Welcome to "The Aquarium"

My theater has been under construction for a long time now, and some of you have caught glimpses of my little slice of heaven in other threads. I have recently installed 10 chairs, and since it's finally starting to looking like something, it's time I started my own thread. Enjoy!

I have always liked fish. I have always liked the name "The Aquarium" for a theater. When I saw the color scheme of the "Seablue" restaurant at the MGM Grand in Vegas, I had a starting point. Some of you have amazing theaters that have the traditional false wall/stage/chair rail/GOM/columns type of layout. For me though, I wanted something different.

Audio performance is my focus and thus I have designed it around freestanding speakers. I designed this basement theater in conjunction with my house so I got the opportunity to avoid bad dimensions, teleposts, and HVAC cutting into headroom. My room is 16x26x9. The lower wall forms a wave which accomodates ideal surround placement, hides blue rope lights, and ties into the water theme. I knew fabricating acoustic panels would be difficult and hence the ugly panels you see now. I will have curved fabric panels in the future that are much more creative in design!

Bass trapping I have covered in a previous thread. Basically they are stacks of cellulose insulation (Cocoon from Home Depot). Each stack of three in the front corners weighs close to 90lbs so I've calculated its density (10pcf) to be higher than OC705. In each rear corner, I built a corner shelf for media which nicely hides a stack of two Cocoons.

Equipment:
LCR speakers: Aerial Model 9, Aerial CC3B
Subs: SVS PC-Ultra, Paradigm Servo 15
Preamp: Anthem AVM20
amps: Classe CA150, Anthem MCA3
sources: Pioneer DV79AVi, PS3, Tosh A2
Eq: Velodyne SMS-1
video: BenQ 8720


EDIT: my carpet is NOT purple.

gonzo: They're much like yours w/o the fabric covering for now. Used 3" Roxul. I could easily wrap them but I want arcs and curves, so I might move them to the front wall where I'll be able to hide them later.

Thanks guys! Actually, my carpet is NOT purple. No matter the white balance on my camera, it comes out purple. It actually is a deep blue.

i had a collection of construction photos of my house which were in my PC that I did not back up. The PC went coo-coo....

To frame the curve, I made a scale drawing of each wall on graph paper. I had to know where each stud was relative to a fixed reference. The concrete front wall was the reference for the sides, the door was the reference for the rear. The stud location wasn't the same for both side walls (close, not exact). I drew my curve on paper. Wherever the curve intersected a stud was the length to the floor I scaled back to real life. Cut the 1"x1" and screwed onto the studs. I had to shim some and cut others to get a pleasing arc, as well as symmmetry.

A thin piece of flexible material was secured to the top of the extensions to form the curve. I rip 2"x4"x8' into thin slices, but in hindsight, I shoulda just bought MDF trim. Vapor barrier was put on over top, then drywall. The drywall was cut 1.5" higher than the curve to form a trough. I determined this trough depth by experimenting with depths required for the blue rope light to lose the hotspotting from the incandescent bulbs. If one had ropes of uniform glow, then a shallow trough would suffice. The drywaller did a great job on cutting the curve by using a wooden wheel with a radius equal to the depth of the trough. He had some sort of drill bit (side cutting?) through the center, and just ran the wheel behind the drywall on top of that flexible wood strip. This way the trough is of uniform depth all around. It was pretty clever because once you cover the curve, I wondered how one would know where to cut. Although i wasn't present, I think that the one cut would generate the drywall pieces for both lower and upper wall. Finally, he used some 1/4 round trim for finishing the curve.

Drewbert:

the rope lights are from Walmart. Nothing fancy. There is an electrical outlet behind each bass trap in the front.

I finally decided on how to do my front wall. I was gonna do curtains originally but as time went on, that idea went wayside. I'm framing a false wall with curved sections in the corners. It will be made up of five sections, the middle being removable for access behind. For the covering I'm gonna put up 1/8" sheets of pegboard and then wrap in a black fabric, like the sock that wraps a SVS cylinder but not loose. I want to insulate behind, but I fear with 3" Roxul on the entire front wall, I might make the room too dead. Should I slice it into 1.5"? Should I just use 3" at ear level?









Just in case if anyone is wondering why pegboard? If I just wrap the frame with fabric, I can see the joists in the curves stick out like ribs on a skinny dude. The pegboard will provide support for the fabric into a smooth curve as well as let sound pass thru for absorption behind. Any thoughts on a better way?

No I don't. But they are 120lbs each and spiked, so they are quite sturdy. I'm more afraid of kids poking the tweeter if anything.

The chairs came from the Blue Man Group theater at the Luxor hotel in Vegas (the Eqyptian pyramid). BMG moved to the Venetian a couple years ago and that's when Luxor did some major renos I suppose. i got them for $50 each + ship. I'm not crazy about the "nude mannequin" color but they're reasonably comfortable and they'll do the job for at least 5 years. I'd get the high back theater seats next time. Not a Berkline fan.

doing more work today!

If I lean back in first row, it should make the front half of the side speaker directly beside my ear. I was telling Aquafire in his "half ocean" theater to experiment with a more forward placement with his bipoles cuz it seems to envelope better when I'm in my 2nd row.

Thanks guys!

here! It's actually ahead of the aisle. Ignore what I said before. I moved the front row back 6" or so when I mounted it recently.

Update! After two days of hard work, I've managed to complete 4/5 of my false wall. There is 18" of space behind the wall along the flat section, more in th corners. Turned out pretty good I think. I've left the middle section because I still need access to the back. I'm gonna do 3" thick Roxul at least at ear level. The downside is there is additional bass reinforcement for my Aerials. I might pull em out a couple inches after insulation. Thank you to the flexible bass managment of the Anthem and the Velodyne SMS-1 to help me flatten out room FR.

Final rack layout and cabling is TBD. I need a big ass amp to drive the 9's and I might score a CC5 center if the price is right.

Here are the latest photos. Since last update I have scrapped the front false wall. It didn't sound good. I did some curtains instead. Last week, I installed new baseboards, painted MDF, to match the panels. It used to be maple. In an effort to clean up the front, I added a small cabinet to house my gear and to serve as the center stand. The door trim is in progress. I'm gonna paint the door gray and add a thin acoustic panel on it to match.

Wish list:
-Curtains too long, like pants that drag on the floor. Need to hem them so they drape nice.
-Paint the screen case black
-New chairs. I want two row of fours. Sick of theater style. Sick of the tan color.
I'm liking these. Reasonably affordable.


-New surrounds. There is a pair of Aerial 7 serving temporarily as the rear surrounds.
I'm leaning towards inwalls. Or just 4 Aerial SR3.