My dedicated home theater (Bat Cave)

I built this home theater back in the good old days when I was a single 'stock option' guy. The room is 13 1/2 feet by 23 feet and 7'/8' vaulted ceiling.

Display: JVC DLA-G11 projector, 123" Stewart Luxus Deluxe screenwall Grayhawk screen

Audio: Lexicon DC-2 processor, (2) Sherbourn 5/1500a amplifiers, B&W 804 speakers for front LR and rear LR, B&W HTM for center, Boston Acoustics VRMX for side LR, Velodyne F1500 subwoofer

Sources: Toshiba HD-A2 DVD player, Brighthouse HD cable box, XBox 360

Control: Xantech wired IR receiver on the front wall, junction box, emitters on the individual components, Inline Inc IN3504 component video switch

The front wall and ceiling are painted flat black. The side and back walls are painted neutral medium gray. The carpet is medium gray. The furniture is black leather with rosewood trim.

The acoustics in the room are really bad so I have ordered acoustic panels (and bass traps) from ATSAcoustics.com and ReadyAcoustics.com to hopefully address that situation.

My next upgrade will be a 1080P projector (probably the Epson Home Cinema 1080P UB).

Doug

Edit: Photos of the new acoustic panels that I just installed:

Here are some pictures of the room. Since it's a bat cave it's hard to see much in the way of details.




This weekend I had to take down the Stewart screen and black out rollup screen to get access to the windows for some maintenance for the first time in 5 years.

The most significant problem with the acoustics is with movie dialog being very muddled and difficult to understand when the voices are relatively quiet. I have ordered ten burgundy 24"x48"x4" panels from ATSAcoustics for the side/back wall, two custom black 20"x48"x4" panels for below the screen on the front wall, and two nested super sub bass traps for the front LR corners from ReadyAcoustics.com. Here's the diagram where the panels will go. If these panels don't solve the movie dialog acoustic issue because of ceiling reflection then I may attempt to add some 2" panels on the ceiling.

BTW, the room is not really as long and narrow as the pictures appear it's just the very wide angle lens (10-22mm) that makes it look that way.

What's especially funny (or sad) is that currently the sound quality in the dedicated home theater room with all the expensive components isn't nearly as good as the sound quality in the multi use family room setup.

The family room system consists of:

Mitsubishi 65" HD RPTV
Denon 3801 receiver
B&W CDM CNT speakers for front LR and center
Atlantic Technology SR10 surrounds in the ceiling
Velodyne HGS-12 subwoofer
Sony DVP-9000ES DVD player
Brighthouse HD DVR

I received my shipment of acoustic pieces/parts from ReadyAcoustics.com yesterday, but I'm still waiting for the shipment from ATSAcoustics before I can make any progress on the dedicated theater room.

Something else I forgot to mention about the dedicated home theater room is that it has it's own independant HVAC system which allows me flexibility in temp control without affecting the rest of the house. I like it relatively cold when gaming or watching movies/TV but my wife does not.

I added new pictures to my first post in this thread showing the acoustic panels that I installed this weekend. The new acoustic treatments makes an astonishing improvement in the sound quality of the room.

I installed Ready Acoustics nested super sub bass traps (24"x48"x6" + 12"x48"x4") in the front LR corners, two custom sized ATS Acoustics panels (20"x48"x4") below the screen on the front wall, and ten 'burgundy' ATS Acoustics panels (24"x48"x4") along the side walls. The difference in sound quality is tremendous. I may add some custom panels on the back wall (doors) at some point however right now I'm absolutely thrilled with the difference these acoustic treatments made. Please note that I had to significantly overexpose the photos in order to show any details. The room is much darker than the photos show. Because I had to overexpose the photos, the 'burgundy' wall panels appear more red than they do in the real world.

http://www.onewolf.net/ht1.htm

Doug

I provided Ready Acoustics and ATS Acoustics with detailed diagrams and photos of the room and they both recommended approximately the same design for acoustic treatment. I placed the panels on the floor against the side wall in the approximate locations and then used a mirror to adjust them such that they provided the optimal first reflection point absorption.

Optimally I would have installed bass traps in all four corners however it was not feasible to place bass traps in the rear corners so I chose to go with 4" thick panels on the side walls rather than the 2" thick because the 4" thickness should help absorb additional bass frequencies.

Eventually I plan to add some acoustic treatment on the back wall however it's going to be more challenging because it's probably going to have to be mounted on the doors (room door and air handler closet door).

Doug

The corner traps were built from components purchased from Ready Acoustics. Here's a link to their nested corner mount system: http://www.readyacoustics.com/index....ails&prod=RACM

The front panel is 24"x48"x6" and the nested panel is 12"x48"x4" and they both use Roxul Rockboard 60 panels. These corner traps were very easy to build and install.