Black Cat Theater (Now going BIG!) - Page 5

Right now I'm trying to decide if we're going to have to lower the chair rail a couple inches. I have a separate top-level thread discussing it. It's almost a good thing BIG was in Ohio, as it gives time to suss this out..,

In other news, Mrs. Morphy and I went to some carpet stores to see what options are out there. This frustrates me to no end as, seeing how so many struggle with carpet selection, we decided on carpet first, and then ordered the fabric to match, but now we're in the same predicament as countless others - ugh!

We found some multi-colored Friezes that matched our fabric selections pretty well. But before bringing home samples, we want to get the ceiling and a wall section done. It should be easier to judge with the correct lighting and a larger FOV to consider. The Bitterman carpet is not ruled out yet, we just want to see if we can find something synthetic that we're also happy with.

Mrs. M. and I are going to watch Hunger Games at the local IMAX theater tonight - woohoo!

I guess we've just been too focused getting stuff done

The important thing is that all the work paid off - the new return is very quiet!

While it completely sucked taking down a perfectly good ceiling, it would've sucked more to always feel like I was on the Starship Enterprise. I'm very happy to have done this.

Still using the same fan - the whisperline 340. Actually, I now have two of them - one pushing air in on the supply line and another pulling air out on the return line. It's still 340 CFM, which is more than enough air exchanges for the size of my theater, but I had to overcome the "head" (static pressure) in the supply line due to the flex duct twisting and turning. I probably wouldn't have needed the extra fan if my supply line was 12".

The noise was from the vents. 340 CFM thru a single 6" duct was a lot of air-velocity (~1700 FPM). This new configuration replaces the single 6" with the equivalent of two 12" ducts, which drops the air-velocity down to ~215 FPM (I think). For details, see my other thread "How do room treatments affect air-turbulence noise?"

Despite their name, the Whisperline fans make a noticeable amount of noise. Mine are located outside the theater, such that they're not audible with the door closed. Still, they're a bit obnoxious outside the theater and so I plan to suspend them from bungie cords, surround them with insulation, and patch the holes in the ceiling where they are (currently, their noise is directly exposed to the space below them)

PM me if you want to come over for a listen...

Yeap, in fact, I think I referenced that very article near the beginning of this thread. Looking at it again, I think it "falls short" in this paragraph:


Because a single 6" supply and a single 6" return will each have too much FPM to be quiet while accommodating the ACH (air change per hour) needs for a 15'x21' room. See http://www.bravoav.com/articles/ht_hvac.pdf.

ACH = (CFM*60)/volume, thus CFM=(ACH*volume)/60. From the article, 6 ACH is recommended. Thus, CFM = (6*volume)/60 = volume/10. My room's volume is ~300 sq ft., so I need 300 CFM. 340 CFM is actually more than I need (6.8 ACH), but that was the next fan-size up gave me...

Remember, we want FPM to be close to 250, to be quiet. FPM = CFM / area (sq-ft). So, area = CFM/FPM = 340/240 = 1.42 sq ft. Note that two 12" ducts = 1.57 sq ft (room to spare), whereas two 8" ducts is only 0.7 sq ft. (not enough!)

BTW, I didn't know any of this until *after* hearing the air-turbulence (Starship Enterprise). I naively thought that a single 6" would be fine since the fan itself is 6" and, to a lesser extent, because Ted's article suggested that 6" was "typical". Oh well, life is full of learning experiences.

Sorry, I dropped a '0' there, it was suppose to be 3000 sq ft. It's just an estimate, as I gain some from the bump-out behind the screen...

This pic doesn't do justice - in person, the carpet is much more matchy-matchy with both the "straw" and "ochre" fabrics. The carpet has a very deep/rich tone, which pulls hard on the stained wood (see light tray).


I decided not to do the Bitterman/Sierrra after all, because it didn't feel soft, there was a potential for a pattern clash, and because it was 100% wool. This carpet is silky/plush, has no pattern, is synthetic, and has a life-time stain-removal guarantee. The field-color of this carpet is the same as the Bitterman/Sierrra, it only lacks the red-pattern... So now the big question is, how well my red-fabric chairs will look in this room? - with nothing to tie into, they have to stand on their own...

The chairs aren't tying in much yet, but I'm optimistic that the fabric and molding with do the trick. Should look something like this when done:

I got some Triad Silver OnWall surrounds and am repurposing my M&K 850s for the LCR. Sadly, my matching M&K 650s are sitting this one out since I felt that I needed bipoles. Also, it helps that the Triads are half the depth, so they don't stick out as much for people getting to/from the back row.

The 850s are the wood-veneered version of the 750s, the drivers are identical. So far I don't notice any discolorizations between the M&K LCRs and the Triad surrounds, but I've yet to sit for a critical listening. I only just now configured my amp to know about each speakers distance and equalized their outputs so the sound the same for my prime listening positions (middle of the front row)

I've got a M&K MX-150. I might get another if there isn't enough bass in the room. We'll see...

I have a Marantz SR9200 receiver. I don't yet have a strong reason to upgrade it. Audussey would be nice, but I'll wait. One small issue is that all my speakers are currently 4-ohm whereas the SR9200 is 6-ohm. That said, I've read that the speakers are more like 6-ohm with an 80-Hz crossover, which I'm doing. I've also read reports from others running the SR9200 with 4-ohms and no issues. I'm going to watch my levels for a little while...

So my wife and I watched our first movie last night - a DVD from Netflix. The good news is that we watched the movie and it beat the heck out of watching on a computer screen (what we've been doing for the last few years). The bad news is that the PJ's controls became unresponsive as soon as the movie started (I wanted to zoom the 4:3 image a little). After the movie, we watched a little of the Blu-Ray Demo Disc and, again, I couldn't change the lens CIH. Giving up, I discovered that I couldn't even turn the PJ off - not via the remote or the button on the back on the PJ. I decided to leave it running all night and tackle it in the morning. So, this morning, after reading what other people have done, I unplugged it and let it cool done. Now it's functioning correctly again, which is a relief, but I'm very disappointed it happened and now am apprehensive about using it. I wonder if something on the DVD could've caused it, but I'm too scared to play the movie again, so we'll never know...

I think BIG's corollary applies, while I have watched a few things, the biggest delay by far is getting the sound where I want it before buttoning it up (i.e. stapling fabric in place). In case you haven't seen it already, this thread catalogs the testing we've done so far: We Built it, We've measured it, HELP US TWEAK IT - acoustics of the BLACK CAT. One update to that thread, I've now decided to only build one THT sub, at least for now, as I understand that one will completely own a room the size of mine.

Regarding the THT build, I installed panel #2 of the THT sub this morning. It's not an easy panel to get tight into the corner and now I have a hairline crack there. I think I'll just caulk the joint with PL like others have done...

In other news, I was able to pick up enough black FR701 GOM from fellow AVS member Snipe4Real to cover the panel under the screen. I was originally planning to use the Network/Ochre GOM there, but I think black/black might look better under the screen and, more importantly, the open weave pattern will provide a place for the air supply behind the screento vent out, which seems better than better using the screen as a filter