When summer temps rise, a home theater such as this month's jewel is a great place to beat the heat. As always, thanks to Anthem AV for sponsoring these articles. We encourage you to show some love and check out their amazing products at www.anthemav.com.

It seems that Ryan West (@ZLTFUL) was born to be a home-theater geek. "Music and movies were always a part of my very being. I was a pretty socially awkward child who spent a lot of time in my grandparents' basement. My grandpa was a big DIYer and spent a lot of time tinkering with electronics, so I glommed onto that along with listening to music and watching movies."

Property Wood Flooring Floor Hardwood

The unfinished basement provided a blank slate for Ryan to build his dream theater.

"Throughout high school, I worked at Best Buy, where I first encountered Top Gun on LaserDisc, and I was hooked. Before that, I had been heavily into car audio, but after seeing what even a mediocre surround setup could do, I was all in. I later moved on to work at Radio Shack, where I got more into computers but also into DIYing some speakers from some cabinets my uncle had given me."

Property Wood Floor Flooring Fixture

The 2-level riser is completely decoupled from the walls.

Now an IT systems engineer, Ryan and his wife live in Altoona, IA. In 2015, they were casually house shopping when they found a model home in a development on the other side of town. "It was love at first sight. We had no intentions of moving across the city, but we quickly made an offer on the place, and they accepted. We closed in October 2015, and I had the first wall in the basement built by the end of our first week in the house."

Brown Sound box Audio equipment Public address system Wood

Ryan's original front LCRs were JTR Triple 8s, as seen here before he replaced them with JBL Professional JRX225 speakers, separated by two pairs of Stereo Integrity HT18 v2 subwoofers in DIY cabinets.

"Aside from great picture and sound quality, my goal was isolating as much as possible. I didn't want sound to disturb my wife upstairs in the living room above the theater or in our bedroom which is also partially above the theater."

Product Electrical wiring Computer hardware Engineering Electricity

The equipment rack is located in a storage/mechanical room across the hall from the theater.

"I tried to follow best practices as closely as I could. The overall build is a decoupled room within a room. The walls are isolated top and bottom, with two layers of 5/8-inch fire-rated drywall on all four walls and an additional 1/2-inch layer on the back wall. Between the layers of drywall is a layer of 1/8-inch flooring underlayment made from fiber core. I sort of skimped here as Green Glue was prohibitively expensive, but I don't regret it."

Building Interior design Wall Machine Wood

The entrance features a snack bar and electronic movie poster.

"The ceiling is double drywall attached to the bottom of the subfloor above in the joist bays with fiberglass insulation, hat channel and RSIC clips, double layer of 5/8-inch fire-rated drywall, the same underlayment that was used in the walls. The front wall and left side wall are up against foundation walls, so there is a 2-inch gap to the concrete and an extra layer of R13 fiberglass insulation."

Interior design Output device Display device Technology Flooring

A 142" Seymour AV Center Stage XD 2.4:1 screen presents an immersive image.

"The risers and stage are inset from the walls about 1/4 inch to keep them from rubbing on the walls. Simple 2x4 and OSB construction there, nothing fancy. The screen wall is a standard 'goal post' style wall with metal studs so that the grille-cloth panels can be magnetically held in place for easy removal."

Furniture Couch Interior design Living room Flooring

Four Octane Seating Strata LHR seats form the front row, while three Ashley recliners make up the second row.

"I am not a huge Rolling Stones fan, but I have always loved the song "Paint it Black," which is what I painted the theater—seven coats, in fact. When we were painting, I asked my wife to pick out a red paint for the outside of the inner door. She ended up looking up the code for the London double-decker buses and got some of that. The red is an homage to the London Underground theme of the hallway and the 'MacGillivray Pub' portion of the build."

Couch Property Furniture Living room Flooring

The movie posters around the room are actually acoustic panels.

"Probably the one thing I am most proud of in the whole theater is the implementation of the HVAC without the need for bulkhead mufflers. The vents are on the ceiling at the far left of the theater toward the front and rear of the room. The cold-air return is just above the baseboard on the right side wall toward the front of the theater."

Couch Television Comfort Output device Audio equipment

Both rear corners have a Stereo Integrity HT18 v2 sub in a triangular enclosure along with a DIY Sound Group Volt-8LX rear-surround speaker.

"The vents are plumbed with 8-inch insulated flexible duct hose and double back on themselves inside the storage room. The cold-air return is essentially a custom-built muffler that snakes around inside the walls before dumping into the hallway. It's constructed of cardboard thermopan, aluminum duct tape, and damping material lining the outside of the thermopan, and then coated on the outside with acrylic latex duct sealant."

Bookcase Shelf Furniture Publication Shelving

Ryan has an extensive collection of Blu-ray discs.

"When I finished the HVAC, I put a Bluetooth speaker on the hallway side of the cold air return and started playing music. Then, I went into the theater, closed the doors, and I couldn't hear a peep from the speaker even when it was turned up all the way."

Couch Floor Living room Flooring Decoration

With the inner door open, you can see the red chosen by Ryan's wife.

In June 2020, Ryan faced his greatest challenge, when a huge, extended rainstorm totally overpowered the small sump pump and flooded the basement. Fortunately, he had flood insurance, and it paid to have the basement drained and dried as well as the materials to rebuild the stage and risers and restore other rooms in the basement—and install a much larger sump pump!

Furniture Floor Flooring Living room Human settlement

Those seats look mighty comfy!

Then there are the great moments in any build. "The best moment of all was when I got my nephew, a huge World War II nerd, and my grandfather, a WWII veteran, together to watch Fury in the theater. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away about six months later. The theater is dedicated to him, while the bar is dedicated to my grandmother who preceded him by a couple of years."

Television Automotive design Interior design Television set Audio equipment

The Blank Slate Cinema is simple and elegant.

The entire build is almost entirely DIY, except for the drywall taping, mudding, and texture as well as the carpeting, which certainly kept the final cost down. "My wife keeps impeccable records. The entire basement, including the theater, my office, and other areas, ultimately cost $39,692; the theater by itself was roughly 60 percent of that. That's all the construction materials, finish materials, theater equipment, furniture, appliances, and fixtures."

Ryan named his theater the Blank Slate Cinema. "The name is an homage to my initial reaction to the basement when we were shopping for the house. My wife and our realtor were watching me and said I was like a kid in a candy store looking at the possibilities of the unfinished basement. I literally said, "I have a completely blank slate to work with; this is awesome!" The final result is awesome as well. Bravo!

For much more detail about how Ryan's home theater came together, check out the build thread here.

Special thanks to Joanna Cazden for editing the photos in this article.

If you'd like your home theater considered for HT of the Month, send an email to HToftheMonth@avsforum.com with a few photos, a brief description, and a link to your build thread if available.

EQUIPMENT LIST

Sources

Sony UDP-X800M2 UHD Blu-ray player
Nvidia Shield TV Pro streaming media player
Custom-built HTPC running Plex Media Server and JRiver Media Center (AMD 5950X CPU, 128 GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU, 12 TB of SSD storage for staging ripped disks before transferring to 225 TB NAS)

AV Electronics

Marantz AV8805 preamp/processor
Emotiva XPR-5 5-channel power amp (LCR, wides)
Behringer iNuke NU4-6000 4-channel power amps (2, side surrounds, rear surrounds, overheads)
Behringer iNuke NU4-6000 4-channel power amp (bridged, rear subs)
Sanway FP14000 2-channel power amp (front subs)

Projector

JVC DLA-NX7
Panamorph DCR-J1 direct mount anamorphic lens

Screen

Seymour AV Center Stage XD (142", 2.4:1, woven acoustically transparent, 1.2 gain)
Customized Elite Screens frame cut down from 150" 16:9 to 142" 2.40:1

Speakers

JBL Professional JRX225 (3, LCR)
JBL Professional JRX215 (2, wides)
DIY Sound Group Volt-8LX (4, side & rear surrounds)
DIY Sound Group Volt-6LX (4, overheads)
Stereo Integrity HT18 v2 subwoofers (6)

Cables

Audioquest Forest HDMI (from sources to AVP)
Amazon Basics fiber optic HDMI (from AVP to projector)
Wireworld Silver Eclipse 7 XLR (interconnects)
Liberty Wire & Cable 12-2C-P general purpose 12AWG (speaker wire)

Control

Roomie Remote (AV control)
Alexa/Insteon (lighting control)

Power Conditioning

APC SMT3000RM2UC UPS (2)
APC SUA3000RMT2U UPS

Acoustic Treatments

DIY movie-poster absorption panels
Assorted foam panels

Seating

Octane Seating Strata LHR (4, front row)
Ashley manual recliners with grey covers from Amazon (3, second row)

Room Dimensions

20' 8" x 17' 3" x 8' 8" (LxWxH)

Seating Distances (from the center of each row to the screen)

10' (first row)
15' (second row)