JBL THX home cinema room (with cats)

A room with a lot of JBL!!!

Description

JBL control 12SR fitted with JBL 2206 bass drivers for more handling power and slightly better over the JBL G-125. JBL 2371 HF horns. What you see is a five screen or 70mm Todd-AO SDDS 8. It uses two Dolby SDU4 decoders wired to the main AVR LCR and when the decoders are activated a nice spread of sound from dialogue panning smoothly moves across or may appear on one of the five channels. Sound effects smoothly move over the fronts and music sounds far wider. This not to be confused with front-wide.

x117 JBL speakers and 20kw THX sound system.

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(Star Trek II R2 DVD)

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120" acoustically transparent fixed screen with Viewsonic 727 4k DLP pixel shift projector (Top Gun R1 DVD)

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There is still plenty of room for more JBL
JBL 8330 mkII that came from Twickenham film studios dubbing theatre in good condition. Sidewall arrays, rear wall and centre middle back.
JBL control 5 on the ceiling x6 Height 1 Height 2 Height 3
Room is treated throughout and still some more tiles to be fitted.
Irwin rocker seats x6
Video projection port window at back of the room to isolate projector fan noise even when its on silent I can't really hear it just the movie soundtrack.

Note: behind laying against the wall a simple bit of cardboard with acoustical tiles glued to it so I can place above the AVR to keep some of the sound from going into the corner works fairly well.
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Main systems AVR and cinema processors
Denon AVC-X8500H Dolby Atmos, auro3D, dtsX
Dolby Stereo CP200 with NR, A and SR cards one of the best cinema processors made and still in use at selected 70mm cinemas today. I have the Dolby CP200 Accessory Unit as well and Dolby MPU1 with Dolby SRA5 Spectral Recording x8
Dolby CP500 and Sony SDDS DFP-D3000 the best SDDS processor as it has two AUX inputs and few other features as well.
Dolby CP45 decoders used for pre-amp and extra matrix channels
Dolby SDU4 for the five screen decoding
Dolby CP65
Dolby CP55
Dolby SA10 EX
Dolby EX DU4
Dolby PS1B x3
dts CAD-5

All players are placed on the other rack DVD HD-DVD bluray and UHD 4k

Behringer DCX2496 x3 for the five screen channels and subs

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The Dolby Stereo CP200 the finest 70mm cinema processor made. Selected cinemas still use these today as regular 70mm is still a huge interest to fans. Dolby PS1B power supply needed new DC capacitors fitted and some smaller capacitors from recommendations by Dolby labs to make the processor great again. The CP200 was released around March 1980 so its nearly 40 years old.

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Two other rack towers house the 20kw of amplifiers. Other rack is going to be for the Laserdisc players or maybe the other player as I can hear the spindle motors when the room is quiet at 30dbA or less.

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Lucasfilm Ltd THX Sound System, crossover/monitor 3417 with all the THX cinema crossover cards intact

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BELOW SURROUND or Underneath Surround underneath the Irwin rocker seats is a matrix decoding of one or many of the sidewall surrounds. Basically it takes the sound of some panned off screen or onscreen sounds that often where you see a visual object moving at a downward angle offscreen often sounding on the sidewall surround arrays visually doesn't match the angle. Now that I had been using this for some years now and the idea first came to mind around 1998. There's up to x12 JBL control 1, for the Below Surround to be fitted in.

Bass seat shakers x6

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My cat Magic laying on the floor in front of my Dolby Stereo CP200 ready for soon install but had to have some few soldering modification/minor repairs done before installing.

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My first cat Sooty prowling around the home.

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Behringer ECM8000 for checking speakers frequency response ether up close to the speakers or multiplexing the microphones around the room with a multi channel audio mixer with lots of inputs Berhinger RX1202 or sometimes often use a smaller Behringer XENYX1202.

Comments

That is it.
The Lucasfilm Ltd THX Sound System is still in this THX cinema the only THX cinema in the UK, since London, no longer has any.
THX with Cats. The Cats Is Listening....!
I just placed the THX 3417 at the bottom of the rack since the new install of x3 Dolby SA10 took up a bit of rack space.

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Did the count x132 JBL in this THX cinema at 21kw. I still have some extra space on the walls ceiling and floor area for more speakers. OCD is true. :rofl:

 
Dolby SA10 are performing okay with Height 1 2 and 3 decoding of centre-phantom into a centre channel between the LR substandard Atmos channels with an extra channel that is at floor side corner level to produce an ambience effect that fills in the sound gaps with far more immersive.
x132 JBL speakers with Lucasfilm Ltd THX Sound System 26 channels at 21kw.

 
New JBL control 5 tweeter for the blown one thou I only really needed the diagram part but rarely show up so got get the whole tweeter.
It be fitted to Dolby AtmosPlusIIIx DOG 3 sometime today.

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Some more JBL arrived today. JBL 8330A THX. Thinking of redoing the ceiling with 8330A attached. Oh the LED lighting will have to come down and the JBL control 5, 5 plus.

8330A tested fine with pink noise and repeated frequency sweeps.

Got another x4 more JBL 8330A coming around early next week. and will need just one more, so I can do the Height DOG channels. 132 now 144 and coming soon 156 JBL.

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How i'm going to re-position the sidewall rear back surrounds as there is a few problems.

1) the racks on the left side if the surrounds are lowered down by 12" I would have to re-locate players and AVR that is sat on top of the racks. Secondly the sidewall surround at the back will be too low down and be in the way of the door entrance.
The right sidewall and back wall isn't a problem its only when it comes to the left side of the room.

2) keeping the sidewall surrounds, rear surrounds at the same positions will not give enough spaciness sound separation between the Overhead and sidewall rear surrounds as the sidewall rear surrounds will sort of act like an Overhead.

3) I can leave the sidewall back wall surrounds untouched and install some extra more JBL 8330mkII THX at later time and make some extra matrix decoding special enhancements to have the sidewall rear-wall surrounds steer in different mode.

4) If I was to use smaller JBL control 1 again I would have lots of options and placement due to a smaller size, when it comes to larger professional surrounds it makes it challenging in a small room, but I like the challenge to try and solve it. Any problem is solvable.
I shall have to look at it from all angles. upside-down, inside-out, turn-around, back-to-front while thinking about how great its going to surround sound, sound in an expanding parallel universe.

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JBL 8330A THX fitted up to ceiling with a help from an AV installer as it would be too much for me to do by myself. They are anchored up with some good ceiling plasterboard fittings and screwed up nice and secure. Waiting for 9th JBL 8330A which is in UK, now and waiting for deliver and the chap will help me fit it up.

Tested each heights with frequency sweep. Height 3 rear is running in stereo mode on the Dolby SA10 as there is no DOG 3 up at present. All extra Heights 1, 2 and 3 still running.

Huge improvement with JBL 8330A THX bass goes extra lower mids and highs soundly sound okay.
Each JBL 8330A THX I think is about 9.6kg where's the JBL 8330mkII THX is around 16kg so a big difference in weight which was manageable to install onto ceiling.

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This is evening with a few tiles placed back on the ceiling for sound absorbent. Take few days to finish it rest of ceiling.
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Stuck some Velcro to the speaker grill and stuck it up, since the screw fittings are from behind the speaker and not possible to fit easily, the Velcro seems to be just as good.

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Other JBL8330A THX just arrived from USA, tested with multi-meter reading around 8ohm. Waiting now for it to be fitted up into Dolby Atmos DOG 3 position.
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AV installer came around this morning to fit up the Final JBL 8330A THX, Height 3 middle back ceiling with all x9 soundly sounding great.
All grills fitted using Velcro.
DOG 3 located middle back.
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When I had my 8320As I had a hinge made so it was pretty easy for me to install the ceiling speakers by myself. I only had 8340As for surrounds, and 2360As for my mains. How are the 8330s?
 
What design was the hinge? If I thinking its like a bracket to fit to ceiling first followed by other bracket on the speaker and the two sort lock together?
I see the 8320 on JBL site, nice two-way with the CD horn.
I would expect the 8330 to behave like the 8320 of similar cabinet box. I tested freq sweeps though 8330A they are okay. The 8" is great it appears to be made well with the edge surround as the 8330 mkI mkII are lot older and I guess day comes I will have to re-do the edge surround but they seem very good compared to many 8340 8340A I have seen where there is foam-rot on its 10" bass-mid.

I can get a good satisfactory bass with 8330/A mid highs are nice smooth don't appear hash in middle high freq, just loud and clear.
Great cinema surround at light-years fraction cost of home surround speakers, so I can install lots of 8330/A. But I now at the point where I just have a tiny U frames left in the rack, so can't really fit anymore in. Or maybe just x2 or x4 more.
 
What design was the hinge? If I thinking its like a bracket to fit to ceiling first followed by other bracket on the speaker and the two sort lock together?
I see the 8320 on JBL site, nice two-way with the CD horn.
I would expect the 8330 to behave like the 8320 of similar cabinet box. I tested freq sweeps though 8330A they are okay. The 8" is great it appears to be made well with the edge surround as the 8330 mkI mkII are lot older and I guess day comes I will have to re-do the edge surround but they seem very good compared to many 8340 8340A I have seen where there is foam-rot on its 10" bass-mid.

I can get a good satisfactory bass with 8330/A mid highs are nice smooth don't appear hash in middle high freq, just loud and clear.
Great cinema surround at light-years fraction cost of home surround speakers, so I can install lots of 8330/A. But I now at the point where I just have a tiny U frames left in the rack, so can't really fit anymore in. Or maybe just x2 or x4 more.
The hinge was made to just a bit longer than the recessed hole for the regular mounts. I then got some aluminum tubing (2 different lengths, with 4 per speaker and screws that were long enough for their tube).The length of the tubes was determined by angle of the speaker to give us the speaker grill being parallel to the floor (speakers have a built in angle). If I recall correctly... I would attach the small part of the hinge to the ceiling via screws, and once that was done...lift the speaker up and attach it to the bracket with 2 screws, and then move the speaker into position and tighten the remaining 2 screws (this was about 5 years a go so it is hard to remember exactly the process)..
 
I think I know what you mean.
I'm pleased with mine they seem secure enough but took about 10 or 12 mins to do each one. The 8" was removed so the holes can be drilled in though at the back of the box then speaker box placed on ceiling where the holes was marked with maker-pen then the holes drilled and ceiling fittings fitted in then speaker box lined up and screwed up and 8" fitted back in place, wired up and Velcro placed on the speaker box and grilled and that was it. I simply couldn't have done it by myself, not on the ceiling the box was a bit larger and slightly heavier than JBL control 5 box. Control 1, was way easier with its supplied mounting bracket.
 

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