After 2 years of begging the wife...it is happening. I removed a wall and the false ceiling. Thought I would post the progression and look forward to some words of advice.
The room is 15' x 23'. I plan on putting a 10" riser in the back, the system will be 7.1, ceiling mount DLP projector and tactiles for the front and rear seating. My budget is 15k which has to include EVERYTHING. I will be purchasing the A/V equipment by weeks end and the plasters should be done by Friday.
The back wall is framed and wiring is completed. I wired in an rf remote dimmer control for the ceiling cans and as you can see from the picture...I goofed. I though a lot about electronics, but electrical wiring is a completely different beast. Of course after I took the picture I wonder why I did not simply run a continuous wire from one can to the next (DUH!!!). I ran the original monster cable for all speaker wire runs. The raised floor is next and then hanging the dry wall.
Yamaha RX-V2500 7.1 BenQ PE8700 Plus DLP Projector Panasonic DVDS97S Progressive Scan DVD Player RBH 1266-SE Tower Speaker RBH SA-400 Subwoofer Amplifier RBH 441-SE Center Speaker RBH 44-SE Surround Speaker RBH 41SE Speaker ButtKicker LFE (3) ButtKicker BKA-1000-4 Monster 10 Outlet Filtering Power Center MPHTS2500 Sony RM-AV3100 Remote Control Hot Link Pro IR extender
For seating I have ordered the Lazboy "Matinee" Home Theater Seating and to house the A/V equipment I am going to use the Tech-Craft SF60.
It's finished! Sorry I did not show the progress of the room, but things got REAL busy VERY quickly! I took pictures of the finished drywall, but of course I can not find them. It went up fine the only problem was I did not leave enough of the outlet boxes to be able to put up the wall plates (this happened to 3 of the boxes and I used the markers on the box). I am happy to say the drywall folks are worth their weight in gold! I was impressed! They make it look so easy and for laughs I attempted to hang a ceiling portion and then later attempted to tape the same area.....black can sure hide a lot of mistakes. I also made a mistake with regards to the audio rack. I forgot to include the floor carpet in my measurements and was off by a ¼ of an inch. I had to take out the top portion of the opening to allow enough room for the rack.
Painting was a lot of fun. I sprayed the black and gray. When the black was sprayed on the front wall and the forward quarter of the room, I could not see anymore. It sucked up the light! When my wife came down to look at the progress after I finished, she just shook her head and left. I thought it looked great, but there was flat black paint everywhere and the gray just blended into the black....it was kind of ugly.
The carpet guy was outstanding, I purchased it from home depot and they gave me a great deal on the carpet and installation. It took three days to complete the job. I finished the chair railing that night and the floor molding was completed the previous day. The room was starting to come together. The A/V equipment arrived. The only problem was I did not run CAT5 cable for the IR repeater. I had changed the IR system from the Hot Link Pro IR extender to the NuVo IR system.
It took me two days to run a 25 foot CAT5 cable; I wish I would have talked with my A/V guy about the IR repeater before I put up the drywall. The RBH speakers are beautiful in looks and sound. The shipment did not include the spike feet for the carpet and once we figured out the Yamaha RX-V2500 7.1 YPAO Parametric Room Setup did not work well with the RBH speakers. We gave up on the automatic feature of the YPAO, I purchased the radio shack sound meter and set it manually. After the setup was complete, my hearing was a bit diminished and it felt like I had a head cold for two days, but it was great. My wife was returning home while we were setting up the sound and when she was in the driveway she could feel the vibration from the speakers! Talk about bass. The tactile shakers are great, it almost takes you by surprise when they are used.
The BenQ projector is outstanding! I painted the front wall with the Behr "silver screen" paint and it looks good. Although if you have the extra money I would recommend the Firehawk screen as the paint mutes the brightness a bit. Maybe in the future I will have to get one.
Movies look great and the audio is getting better every day (the speakers are still breaking in). I have ordered a new HT computer for viewing HDTV, recording shows, and playing computer games. It will be here next week. I have hooked up an Xbox and am not too impressed with it, maybe after some new games and getting the cables for the 5.1 sound it might get better.
This turned out better than I had envisioned it would be, it was a bit costly as I was over budget by $1400. When I first started this project my wife said she could not understand the reason for the expense and when she was very happy watching a 19" TV with mono sound. She is coming around now; she has actually said she is enjoying the theater room (that's saying a lot coming from her). It is simply a joy to go downstairs and listen to a DVD/ audio or movie and enjoying the experience.
lookin good. i should be in my house in about 2 months as well. have a separate room dedicated to a theatre, and hope i can do as well as you. good luck
All exposed speaker wire in the room is heat shrinked. I also put red and black heat shrink on the connection ends with white heat shrink to label the cables. This way if I need to replace something or have someone else do something to the system there is no confusion as to what goes where.
The three tactiles are wired in parallel, so I only needed one amplifier to run the tactiles. The Buttkickers directions showed examples for wiring one or two tactiles with one amp. I had to search a bit on their web site to find a wiring diagram to hook up three to the one amp. I can run the amp hard and have not had any problems with heat being an issue.
Screen Goo...I am going to repaint the screen. I have been reading about this stuff in the discussion groups and hope it improves my picture quality. I will post the pre and post screen shots and after the 6 week curing time I will show a finished result.
I am using a Gefen HDMI switch, but I am not really happy with it. It sometimes will not respond to the remote, so I have to actually walk up to the system (gasp!) and push a button to switch from the Dish DVR to the DVD player. Seems if I unplug it for a while, it wakes up and works OK for a while. Problem has been intermittent enough that I have not pursued a fix from Gefen. They also make DVI switches.
I ended up purchasing the Gefen 4x1 DVI switch. I have not had to actually "push" the selection button, but I do have to hit the remote a couple of times to get it to change. Now that I know it could be a Gefen problem I will stop being concerned and accept its temperment.
The last of the Screen Goo top coat is going on this evening. Pictures to follow soon.
Wow. The difference is just amazing. As I stated when I first put this room together, the picture was "muted". There was no high quality color defination. When I got the screen goo up and turned on the HDTV, it was as everyone is saying "Outstanding" HDTV. Now I can acutally see everything clearly and the colors are vibrant. It is a night and day difference.
It was very easy to paint. I put on three coats of the base and top coat. The base went on over the behr silverscreen with no problems. I let the coats dry 6 hours between coats. The base is thick and the top coat is thin. So, if you decide you are going to use screen goo, figure more paint then they recommend. I used 1.5 liters of the base and top coat for a 144" diag screen and did three coats of each. I don't think two would have done the trick, as there was roller lines on the second coat of the base. The third coat covered everything well. The top coat is like a clear "pearlessence" type paint. The top coat will not cover up any mistakes made with the base coat, so the base coat must be perfect.
This is the before picture:
This is the after picture:
I would highly recommend the Screen Goo system as it was very easy to use and made a dramtic improvement in picture quality. These pictures are a bit small, but if you would like me to email you the full picture, just email me.
Yes!!! Absolutely. They bring "the feel" to the movie and music. Although if you are going to do a riser, I would put three on the riser. I put one on each chair and people fight to sit there. You will be glad you did it!
Anonymous
Posted on
Tom, I'm interested in how the goo paint is holding up. Any issues with it after a few months?
I finally got the "dull" picture thing figured out.....bad lamp.
The BenQ projector when purchased had a bad lamp which finally exposed itself by turning off the projector after 60 mins of use. I returned it to BenQ who replaced two circuit boards and returned it, same problem. Replaced the lamp and it is unbelivable!!!!!! The best it has ever been (I have helped other people with their HT rooms and wondered why their MUCH cheaper projector always would look way better than mine).
I will be taking another picture of the same scene to give you an idea of how much better the picture is. So if you have a projector which is "dull", "foggy" or simply "yuck" think lamp.
I have just purchased the sony DHGHDD500 and am installing the CableCard for their HD programming. Dish Network does not work well with existing customers so I have been looking at other options.
Measures 15x23?. Should fill up fast but I like it. Wish I had one room for my equipment, it would sound so much better. Looks like you are well under way. Congrats!!
Pioneer Elite 50in Plasma Pioneer Elite DVD Player B&K Processor B&K AMP 200x7 Panamax Power Station Definitive 7001 Speakers (Front) Definitive Reference Subwoofer Definitive 3000 Center Speaker Definitive BPVX/P Rear Speakers Dish Network HD Box AudioQuest CV4(DBS) Speaker Cables AudioQuest Interconnects for AMP Illuminaire Blue Back lighting Harmony 880 Remote 300 DVD Collection
