New Space

I have floored off the top 9' of my 20' high family room to create a new enclosed HT/media room. The old lower space was 7500Cf with large openings to even larger spaces and as such, it was impossible to get good HT effects. I have wanted a dedicated AV room for several years now and the large price tag and complications associated with building an entirely new second floor addition had prevented me from moving ahead with the project. Then my original idea for this became the solution. I sacrificed a very dramatic 20' high room but the net gain in livable space and my desire for the HT play room made it a no brainer. The project started three weeks ago and will be finished on Wednesday of this week. My contractor neighbor was a great help but it was really a pretty simple project as all we had to do was build a floor, a little sheet rock, some electrical and instant HT room.

I have purchased some new equipment and will be installing quite a few GIK Acoustics absorption panels and tri traps to make the room sound as good as it can. Below are a few photos of the new space and a crude drawing I created for the GIK guys. The drawing has some details but in addition to the things mentioned there, I will have a projector on the back wall and a ceiling mounted screen that will drop in front of the plasma for movies. I will have light control in the room (heavy drapes and shades for the windows) but I wanted to be able to enjoy the room in the light as well. I have purchased a U shaped sectional as the primary furniture in the room. I also ordered two large bean bag chairs as movable extra seats. Its has really been fun putting this together but the fun will really start when I setup the room and tweak the system. I'll add pics as the room progresses.
Crude drawing of room:

Through the double, doors back wall:

Back wall with Axiom QS8 SB speaker:

Front Wall (Mains, subs?, PJ and Plasma):

Room will be carpeted. Floor has two layers of Ply sheeting and was insulated.
Cables to primary and backup locations were run under floor. It will be great to have a space to do with as I see fit with no or few asthetic compromises.

Here are some pics of the new room minus furniture. I can’t believe the difference with an enclosed space. Using the Velo SMS-1 and the ARO EQ features of the Fathom subs, I get a fairly flat FR from 20Hz to 100Hz. Above that seems a little lumpy so the room treatments are definitely necessary. The biggest difference is the max volume. Before with basically the same equipment, I could run movies at -10 to -15 on my SSP and it was loud but sounded good. Now, I get the same volume at -20 to -25. I’m sure the enclosed space is the primary reason for this. I also added to dedicated 20 amp circuits to the new room so maybe I was power limited before … I dunno.

In any case, the bass is scary good. I thought I had heard powerful bass before but this is a whole new ball game. In the old room the subs were on slabs/carpet and the room was very open. Now, the floors are carpet over wood (2nd story) and the space is enclosed. Playing WOTW chapter 5 (at -18) was a whole new experience. Installing subdudes today to see if I can tame it down just a bit.

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the room and the whole project was done in less than a month. Re the seating, I'm getting a sectional couch and a couple of bean bag chairs. Also, a sofa table behind the sectional with a couple of lamps and short bar stools under for more non-movie seats. The room is multi purpose so the windows stay. The heavy curtains my fiancé bought do a good job of blocking light. The room isn't completely dark but good enough for my uses at least for now.

The GIK acoustic panels are supposed to arrive this week and I'm really looking forward experimenting with those.

Here is the room with the GIK panels hung and sectional couch in place. I tried the sub dudes but the Fathoms are too heavy in the back and were listing to stern by quite a bit. I had to use some high density foam to level them out and in the end, just removed them. Anyone want a couple of sub dudes cheap? The tweaking and adjusting are just beginning but the advantages of an enclosed, treated space are very apparent.

Outside looking in


Back wall


Front with Plasma


Front in PJ mode


Left side wall and double door entry

Hi John,

I just hand tied the wires and measured the distance from the panel; bottom to the stretched wire. 1/4" or less difference only a carpenter's eye would notice. The only graphs I have done are with my Velo SMS-1 sub equalizer. It only goes up to 200Hz so not enough info to tell the whole story although the 4 stacked bass traps in the front corners of my room worked very well at flattening out the native low frequencies. I think the irregular shape of my room helps with room nodes. BTW, nice job on your room, looks great and I'm sure sounds great too.

Rob

Here is a room FR graph taken from the LP with my Velodyne SMS-1. I do not have a pre treatment graph picture but the treatments definitely improved the rooms FR.

As you who create these dedicated spaces know, we are never "done" but I am at a pause and evaluate stage. My SO has done a bit of decorating and I think the room the room looks pretty good if a little boring (lack of color?). The problems with the room are the AV cabinet wiring is a mess and I will tackle that when (and if) my new pre/pro ever ships. There is an audible hiss from the speakers at higher volume levels and the source of this needs to be tracked down. I had two 20 amp circuits added to the existing 15 amp in the room. It may be a grounding problem with these, or just the wiring mess behind the cabinet. All the in-wall/floor HT wire runs were separated from the electrical so I know that isn't the problem.

I have a box (three) of the acoustic panels left over and am considering where to put them or if they are even needed. Due to the position of the sectional the rear speakers (Revel F32 floor standers) are poorly positioned. I may need to go with side wall in-wall or on-wall for the surrounds. Despite this, the room sounds really good but any suggestions here would be apprieciated.

Here are some recent pics.

I have been thinking about replacing my Performa F32 rear speakers with wall mounted surrounds and this week found a dealer with a pair of Embrace’s at very good price, so I sold the F32’s and mounted the Embraces this weekend. The F-32’s (great speakers BTW) were essentially firing into the back of the sectional couch that is the main seating for the HT. This was especially noticeable with multichannel music but even with movies, this placement was not ideal for floor standing speakers. The Embrace’s are one of the very best dipole/bipole speakers and they sound incredible. I also prefer the look of wall mounted surrounds and may add an additional side wall pair for a 7.1 setup in the future.

Based upon my use and the room configuration, this was a very good upgrade to my system.

Nice clean back wall look


At 45 lbs each, they MUST be mounted to studs

There have been quite a few updates since I last posted here. I believe the only remaining components are the Sunfire amp, the Panosonic plasma, the JL F113 subs and the Revel Embrace surrounds. Everything else is new including:

New LCR speakers; Revel Ultima Studio and Voice2

New Source players; Toshiba XA2, Oppo 970H

New Video; Mitsubishi HC4900 projector, Elite Cinetension2 powered screen

All and all very happy with the changes. Here are some pics:



Also repositioned the subs to a mid-wall location.


Getting the Ultima LCR's and the Mits 1080P/powered tensioned screen have greatly improved both the audio and video in the room. Other than cosmetics, I'm running out of things to do.

Thanks, the Revels do get after it. I had a Panny 900U. By comparison and with only one 1080P movie under my belt, the image from the HC4900 is much clearer. Now from my 15 foot vantage point the 106" 1080P image looks comparable to the 58" 720P Panny plasma image (the plasma is right behind the screen).

Thanks Mike (and congrats on the new baby). I too like a multipurpose room and that why this one looks the way it does. It is my play space to do as I want regardless of decorator issues. If you look to the top of this thread, there is an explanation of how/why this was built.

Here are a couple of pics of the new ceiling/floor (room below the HT) down stairs. As you can see, I still have some AV gear in the Entertainment Center but it is now a Family Room once again rather than a wannabe HT:

Thank you Shervin, now I have to get those beige walls painted.

Thank you aham, I ordered them from GIK acoustics.

Recent changes are two new surround speakers (Revel I30 in-walls) and a new 7 (actually 8) channel amp. I decided I was missing something by not having 7.1 and early returns are good. I was going to use two more Embrace surrounds but with the right wall so close to the LP's, I thought the in-walls would work better. The amp is the Axiom A1400-8 digital amp (blue light in the first photo) and it is a beast in terms of power. I have only had a week with this setup but so far I am pleased with the results.

Next up is painting the walls, I'm thinking a Moca (brown) would be good.

This is perfect example of how things happen in our household. Friday evening I suggested to Karen that we paint the HT room. Saturday we go to Home Depot get all the supplies, by 1pm we are starting. By 8pm I am re-installing the surrounds and hooking the system up. By 9:30 we are watching the Eagles Live from Melbourne HD-DVD. Project inception to completion in less and 24hrs. It is amazing what two motivated (if not particularly talented) individuals can do. We used the new Greeguard Freshaire paint with no VOC's so no fumes and quick dry (specifically designed for instant gratification people like us). Great stuff by the way but if you have young kids with sticky fingers on the walls skip it.
The room looks great, I didn't realize how bland those beige walls looked until we had finished painting. Really a much more cozy and warm feel to the room with some darker paint on the walls. Here are some pics:

Flash washes out the color quite a bit



This one shows the true wall color better