New house construction - dedicated home theater room - initial questions

[John]

Hi John,

Can you please share the contact information of the chinese acoustic dealer?

Neo

Guys, the board that I got for the ceiling is called ANK. Pictures attached. I got it from Himalayan Plywood in Siliguri. 0353-2537042





I have three questions:

1) As per my calculations (picture attached) I need the projector to drop 12" or 1' from the ceiling. This gives me the biggest picture possible on my limited space. Where to get such a ceiling mount?



2) I am looking for a split AC for the room. This is really the wrong time to buy them it seem as the prices are quite high. How is a Cube for a home theater room? Is the sound that high? Or should I go for a Daikin 2 star?

3) Screen: My estimated screen size is 120" to 130". Should I buy some fabric and put it over a board? Or use laminate. Suggestions please. Edit: I am planning to get Carl's Blackout Cloth, but should I go for 66" x 110" (16:9 aspect) or 87" x 110" (4:3 aspect ratio)

 

[John]

Re: WIP - almost there

Guys,

I am almost there. Took few pictures before wiring up the speakers.











Edit: Actually yesterday I did hook up everything, setup the AVR, and watched Dark Knight. Enjoyed every bit of it. And it looked fresh.

Big question on my mind. The ceiling is white, so I noticed it reflects a lot of light off of the projector beam. Should I get the boards painted black?

Recliners, etc., still not lined up, so it is still WIP, though I did arrange everything last evening; will update pictures later.

Cheers!!

 

[Simon Wires]

>>>>What should be the ideal size of the room?>>

You may use this Sabines formula to decide on the critical listening distance & reverberation time. It relies not on the floor area of the room, but on the total volume of room, where height plays a role.

 

[Swamy_HT]

The outside pictures make me feel, "i am inside the Sathyam theater lobby".

IMO, From the screen location, If you paint dark color (Grey) approx.4 feet would be good to control reflection back to screen.

 

[sash]

John, for the amount of effort you have put in the white ceiling can spoil the movie experience for you due to ambient light - i had the same issue before i painted it black. In your case it may not be that simple as these could be acoustic boards and painting could interfere with the acoustic properties. Please talk to the supplier about this and enquire if you can use some water based paints. But this is a must.

 

[narenkum]

John, for the amount of effort you have put in the white ceiling can spoil the movie experience for you due to ambient light - i had the same issue before i painted it black. In your case it may not be that simple as these could be acoustic boards and painting could interfere with the acoustic properties. Please talk to the supplier about this and enquire if you can use some water based paints. But this is a must.

John,

Even I have painted my ceiling with Grey colour last week and can already see a huge difference that it as made to the room and movie experience.

 

[Swamy_HT]

John,

Even I have painted my ceiling with Grey colour last week and can already see a huge difference that it as made to the room and movie experience.

Naren,

Please update your thread with your progress.

Swamy

 

[John]

The outside pictures make me feel, "i am inside the Sathyam theater lobby".

IMO, From the screen location, If you paint dark color (Grey) approx.4 feet would be good to control reflection back to screen.

John, for the amount of effort you have put in the white ceiling can spoil the movie experience for you due to ambient light - i had the same issue before i painted it black. In your case it may not be that simple as these could be acoustic boards and painting could interfere with the acoustic properties. Please talk to the supplier about this and enquire if you can use some water based paints. But this is a must.

John,

Even I have painted my ceiling with Grey colour last week and can already see a huge difference that it as made to the room and movie experience.

Thanks guys. I have decided to go with black. A very dark grey was next in line, but black is what is really required and black it will be. The guy who has supplied the acoustic boards does not know much, so I have to go with my gut instinct and go ahead with the painting job. I am just kicking myself for not having done it earlier.

You can clearly see the ambient light being an issue with the picture.

 

[sash]

Great decision John. Go ahead. I also like the fact that u have used foam and bass traps from Aurica. DIY fabric covered panels are dust magnets and are tough to maintain as I have realized over the course of the last 6 months. Pls post detailed review of the effectiveness of these.
Finally, congratulations on one of the most beautiful HTs I have seen on the forum. Great job.

 

[ankitbhargava]

Such a beautiful setup!! Hard work paid up!!

Congratulations

 

[john_k_antony]

Great decision John. Go ahead. I also like the fact that u have used foam and bass traps from Aurica. DIY fabric covered panels are dust magnets and are tough to maintain as I have realized over the course of the last 6 months. Pls post detailed review of the effectiveness of these.
Finally, congratulations on one of the most beautiful HTs I have seen on the forum. Great job.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

Sash -> I am really curious to know about the dust issue with DIY fabric cover panels. Are they a big issue in a dedicated room with now windows and just 2 doors or the dust issue is more prominent when these DIY fabric panels are used in a normal room with windows and more doors?

Thanks,
John.

 

[samratsarkar]

Hi Friends,
Thanks to all members for their valuable advice. I am too planning to have a dedicated Music room in my terrace. But the issue I am facing is - with the ceiling part where I cannot make RCC ceiling roof because local municipality does not permit RCC on a 3 storied building. Walls can be made of brick with allowed thickness of 5 inch with Roof anything other than RCC.

I am considering roofing with Tata high gauge Steel with false ceiling. Since I have not started any construction I would request you to guide me step by step.

My plan are as follows -

1. Cost effective as my budget is limited.
2. Room size maximum 150 sq-ft - Rectangular.
3. 55" LED TV and no PJ.
4. Moderate AVR for HT ( 5.1 or 7.1 depends on quality and budget).
5. An Active Stereo set up only for Music listening.


Kindly advice if a Music room can be done under such circumstances.

Regards,
Samrat

 

[sash]

Sorry to hijack the thread.

Sash -> I am really curious to know about the dust issue with DIY fabric cover panels. Are they a big issue in a dedicated room with now windows and just 2 doors or the dust issue is more prominent when these DIY fabric panels are used in a normal room with windows and more doors?

Thanks,
John.

John, mine is a dedicated room with a window but the window is only opened for a few minutes every night to let in some fresh air. I also take care to open the window only late at night when dust in air is presumably low (due low activity - traffic and other). Door is closed all the time. But still i have a strange dusty smell in the room. I am reasonably sure it is not fiberglass - that has a distinctive smell. Maybe an exhaust fan would make it better. I have even thought of putting a room air purifier. But right now it is a problem for me. I'd also like to hear from others who have such rooms on their experience.

 

[John]

Such a beautiful setup!! Hard work paid up!!

Congratulations

Great decision John. Go ahead. I also like the fact that u have used foam and bass traps from Aurica. DIY fabric covered panels are dust magnets and are tough to maintain as I have realized over the course of the last 6 months. Pls post detailed review of the effectiveness of these.
Finally, congratulations on one of the most beautiful HTs I have seen on the forum. Great job.

Thanks guys. It has been a long journey, not just the HT room, but the entire house and everything was getting postponed - before the rest of the house did not reach a semblance of "completion," I was not able to put my hands into it. Luckily I got a good carpenter who worked as per my directions. A lot of input on this thread from the forum members and reading up other threads helped me go a long way.

Sash, for the acoustics it was a tussle for me between Mineral wool (which I could not source), glass wool (ruled it out because of kids in the house and being wary of any long-term effects - even if they are very minuscule), wood wool (almost ordered them) and ultimately settled on Aurica bass traps and diffusion panels. I have nothing (as in no acoustic treatment) to compare my current setup to. My earlier setup was a HT-cum-drawing room-cum-bedroom, with a very high ceiling in a rented place. Compared to that, this is a whole new experience. I can hear the full range of sound with the right amount of bass. And someone mentioned it looks plain ugly; it does not. It looks quite good, goes well with a shade like red.

Now few questions/suggestions needed:

1) Decided to go with Black matt color for the panels/frames.
2) Decided to go with the same red color for the wall behind the screen/sides of the screen; is that okay. or should I go with black. I thought the red will look better on that wall.

 

[sash]

1) Decided to go with Black matt color for the panels/frames.
2) Decided to go with the same red color for the wall behind the screen/sides of the screen; is that okay. or should I go with black. I thought the red will look better on that wall.

I see no issues with the dark red color for the screen wall. I have the same red shade (Crimson Tide) in my HT and when it is dark, it is very hard to distinguish this from black.

 

[sash]

Hi Friends,
I am considering roofing with Tata high gauge Steel with false ceiling. Since I have not started any construction I would request you to guide me step by step.

Samrat, our FM "mdharan" has an awesome setup and i believe a metal roof. Search for his thread and/or PM him.
It might be best to start a new thread with your requirements if you need step by step guidance from the members. There is a lot of help available here.

 

[mdharan]

Thank you Sash !
Hello samrat mine is a dedicated HT with proj, but you are looking for Audio only Listening room, As to say my room dimension is 30 x 16 and i shrunk it to 24 x 15.25 for HT with curved TATA roofing sheet top,
In order to cut the heat during the summer, over the POP ceiling i have spread 2' x 4' thermocol sheets of 2" thickness two sheets with 2" - 2' x 4' Glasswool rigid board placed in between the two thermocol sheets and these three sheets were tied together to make it a single 2' x 4' sheet of 6" thickness, I hanged this as first ceiling and below that i have done the POP ceiling, to say that this has reduced the heat cosiderably during summer.
As for a listening room you can go for a smaller sized room, I think this may help you when you have to go for metal roofing.
You can go to my HT thread link in my signature.

Thankyou,
Murali

 

[John]

Guys, my Denon 1707 AVR's remote control is acting up. Should I get a new one or will a Harmony one do the trick? Which is a good Logitech Harmony to buy (if it works).

Secondly, the 1707 is due for an upgrade soon. The ProFX guys naturally are recommending a X3000 or X2000, but I am thinking of all other options. Budget 40 to 50K.

Cheers!

 

[samratsarkar]

Hi mdharan,
Thank you for your reply...really helpful...

 

[echo77]

Pretty awesome personal theater that's turned out to be! Yes, you'll need to do something about that ceiling if you keep noticing the reflection on it. I guess there is some reflection on the AC on the left side as well

Good to see you got the recliners. How is their quality?