen face 8 inches away from the wall. As it's an old house the walls aren't quite true so if past experience is anything to go by I need 8" on one side and 9 on the other, to square the screen up wrt the projector. How would you recommend I go about mounting this?

I think we came up with a wall mounting solution that puts the screen up to 24" in front of the wall. We will test it and see if we can make it an option for our fixed screens.

Stay tuned!

Ruben

My SMX should be here shortly and I have my wall about 5" from the speakers (similar to Ruben). This should work well.

As Ruben said, with a woven fabric it isn't as critical as with a perfed fabric.

The delivery company is trying to get a hold of you to deliver your screen. You may want to give them a call.

Ruben

Ruben:

Any updates on the solid screen material? Have you chosen a product yet? If so, when it be available? Does AVS have pricing?

Yes we have a solid screen called the "CineMatte Plus" that is incredibly nice. It has a gain between 1.3 - 1.4 (still waiting on final tests to come back on gain for exact #s). It is extremely uniform and neutral in color and has a wide 160 degree viewing cone with only a .02 drop in gain. I would have to say it is very comparable to the Studiotek 130 as far as gain and color but with a wider viewing cone.

We sent a couple screens out for evaluation to the critics to see how they fair and I will have more details next week.

Sim2 already evaluated the CineWeave HD and said it was the best AT screen they tested with their projectors to date. They did the evaluation with our 120" wide 2.35 40' radius PROCURV screen. They are going to start recommending the CineWeave HD as an AT solution to their customers looking for an AT screen.

Apologies for taking so long to develop a soild screen solution but there is allot of R&D involved in creating a top notch solid screen to fill the bill. I want everyone to rave about the "CineMatte Plus" like they do about the CineWeave so I had to make sure I came to the table with a solid screen that is comparable in quality like the CineWeave HD.

As soon as I get more updates I will upadate this thread.

Ruben

Any info about the automated masking system that you talked about when the Pro Line frames first came out that one could purchase later to add onto a ProLine frame?

Hi,

I send prices request by email to Jason and Richard but i havent got any answers. Maybe my request was bad formulated !

Do you shipping to France ?


Philippe

It's done!


Here are some screen shots (124.5" wide 2.35:1):

Jason:

Very nice....did you do some repainting too...with the lights dimmed, it's hard to tell? As someone who recently jumped to scope and is now thinking of going in-walls and AT screen...

Jason (or anyone) when you went the AT route and mounted behind the screen...was it that noticable of a leap in sound imaging and location? Was it something that added to the immersive feel? I wouldn't have thought that of scope...but was totally won over when I went that route. Going AT and speaker relocated seems like the next natural leap. My wife is agast about cutting large holes in our dedicated room (even though they can be reversed without a problem. I just need to know it's a fight, worth fighting.

Ron

No I actually did this on the easy side...I simply framed out a wall in front of my old screen/speaker wall (www.avscience.com/showroom.html). I took out the old screen, raised the center to mid screen, ditched the huge SVS subs and went with a much smaller, thinnner model. I wrapped the wall in black fabric so it is "hollow", and did the trim work. The color and everything is the same (it is a bad picture though...I am going to take better ones when I have some time).

To me the sound is similar in quality (no degradation with the SMX), but it is a bit weird to readjust to having the sound behind it now... I have to say it is very cool though, so I think once I get adjusted to it I will be happy I did. The main reason for the AT in my case was it was a necessity to accomplish a much bigger screen (main goal I had).

No regrets so far.

Incredible job Jason!

If one is seriously considering a dedicated theater (when the situation permits) they shouldn't settle for less than an audio transparent scope screen.

A scope screen is what that true cinematic experience is all about, once you add the speakers behind the screen, it gets no better. I think most people that upgraded from a solid 16:9 screen to an acoustically transparent scope screen will agree.

Ruben

We are currently shipping complete masking systems (screen included). As soon as the adaptable masking systems become available, we will update this thread and the SmX product page with the full details.

If you are in immediate need for an adaptable masking system for your PROLINE, please contact me and I am sure we can accomodate your needs.

Thanks
Ruben

i just wanted to publicly thank Ruben for all his help with my screen choice

i began research on my screen a couple years ago about the time he began offering the screen material at great prices...all the DIY'ers here where raving about a material they could incorporate into their homemade frame

i was hesitant to try and build a frame myself, so i was thrilled to find out SMX began offering a frame option...i went with an acoustically transparent 51" x 120" screen to be used in my Constant Height (2:35) setup

Ruben was always there to answer questions whenever i called...in fact, i dont think i ever called when he didnt answer the phone personally

my buddy and i assembled the screen when it arrived, the online directions where in full color and easy to follow...the screen literally just hangs on the wall like a big picture frame

the screen material is very tough and the frame is really high quality...the felt he uses looks amazing and does a great job of absorbing overscan if needed...i have a JVC RS1 projector (that Ruben approved of when i asked his opinion) that looks really great....the colors are lifelike, blacks black and its super bright

i have three Triad inwall Silver speakers directly behind the screen...i have never owned a nice 7.1 inwall system like Triad, but the sounds is stellar...to my ears the screen just disappears

i'm pretty much just a lurker here on the AVS, i dont know Ruben personally but i'm just a HT fan that wanted the best bang for the buck

i know his product may not work for everyone...but IMHO, i dont think you can go wrong with a SMX screen

FWIW,

brad

Ruben,

Any real world pics of the the masking system in action?

Hi Tukkis,

Yes, we are doing professional product shots and a video as well on them. We will have them up on the site shortly. I will also post them in here once they are in my hands. Hopefully should be this week.

Ruben

So can I assume that placing inwall speakers directly behind the screen mounted to the wall would not be a good idea (acoustically)?

You want to give yourself at least 2" of space between the speaker baffle and the back of the screen. The screen material with our ProLine frame system sits about 7/8" off the wall now. So you want another inch (at least) spaced out between the screen and the inwall speaker. You are going to want to use dark (non reflective) speakers behind the CineWeave screen if placing that close. Using a back backing with that distance may be a good choice as well.

An AVS member named Calv1n used inwall speakers with and SmX screen and I don't think he spaced the screen away from the speakers. You may want to contact him and ask him how he feels about the end result. His construction thread is here...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=611

I will shoot him a PM and ask him to post his feedback here.

Ruben

i used three inwall Triad Silver's directly behind the ProLine frame

my walls are painted chocolate brown, and the speakers are black (i left the grills off)

i did not use any black backing fabric and you cant see them at all

the speakers continue to break in and i cant believe my ears...they sound great

i couldnt be happier with my screen

HTH

brad

Hi all,

Ruben is correct I didn't leave any space between the in-wall other then an inch or so that is the frame width itself. I have the screen mounted directly on the bracket in front of my three 8" in-walls.

(Click to enlarge photos)



I have a professional acoustic engineer coming to calibrate the room and I should have some actual measurements when that happens but I'm putting up an additional 6 acoustic panels so that will be a few weeks away. I don't have the hard data to back it up but I can tell you that with myself and several other people in the room we have tested it to see if we could hear this "comb filtering" and none of us could. (I played regular SD, then HD then CD's all with out the screen and then all with the screen in place - I couldn't hear a difference at all nor could the others).

Ruben is correct about the close mounting though as far as getting a black out cloth when you mount that close you will likely see what ever is behind if it has any reflective qualities at all. In my case I had to remove the speaker grills as you could catch the metallic reflections and the speakers themselves are dark behind the grills so it is about 99% effective. Once in a while on the center speaker I can see a minor reflection on the tweeter but I have to have my head in the exact spot to see it and if I move even a 1/2 inch you can't see it again ( I may just put up a black out cloth in front of the tweeter itself rather the whole screen as it is just the one spot and only in a very specific position).
This is the closest photo I have of the screen in place and you can see it looks fine (I'd say perfect)



Over all I'm extremely pleased with the combination and I've had over 200 people through just the basement HT alone and not one person has made a comment that would tell me there are any sound or picture issues (and believe I was listening if there was an issue I'd be fixing it).

I think even if my acoustic engineer's data comes back showing comb filtering I still won't change my mounting if it doesn't bother me with out proof I can't see how it will with proof

I'll try to get a photo up showing the mounting better to show that it is flush with the wall (I don't have any on photo bucket right now to post and I'm not back home for a couple of days)

If you have any specific questions for me please let me know here or on my own thread and I'll be happy to answer them.

Cheers
Calvin

Since people are talking about the potential for comb filtering and speaker mounting behind SMX screens, I thought I'd share my experience.

I've got 3 Triad In-Wall Gold Monitors (with highly-regarded Scan-Speak Revelator tweeters that supposedly go out to 40KHz -- something maybe my dog can hear) mounted behind my SMX screen, so I was very interested and concerned about the acoustic properties of the screen.

Before installing the speakers in the wall and before putting my screen kit together, I tried a little experiment that you might try. Take the 1 foot square sample of SMX weave material that comes with the kit, and hold it in front of a speaker while it's playing some music. Listen to the character of the sound as you move the screen material from right up against the front of the speaker, to out about a foot from the front.

If you move the screen material rapidly forwards and backwards, you can hear a "phasing" sound that affects the timbre of the sound. This is comb filtering caused by sound bouncing back and forth between the screen material and the front of your speaker. It's not terribly noticable, but it's definitely audible. Placing the screen material closer to the speaker seems to affect the frequency response more.

Based on this crude experiment, I decided that it would be prudent not to mount the screen too close to my speakers. My LCR speakers are mounted in-wall with their fronts protruding 1 inch into the room, surrounded with 1-inch Insulshield fiberglass acoustic treatment (of the entire front wall), so that the speaker fronts are actually flush with the fiberglass. I chose not to use Triad speaker mesh metal grills.

I built a screenwall out of T-slot extruded aluminum framing material, which sits about 9-12 inches in front of the Insulshield-covered front wall and speakers. The metal cleat that comes with the SMX screen framing kit is bolted to the screemwall frame, so I was able to hang the SMX frame on the front of the screenwall. The resulting distance from the screen material to my front speakers is thus about a foot.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results. I did lots of critical listening to the speakers mounted in-wall before putting up the screenwall and SMX screen, and notice no difference with the sound passing thru the screen.

- Dave

Ruben,

What's the word on the electric roll up screens?

What about hanging the screen from the ceiling? Is that possible? I will have a mostly-normal, but dark, room (no fancy theater-look for me), but need to set the speakers away from the wall a bit, and put the screen in front of them.

What about a motorized screen? Any plans for that?

Hi pocoloco,

We are not manufacturing them yet due to the lack of demand for them at SmX. Once we see more requests come in for motorized screens, we may begin production.

I will update this thread when that day comes.

Thanks
Ruben