My Journey to find the "perfect" speaker... - Page 103

You mean to say you have not put them on Youtube yet to show them in all their glory?
You slacker

Cheers
DT

I'm working on geting onto the next episode of MTV Cribs. But instead of having a half dozen exotic sports cars parked out front, I'll just have to have the Studio2's sitting in the driveway.

Hey QueueCumber,

Did you check out Tim's "Acoustic Cloud" thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post14260925

I daresay, an acoustic cloud in your room would be a whole lot less *visual* than the absorption/diffusion treatments you have there now. Using Tim's RPG BAD Panels, you get absorption and diffusion without the "stalactite" look:
http://www.rpginc.com/products/badpanel/index.htm

Of course, if you *like* the pink stalactite look...


Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Craig

I like it. It matches his speakers. All looks very otherworldly.

It is actually much more red than it looks.

Believe me, if Rives felt they could achieve the same with an acoustic cloud than they would of. They spent considerable time laying out the room.

I only know Jeff via here. I just take the time to research and know about someone's system before commenting on what they should do differently. I think that is a bit too presumptuous.

So Rives Audio did this room, interesting...

No, they are closer to you. I believe they are in Iowa? but I am not positive.

http://www.rivesaudio.com/

http://www.rivesaudio.com/home/home.html

The "stalactites" are mostly diffusors, not absorber/diffusors. Though, those other panels up there around the "skylines" are BAD panels which are used for reflection points on the ceiling.

I didn't have much of a choice with the ceiling. BAD panels alone are too absorptive for the entire ceiling, though they are great for 1st order reflection points. In any case, I couldn't do something like an acoustic cloud. My ceiling was built right on the joists of the basement ceiling in order to get as much height in the room as possible.

If I had my way, I would have done coffers with some BAD panels in key reflection areas, but I had to work with the space I had. The most height I could get in the room was 9 feet, and that was by putting drywall right on the joists... Rives was interested in preserving room volume, which is why the symmetry of the space was sacrificed as well (one side has a larger soffit because of a metal support beam). I actually describe a lot of the reasons why things were done a certain way in my HT Build thread.


It is New London Burgundy. I apologize for my poor picture taking skills. My wife picked the color; she is a designer. I deferred my choice of "black" to her choice of "burgundy." It involved her in the process and she has a degree in graphic design from Parsons.

The general color tone of the room is actually a lot darker with how the lighting is set up, but in those pictures the flash on the camera is changing the look and feel.

Combine the lighting in these two photos and you get closer to the character of the room:





I'm not a photographer by any means though...

For instance, though the "stalactites" look like a different color than the ceiling on the photo you posted, in person they are the same exact color. I had them matched exactly. It is a testament to how little I know about taking pictures...

This photo shows that a little better...



Then of course, it gets darker as I dim the lights using the Lutron Grafik Eye as well.

Thanks. I had to make a lot of compromises. Ones I didn't want to make.

I would do A LOT of things differently if I could go back in time, such as optimizing the room for 2.35:1. Heck, I would even have shopped for a house differently if I knew then what I know now. When I bought this new house, I didn't even consider doing a home theater, it sort of progressed out of my desire to get back to my high school days when I had a JBL/Carver system in my bedroom. I would have bought a house with much higher basement ceilings, or a room upstairs that I could have used for a home theater.

This current room was optimized for two channel. The HT part was an afterthought that took on a life of its own as time has gone on. If I had designed this room for multichannel 2.35:1 HT from the start, it would be a different beast. Ideally, my next home would have space for a decent sized two channel setup, and a very very decent sized HT with 2.35:1 and reclining theater seating.

I can say that this room is livable, even for a perfectionist. I just had to resign myself to the HDTV 16:9 ratio I originally chose because I didn't know that movies were another ratio, or that projectors could display in that other ratio. Live and learn... I'm not unhappy with how things turned out though, I just would do it differently because my understanding of my own HT needs have changed as I became more edumacated.

Que
It's still a gorgeous room, even with the compromises you mentioned. Wish I had the space, I'm doing it all in a combined 2-channel/HT in the family room.
Mark

Thanks.

Sounds familiar.

I feel very fortunate to have this space and to be able to do everything I have done to it already. I do think for the money paid to build the room itself, I should have done the Rives Level 3 instead of Level 2. Penny wise, pound foolish... My advice to anyone who is going to do something dedicated at some point is not to try and do things the cheap way, it always ends up being more expensive in the long run!

Maybe we can arrange for Que to loan you his Lotus and me to loan you my Aston Martin -- total pimp job.

You are my hero. Aston Martin is my dream car. But I had to chose one love over the other, and the sound system won.

Which model do you have?

I envy those of you have space in your house to create a dedicate music/HT room...
I was about to buy a 4,000 sq. ft. house in Houston last yr w/ a spare family room upstair for music/HT..
What I ended up doing was moving back to bay area..bought a house for twice the price and half the space..
It's a really struggle to balance the acoustic treatment for music/HT and not effect the primary function of the living room..
The more I thought about it, the more I find Tim's approach & solution more impressive...

-Paul

Yeah, I certainly never thought I would treat this room. Part of it was wishful thinking that I would not live here long enough to want to do it and the other part was that there seemed to be no unobtrusive way to do it. Never thought to look up for the answer.

It is a beautiful room and I'm sure it sounds excellent. Once you get your Denon pre/pro and run Audyssey, you'll probably no longer regret not getting the Rives Level 3. Check out the "Official" Audyssey thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=795421
If a standard MultEQ XT calibration isn't sufficient, you can always get a "Pro" calibration.

The burgundy color theme is excellent for an HT environment. (The photo I linked did make it look pink. ) I have a burgundy color scheme in my room as well, and I too involved my wife, (who owns a home decor shop) in the design process. She hand-made the burgundy velvet drapes that cover the front wall acoustic treatments, and she helped me cover the side wall panels in matching burgundy GOM. The carpet is a dark brown and the ceiling is a dropped acoustical ceiling with black tiles. When the lights go out, the burgundy drapes and panels disappear and the front of the room becomes a "black hole" with the image suspended in in it.

BTW, is your screen acoustically transparent? If so, you want it down when you run Audyssey as it will compensate for any HF losses through the screen. It worked very well with my SeymourAV AT screen.

Craig

I get the same black hole behind my screen as well because of the color choice.



(More of my superior photography skills at work - notice the slight lean to the screen in two dimensions - I believe Eisenstein would call that visual conflict - very artistic... Definitely superior to a gorilla's photography skills, though perhaps not a well trained chimp!)

I do have a Stewartscreen acoustically transparent screen. I am going to do measurements with it up and down to see how much of a difference it makes. Then I will try Audyssey measurements with it up and down and see which sacrifices the least in response and then base how I EQ on that. If the screen being down has a negligible effect on the sound (which I have heard about the Stewartscreen AT screens), then I will likely do all of the EQing with the screen up. If at some point Blu-Ray becomes more productive with its video concert output, I'll switch it around.

I would put the newly painted R logo as my avatar to get those purist blood boiling
man I have to say I have seen anything this beautiful in a long time, well I'm lying there are tons of gorgeous lady in the NY these days, I'm falling love very other 5 minutes rivaling my audio hobby( Hmm I wonder what hobby is more expensive )! But never the less I'm loving the paint job.





DJoel

Women take years off your life! They incur a much greater cost to your life expectancy than HT...

Meh!.. It might just explain why I'm prematurely grey

Djoel