[jparker36]

I had another thread, but so much changed I just created a new one to track the room.

Background:

My wife and I had built a nice house from a builder’s standard floorplan list, which placed the home theater upstairs and above the master bedroom. After a few years, we decided that we wanted to go fully custom to correct many of the mistakes we felt were made in the design. Things such as putting Seaton Submersives into a room right above my sleeping wife .

Original Plan:

I was going to re-use much of my existing equipment, such as B&W CM9 / CMC2 / DS3 speakers and Seaton Submersive HP sub. Epson 8350 projector, Denon 4311ci processor, and various other equipment. Was unsure of exactly how we would soundproof the room, but was considering using a clip/channel system. Plans were to go with a CIH 2.35 screen, two rows of seating with a riser, all in a 16x21 room.

Finished Plans:

I decided after reading more that soundproofing was a major component of this theater, and would be the difference between disturbing the rest of the house or being able to crank it up when I wanted. To achieve this, I hired a local consultant to help design and oversee the construction. The builder agreed to follow their direction for the build. We built the room as a double decoupled wall system, floating ceiling, etc. Double drywall + green glue on all surfaces. 12x12” soffit is built within the outer shell, and all electrical comes in via one sealed penetration.

Door is an isodoor HD from isostore.com. Fantastic quality, heavy duty door (325+ lbs!). Others make their own doors, but I just wanted something pre-made which we could quickly get in and put up. I think it turned out gorgeous now that it is stained.

Equipment:

I decided that, this being a proper theater now, the B&W system wasn't going to cut it any longer. I found a great deal here for some JTR 228HTs, and Mark Seaton stepped up and decided to offer the Terraform for a limited run late last year. I immediately jumped on getting two of those to pair with the JTRs. JBL 8340a speakers will round out the 5.2 system. No Atmos or 7.2 for me, mostly because the vast majority of Blu-Ray are still 5.1, and the placement of the speakers and their disbursement in the room makes 5.1 a great setup for all seating positions. I can always add additional speakers later, though I doubt I ever will (hah!) With these high-sensitivity speakers, I no longer needed an external amp, so I purchased a Denon 4520ci to get a solid quality AVR, with all the features I care about, including Audyssey XT32.

The entire house is controlled via a Control4 system which will also be located on the rack.

Speakers:
Mains - JTR Noesis 228HT
Center - JTR Noesis 228HT
Rears - JBL 8340a
Subwoofer (2x) - Seaton Terraform D18

Projection:
Projector - Sony HW40ES
Screen - Elite 135" 1.78 Fixed Frame

Components:
Receiver - Denon 4520ci
Movies - Dune HD Smart D1
Blu-Ray - Sony BDP-S790
HTPC / Plex Server - Mac Mini
NAS - Lenovo ix4-300d 16TB
Satellite - DirecTV
Audio - Sonos
Control4 - HC800 + Components

Seating:
On Floor - Palliser Pacifico
On Riser - Sofa on its way

Edited to add final picture:

 

[jparker36]

Construction is mostly complete - should be closing in the next two weeks and moving in soon thereafter. The theater will be my primary priority to get set up and finished first

Walls, ceiling, trim are all painted in PPG Oswego Tea - a grey/brown. Carpet is a medium grey - doesn't quite come across right in the pictures. As the room is fully light controlled, with the lights dimmed or off the room is a complete pitch black. Perfect for movie viewing. I will also have Jeff from NightSkyMurals come out at some point to put in a star ceiling.

I did not go with an AT screen for this version of the build - it is a possibility for later on down the road. This was a budget concession to get the door - a fantastic trade off if you ask me, and one that can easily be changed later.

Current State Pictures:

Entry Way (Steps not yet stained):

IsoDoor HD:

IsoDoor Thickness:

AV Rack Area:

Across from Rack:

View of Entry:

Stage:

Riser:

Soffit:

 

[ChadA]

Looks great - I like the color scheme! You must be chomping at the bit to move in.

Are you going to do any acoustic treatment?

 

[jparker36]

Yes - I want to move in and measure the room to help determine exactly what the treatments will be. And the final decor and such - still lots of work to do.

 

[JohnstownFlood]

 

[jparker36]

Finally... Finally closed on the house. Starting to get moved in and set things up.

Starting to move items into the room...

Laying out speakers/subs - How does the wine microsuede look against the grey walls? I think I like it...

And finally.... getting really set up..

Control4 team is on its way here to start the install of the home automation, which will be controlling the entire theater. I'll update tonight/tomorrow with progress we've made. One very annoying tidbit though- I lost the damn power cable for the subs. I ordered one to be overnighted to me, but still. No big explosions tonight :-(

 

[jparker36]

Finally all set up and Audyssey run. No treatments in place yet, and boy does it show. Look at those suckouts.....

I'm figuring out how I'm going to treat the room and that will be my next project. For now, I'll just watch a few movies.

One other big item for me - I was playing PS4 last night and had it fairly loud. My wife in the bedroom could barely hear anything, and said it was not bad at all, and this was with the door open a few inches. Sound containment mission accomplished.

Edit:Blue is corrected response in the low freq sweep, green is corrected in the full range, sorry I reversed the colors in the pics

 

[jparker36]

Few days later than expected, but home automation is now fully completed and I had time to clear out the theater. Ignore the acoustic panels, they're from my old theater and I just leaned them against the wall for now. I've been in contact with some vendors about getting proper treatment set up for the room - I expect to see progress on that front soon-ish.

First, the promised pic of the rack. This is inside the theater, the wall to the right of the rack is built inside the soundproof shell, really only there to give symmetry to the room and hide the rack's lights (which is does perfectly)

From the rear of the room. Note that the front two lights are 2400k LEDs vs the rest of the room at 7000k. Still deciding which one we prefer. My wife likes the 2400s, so maybe I'll be swapping out the rest of them...

Screen wall - Note that you can just see the can lights... I need to get some GOM on the front wall to black out those reflections.

Misc Pics of the room/speakers:

And finally.. holy smokes look at these seaton Terraform D18s... The JTR 228s aren't exactly bookshelf speakers, but they look tiny!!

Next project will be to replace those blasted white electrical outlets with black ones. Trip to Home Depot will be made tomorrow I think.

 

[Nabs17]

JTR's and Terraforms.....wow!!! Looks very good man!!

 

[jparker36]

Few updates. I decided to go with grey outlets instead of black, so made all those replacements.

Also, GIK was kind enough to send me 6 giant boxes today..
So we now have corner traps all set

As well as 242 traps for the sidewalls, 244 bass traps on the back wall. I also have auralex Q'Fusor panels as seen below for in between the GIK traps. Auralex T'Fusors will be delivered later today and will be on the back wall with the bass traps. I just need to go get the paint to make them black... maybe a project for the weekend.

 

[ahmedreda]

Great job!
The only thing I would have done differently is getting a 2.37:1 acoustically transparent screen and hid speakers behind it.. That is just my preference.. How are you planning to install your treatments? How thick are they?

 

[jparker36]

Yeah, AT screen was a thought, but will be a project for another day. I went 16:9 as I watch a lot of sports and play games in the room, and without lens memory, CIH wouldn't work. I debated back and forth a lot on that, but for round 1 at least, I stuck with non-AT. I do think I'm going to start working on my woodworking skills to build a minimalist wall with GOM panels like BIG has eventually. Just have to get round 1 complete first.

242 panels are 3.65" thick, bass traps are 6" thick. They use picture wire, so I bought some toggler wall mounts (check them out, they are amazing. Caulk to seal the hole once the toggler is installed.

 

[jparker36]

On the advice of Mark Seaton I moved around my speakers a bit to find better positioning to avoid the response issues I was having. Here's the result for now.

Without Audyssey in green, with in blue

Major improvement from before, and I've ordered a few additional bass traps to fill in some spots around the speakers and hopefully kill the nulls a bit more completely.

 

[jparker36]

Realized I never updated once treatments were complete. Room is 'finished' pending the new couch we ordered a few weeks ago to go behind the chairs. Should be here in another few months. Please excuse the dead light bulb, defective LED and haven't gone to the store to replace it yet.

 

[Cksqurd]

Realized I never updated once treatments were complete. Room is 'finished' pending the new couch we ordered a few weeks ago to go behind the chairs. Should be here in another few months. Please excuse the dead light bulb, defective LED and haven't gone to the store to replace it yet.

Great looking room. Congrats!