Peterman's HT 2.0

JBrax · Jul 28, 2017

Gotta admit some jealousy here on my end. I'd love to have a room like yours to build from the ground up. Nice looking room Peter.

phillihp23 · Jul 28, 2017

Yes, sir. you are getting things done. Looks like the place is starting to take shape. I know you must be excited to move in. I know I was when I was waiting to have my house building finished.

Peter Loeser · Jul 28, 2017

It feels like it's been a long process but the reality is it has gone very quickly. We're very excited to get in. Lots of projects once were in though too. The HT will be a priority but it's a big project. Each stage brings new questions, and lots of decisions still need to be made. Stay tuned! Should be lots of progress in the coming weeks.

Peter Loeser · Aug 1, 2017

All inspections but the final are done. Appliances come tomorrow and everything should be functional by the weekend. We are getting soooo close. Movers are scheduled for next Wednesday. I'll have lots of boxes to open :bigsmile:

Can't do much in the HT till then, but at least I'm making progress elsewhere. The living room TV is hung. I'll adjust the height once I unpack the soundbar. We inherited the Sony 55" from my brother-in-law when he moved a few months back. My wife has already hinted that she expected it to look bigger (hey now, keep the jokes to yourself). We've already talked 4K upgrade for that room... I'm thinking Black Friday deal! :praying:

Living Room TV

Peter Loeser
Aug 1, 2017

tripplej · Aug 1, 2017

Looking nice. Thanks for the pic.

Peter Loeser · Apr 27, 2018

Well I'm finally getting around to the very early stages of setting up the home theater. I've unpacked basically everything but my screen at this point. My plan is to fine tune the screen, speaker, sub, and seating positions and finish sheetrocking the walls and ceiling, then finalize placement of acoustic treatments, and finally design the lighting and room aesthetic in a way to completely conceal all of the gear. First step will be a combination of best main speaker and screen placement, followed by seating distance and height of the 2nd row, then locating the surround and Atmos speaker locations. Now that I've been able to play some music in the room it's very evident I'll need good sound-proofing in the ceiling and the righthand and rear walls (the unfinished ones in the photos). I'll certainly be looking for tips on cost-effective ways to do that. Here's the latest. L & R speakers and one sub are operational (until I find my second sub cable...). I've got my turntable connected at the moment and that's about it. But it's a start!

IMG_2004

Peter Loeser
Apr 27, 2018
1

IMG_2008

Peter Loeser
Apr 27, 2018

Todd Anderson · Apr 29, 2018

Looking good!

I’ll be curious to see what kind of advice you receive per sound proofing.. it’s looking like my basement is about to get rearranged/renovate, which means the theater room might be relocated.

Peter Loeser · Apr 29, 2018

Todd Anderson said:
Looking good!

I’ll be curious to see what kind of advice you receive per sound proofing.. it’s looking like my basement is about to get rearranged/renovate, which means the theater room might be relocated.

Nice! It's exciting and daunting all at the same time. I'm anxious to see the room's potential develop into a new vision but there's a ton of work ahead. The work and planning are part of the fun for me but there's always the slight worry that it won't turn out like I've imagined.

Todd Anderson · Apr 30, 2018

The work factor... the dust factor... the noise factor... all worth it in the end! ;-)

I hear you on the end result part of the equation. Especially with the time and funds required to make a home theater a reality.

AudiocRaver · May 8, 2018

Keep us in the loop!

Matthew J Poes · May 9, 2018

Peter Loeser said:
Nice! It's exciting and daunting all at the same time. I'm anxious to see the room's potential develop into a new vision but there's a ton of work ahead. The work and planning are part of the fun for me but there's always the slight worry that it won't turn out like I've imagined.

Maybe it's better to accept that up front. It probably won't come out like you imagined. If you are like me, you probably have imagined this perfect room finished to perfection. Details that would satisfy a luxury clientele. Something that could match the pro theaters you see in magazines. That isn't going to happen in all likelihood. Things won't go as planned, there will be some rough details here or there. That's ok, it will still be an awesome theater, better than average. Plus those theaters we see in the magazine probably hide some rough edges that even the clients don't know about. When you do this yourself, you know every imperfection.
In my theater, I have a TON of details that did not come out as planned. First, the theater isn't as soundproof as I had anticipated. Admittedly, I have no idea just how soundproof it is. When I measure transmission loss, I measure noise (at whatever level) in the theater, and I measure ambient noise outside the theater. If the theater is on or off, I measure almost no difference, other than at low frequencies. Supposedly I should see 30db's of isolation below 100hz, but I don't seem to see that in my crude measurements. I have heard that in situ measurements don't match lab measurements, but I'm getting only like 15db's of isolation at 40 and 60hz.
I had envisioned fabric on all the walls in this modern striped pattern. I priced it out, it was insane, I gave up. I have fabric on just the front wall. They didn't come out like expected. Not everything fits together as it should, the fabric has no stretch and was hard to wrap around the frames. Dennis has seen it, I bet he didn't notice, but again, it all bothers me.

Matthew J Poes · May 15, 2018

Peter did I see a comment about soundproofing. Let me know if you need any help with that.

dmiller68 · May 16, 2018

It is very cool that you get to build what you want. We have started considering building a house but land is pretty hard to come by in the areas we want to live. It will be cool to see what it looks like when you are all done.

NBPK402 · Jun 18, 2018

Looks great... I hope your progress does not slow down due to having your equipment in the room. I was told to finish the room first. I did not, and it took forever to finish it.

Peter Loeser · Sep 23, 2019

Who imagined the day would come when I started working on this again? We’re getting some bonus summer weather here in Michigan so I’m trying to wrap up some outdoor projects but also getting the itch to make progress inside as well. Hoping to get the home theater at least functional this winter and finish most of the rest of the basement living space.

The theater space has mostly been a disaster since we moved in so I’ve been sorting through surplus electronics and wiring. I’ve gotten a bunch of junk out of the room and started to make a little progress this week.

I put up some acoustic materials on the front wall, mostly to get them off the floor or out of boxes. I roughly hung the big panels and started filling with foam. I’ll eventually rearrange so there’s no gaps but it’s a start.

Next I started assembling my rack morning rails in the equipment closet. Our builder nailed the spacing and everything fits really nicely. Really going to enjoy the easy access to the back of all my gear.

Once I get the front wall covered I’ll frame a basic structure to hang the screen and at least get the screen assembled. Next will be projector mount.

No new equipment planned at the moment, initially just setting up the same system I had in our previous house. More updates to come hopefully.

Got a few other smaller projects going which I’ll start some threads for as well.

Todd Anderson · Sep 23, 2019

It's time to get that space rockin'! ;-)

I know these home projects are overwhelming... we are just coming out of roughly a year of construction on our home. It's intense... and you guys went through a lot building from the ground up! I'm sure you'll be happy to get your room heading in the right direction!

Tony V. · Sep 23, 2019

Its starting to come together Peter! looks like it will be a nice space once complete.

Peter Loeser · Sep 28, 2019

Few more baby steps but it’s progress. I framed a ceiling mount for the projector, installed the top part of my rack rails and mounted my gear, and even ran a few wires. I’ve left space on the rack for an additional amp or two and another source eventually (probably Xbox) all with generous amounts of clearance for good ventilation. The TT shelf slides out for easy access when I’m using it. I even listened to some music this evening, which was nice. Tons of work yet but the vision is starting to take shape.

Peter Loeser · Oct 1, 2019

The room is finally de-junked and the screen is assembled. Time to find my notes with all my seating and speaker layout plans.

Peter Loeser · Oct 2, 2019

Went home at lunch and made a temporary mount to hang the screen. It's attached to the joist with a few screws so I can move it around fairly easily while I play around with the room setup. Once I finalize height and distance from projector I'll build a proper frame floor to ceiling.

tripplej · Oct 2, 2019

Wow. Good progress. Congrats on the setup so far. Looking good.

Peter Loeser · Oct 2, 2019

Ok experts... now I start asking for advice. I have basically one wall and the whole ceiling to make as close to soundproof as I can, within a reasonable budget. There is also a cold air return duct along the right side of the room and some plumbing here and there, all of which I'd prefer not to disturb the theater environment.

Anyone who has done this care to share their experience? I assume my options go from relatively simple, stuff rolls of insulation between the studs/joists and sheetrock over it to more exotic batting material, multiple layers of sheetrock/board, offset studs with isolation mounts, glue, etc.

Whatever works for the ceiling I will most likely use for the whole basement. Between the theater, kids play area and workshop space, there will be plenty of potential noise to keep contained to the basement to avoid disturbing our first floor living spaces and bedroom. My point is, I'm going to need a lot of it, so I'm looking for good bang for the buck. ie if I can get 80%-90% performance for say 50% of the cost, I'm all in.

If anyone has "whatever you do, don't try this..." or "you can go budget friendly on everything but this..." type feedback, please share!

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about acoustic treatments within the theater just yet. We'll get there eventually. First step is making sure the sound stays in. Then we'll figure out what it does while it's in there...

Thanks in advance!

Peter Loeser · Oct 3, 2019

I talked to a friend who is a custom installer. He suggested basically a double wall with a small air gap between itself and the existing walls. I think it'll work in my case, since my plan was to frame an inner set of walls anyway. Down that rabbit hole I go...

Peter Loeser · Oct 15, 2019

Well after 2 and a half years I finally demoed a few movie clips last night. Still a looooong way to go but I at least have most of the speakers roughly in place and a handful actually wired. Mains, subs, wides, surrounds, and rears are positioned or mounted. I used up what scraps of speaker wires I had available to connect the fronts, center and rears. Just ordering long sub cables and the rest of the speaker wire I need. Next will be mounting the ceiling/atmos speakers. Planning 3 sets total for full future expansion potential of a 9.1.6 system. I've got my eyes on one of the Emotiva processors. That's a ways off yet, but might as well have the structure in place to support it, since i already have the speakers. Then there's the topic of projector upgrade someday...

Fronts, subs, wides...

Surrounds and rears with seating in it's intended position (rear platform will be ~16 inches above floor)

In the meantime I've also started mapping out the shape of the side walls which will conceal the speakers, wiring, acoustic panels, etc. This will also hide the support columns on one side of the room, along with some plumbing and ductwork. I'm also planning to use a combination of hard surface open spaces, all covered by fabric to provide some diffusion while maintaining a plush appearance. My thought is minimizing the amount of parallel surfaces in the room should help with acoustics.

Still going for this aesthetic, with tiered/angled walls and ceiling, like you'd see in a music hall or auditorium.

Also planning to go with a "floating" backlit screen look, like one of these.

No calibration or response curves yet. Will get there eventually.

NBPK402 · Oct 15, 2019

Love your theater, and miss mine too.

In my last HT...We made fake acoustic panels, and covered them in GOM. We did this to give the room a true theater look, while still maintaining a not to dead room.

Peterman's HT 2.0

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