After lurking for a number of years, then building a house and preparing for a home cinema for nearly two years, I’ve finally started my build.

Many things are inspired by what I’ve seen here and I’ve had lots of great answers to my questions already from many of you (and special thanks to @BIGmouthinDC : not just for his direct answers but his historic posts are like an Encyclopedia of Cinema Builds).

I’ve named my build ‘Dutch Confusion’ after discovering halfway through my baffle wall build that 2x4 size lumber does not actually mean 2 by 4 inches, so after converting to metric sizes I ended up with, let’s call it, a very solid baffle construction.

Many of the hardware that will be in my build was chosen because it was crafted with love and has many fans. Where I can avoid the corporate big brands I will try. Here’s the current list:

- Arendal 1723 speakers from Norway.
- Two Arendal 5.1 subs
- Apollon amps from Austria
- a Silver Ticket screen imported from the US
- a Marantz 8805 prepro
- Epson TW9400 projector
- a boss riser based on jbl stage1210 and a behringer amp (to be built, only have the parts now)




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Reserved for completion photos near the end.


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This was the empty space during construction of the house. A concrete prefab basement. On the right is the wall that isolates the room from the staircase. It’s been a challenge to cope with this construct as it makes the room asymmetric but so far I’ve planned solutions around it.



The room is 13’4” wide and 19’8” tall.

After construction finished, during some preliminary tests with absorption and diffusion, this is the back of the room. The red chair is a temporary placeholder for the main seat (in a row of 4).





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This is the planned layout , not entirely to scale. You can see how that corner for the stairs impacts the room layout.



This plan doesn’t reflect the baffle wall yet that I later added. Also I’m still doubting that overflow bar.


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The first project is the baffle wall. It’s inspired by @Nyal Mellor ’s work on the acoustic frontiers blog, and the baffle wing design from The Beast Unleashed.

Constructing the frame out of slightly too sturdy lumber:


My 4 year old daughter was in charge of decorating the lumber:


Got the frame up. When I mounted it I toed it in a little more than in this picture (23.5 degrees). This is for the left speaker. It will line up behind an AT screen. The position is partly based on the Dolby and thx recommendations and opinions on this forum. It’s between the 16:9 and 21:9 edges and vertically centered to ear height.


I lined the speaker cabinets with mdf and rubber:


I separated the frame from the floor with 0.5” padding and I mounted the frame to the concrete ceiling with isolating clips:



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For the acoustic treatments I’m getting some valuable input through a Dutch HT forum from knowledgeable people such as @bert stoltenborg . I noticed both the approaches and materials on this forum are too different from what is available over here so I’m trying to get that knowledge from local people.
This is currently in the planning and idea phases. It will take a few weeks before I get to the actual treatment.


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Because tinkering with lumber is fun, but playing with gear is more fun, meanwhile I’m also installing the 19” rack which nicely fits under the stairs behind that wall (so it’s good for something after all).

I’m getting some advise and local good deals from a local HT installer, All4Control (https://www.all4control.nl/).

One key thing in my home theater is that I want this to serve both as a hobby and an educational experience. If I have to learn how to install carpet if I need carpet, then that’s what I’ll learn. The process is:

1. deciding what I want.
2. Researching how I get there and what the best practices are
3. Doing it
4. Wondering if I should reconsider bullet 1



Back side:




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I’ve got all three baffle wings up:



With the laser level I tried to focus on the speakers (the framing is allowed to be off as long as the speakers are level). For an amateur it went pretty well. (I can’t get that ‘...laser aligned surround speakers...’ from the imax countdown trailer out of my head.)

I also ran some smurf tube for the speaker wires.



I do have a question: due to the lumber not being perfectly straight the mdf speaker frame doesn’t 100% line up with the lumber. It’s about a 0.08” (2mm) gap on the front (near the back they meet up 100%):



Will I get away with that? Should I stuff it with something? I did screw the mdf to the lumber with a few screws so it’s not going anywhere easily, so maybe it doesn’t matter?

I doubt that will cause any problem. Pound it with your fist to make sure it doesn't rattle. If you want you could squirt it full of caulk but I don't think it is necessary.

it doesn’t rattle when I pound it. That did reveal a few rattles though from smurf tube against the frame, so that was a good test. Will need to check how I can avoid that. More tube fasteners I guess.


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Started layering the fiberglass insulation panels (it’s like fluffy pink but yellow (isover brand).

I’m going to have to use multiple layers to fill up the wings. There’s this thin paper that holds the sheets together. Does it matter whether that paper faces inwards or outwards? Since it’s layered there will be multiple paper sheets in between. For warmth insulation the product recommends paper facing the room, mostly to keep the fibers behind it.

Or should I find a paperless fluffy stuff when layering? I’ve got about 12” to fill at the outer baffle edges. That’s about 6 layers of the stuff.




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Meanwhile learned that it’s called faced if it has the paper and unfaced if it doesn’t have it. Also it seems that avsforum posts < 2010 seem to favor unfaced whereas later posts seem to say it doesn’t really matter.

Not sure if layering makes a difference in that conclusion.


Edit: the manufacturer states that it’s not actually paper but a thin layer of glass fiber to ease working with it. Not sure if that changes the situation. It ís indeed easy to work with as they stay in place with no fastening.

I guess you're going to finish this one way or another, so don't worry.to much.

I ended up swapping the fluffy around so the thin fiberglass paper layer is on the outside. Also got some thicker panels for the other layers so there’s less of the paper in the wall.

Some of the center wing cavities are now filled up, need to do some more on the rest of the wings.

To not spend all the time cutting and stacking fiberglass panels, I started pulling the speaker wire through the smurf tube. It’s 3/4” tube so I could easily suck a wire through the tube. (Tried with the vacuum cleaner first but just using my mouth worked just as well. The tubes aren’t that long anyway.)

Finished the cables with a few nakamichi banana plugs.