[General0]

Hello all!

I've recently found and joined AVS and have been amazed at everyones builds! I've recently bought my home and decided to join the forum and share my build with everyone and hopefully gather some information on what I'm doing with my basement project! I've never really had the chance to do a true home theater so when it was time to buy our new house my short list of needs included a big enough basement to have my bar, game room, theater, and fish room for my reef tank!

It didn't take us long to find the perfect house with nearly everything we wanted on the list so needless to say I went right to work on building my dream basement! I will admit thought that the very first project I started on was the kitchen/sunroom remodel to keep the wife happy and now that it's done I've jumped right into building the basement entertainment! My theater is not the exact ideal configuration and there were some compromises I had to make but overall I'm very pleased with how its turning out.

The room is 11ft x 19ft and will have a 8x6 bar in the area directly behind the room so I am unable to close off the room completely. The rest of the basement area outside the theater space will be dedicated to the Bar and game room. I'm still working on the finishing touches in the theater area like the Screens stage/surround area where the equipments final location will be. It will incorporate two speaker pillars and and a top valance to hide the speakers and screen mount. I'm switching out the can lighting to recessed LED lighting and painting the room. I've taken a small break but at least the main hardware is now installed I can use it while its being finished!

My current issue is the sound is just not right and I'm really not sure how I would be able to do anything about it with not being able to close the room off completely (the wife only request for the space).

I'm using the following equipment:

Sources

Xbox 360 (soon to be upgraded to Xbox 1) for Gaming
PS3 (used for Blue-ray playback)
HP Pavilion Slimline 400 PC with upgraded hardware used for media server and XBMC
LaCie 4TB Cloudbox Network Storage Server
Xfiniti Cable

AV Electronics

Yamaha RX-V677 Receiver

Projector

Benq HT1075

Screen

Elite Screens Spectrum Series, Electric Drop Down Projection Screen, 110”

Speakers

Yamaha NS-A1638 (I've had for years and still sound great!)
Yamaha NS-SP1800 5.1 Speakers (used for surround sound, sub and center channel)

Cables

Mediabridge ULTRA Series HDMI Cables
Monoprice 18AWG CL2 Premium 5-RCA Component RG-6
Pyramid RSW12100 12AWG

Control

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 with Touchsquid
Microsoft N9Z-00001 (for media center)

Power Treatment

None

Seating

Comfy sectional!

Would adding heavy curtains at the back of the room help with sound isolation? Once I get to the right post count I will add some pictures of the actual setup but from an equipment stand point would you change or upgrade anything on my list? One thing though...the couch stays! we like to huddle up for movies so theater seating doesn't work.

Thanks!

 

[General0]

I will add I do have a Monster Cables Monster Core Power 1200 12 outlet surge protector with USB Charging + AV Protection to protect my equipment. Is this good enough?

 

[General0]

Still working on the placement of the game room items but here is what I have collected so far:

Pool table

dart board

Mame Arcade

I will try to also fit in a card table somewhere in there and will be changing out the lighting and painting the room.

Also I picked up the unfinished cabinets I will be using for the bar area today!

 

[Franky62]

I have a similar size/shape room except i also happen to have a four foot opening to the hall. I am curious to see peoples recommendations. I found for a long time with my old receiver i had what i can only describe as a "hollow" sound. Imaging was very poor. My new receiver has audessy and it helped a ton. I am still thinking about some acoustic panels. Have you tried toeing you speakers in a bit and pulling them a bit away from the back wall?

 

[General0]

I have a similar size/shape room except i also happen to have a four foot opening to the hall. I am curious to see peoples recommendations. I found for a long time with my old receiver i had what i can only describe as a "hollow" sound. Imaging was very poor. My new receiver has audessy and it helped a ton. I am still thinking about some acoustic panels. Have you tried toeing you speakers in a bit and pulling them a bit away from the back wall?

I will be building a front stage and enclosure at each end of the screen with a valance and will try to make them wide enough to get a bit of toe in for the towers. The basement area is a huge upside down L and theater space has two exterior walls and the screen side and to the right of it. The left wall is the furnace room/fish room which has been insulated and drywalled on both sides.

My sound seems to be getting absorbed as it takes pumping up the sound a bit to get and decent sounds. I'll take a picture of my YAPO settings to see if that can help describe what I'm dealing with if that will help? I may have to try to convince the wife that I need to put a wall up and to research a LOT more on acoustics......Another area I'm really at a loss with is where the projector is there is a ceiling height difference that is really bothering me, lol. I'm looking into installing some sort of panel/s that will give me so acoustic benefits and remove the eye sore due to the ducting and main beam.

 

[Franky62]

Well i should have started my previous comment with " Congrats on the new dream house, and i hope it becomes everything you hoped for". Looks like i am wrong with room shape. Mine is just a rectangle. I dont have a projector so will be of no help there. I do not see why your sound would be "absorbed" and the settings on your yamaha wont help me much. Like i said i am curious to see what others have to say so we can both learn and grow at this great home theater hobby!

 

[General0]

Well i should have started my previous comment with " Congrats on the new dream house, and i hope it becomes everything you hoped for". Looks like i am wrong with room shape. Mine is just a rectangle. I dont have a projector so will be of no help there. I do not see why your sound would be "absorbed" and the settings on your yamaha wont help me much. Like i said i am curious to see what others have to say so we can both learn and grow at this great home theater hobby!

Thanks! No problem, I'm sure once I get the screen surround completed, walls/ceiling painted, and lights changed out I can work on getting it dialed in a little better. Hopefully it's just my poor speaker placement that's causing these issues..