The Diamond Street Cinema

[Travis Ballstadt]

thrillcat submitted a new Showcase Item:

The Cinema 1858

This room was originally a shop, when I bought the house. It's extra space under the sunroom. But before it was that, it had been used as a theater, as evidenced by the big piece of white linoleum mounted on the wall. So step one was to buy a cheapo 720p Epson projector from Craigslist and move my existing surround sound down there, using the linoleum screen. That didn't last too long, though.

I eventually, in a couple stages, spun the room 180º.

I tore out all the cedar and replaced with drywall, but I liked the cedar, so I kept it and used it for trim and highlights in the room. You'll also notice in the photo above, there are two doors, one to the outside and one into the rest of the house. On that wall, which is now the screen wall, there was also two windows and an in-wall furnace. This is actually a good thing, as I needed extra depth to put my speakers behind the screen and not have to move the doors. So I plugged the windows and the hole from the furnace, but created shelves in them for the LCR speakers to sit on.

You can see in a couple of the photos, the cavities left in the walls. Much of the area behind the screen (and all of the area in the cavities) is lined with Linacoustic. Eventually, when the cedar was added back in under the screen, that cavity was also stuffed with extra carpet padding and chunks of carpet to keep it from becoming a resonance chamber.

The screen is a 115" 16x9 Seymour AV CenterStage UF, however I have the bottom masked off to bring it down to a 2:1 aspect ratio. Why? I'm not really sure, but I like it. For the content I watch in my theater, it's a good compromise - most TV I watch is generally of the more 'cinematic drama' genre, like Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Gotham, etc., and the slightly wider aspect ratio is actually nice (I'm not missing much of the action in that 120 pixels), I have a live sports setting on my projector that shifts the image down slightly so it cuts off the crawl at the bottom of game broadcasts, but keeps the important graphics, and any 2:35 et al content has a smaller letterbox, which is less noticeable. So, a weird aspect ratio, but one I've come to enjoy. And if I ever change my mind, I can get the screen back to 16x9 in about 5 seconds, as it's just a pressure-fit, velvet-wrapped piece of 1x3 poplar in there. Then I just readjust the projector and we're at 16x9.

This is a small room, with a low ceiling, but once everyone is in and...

Read more about this showcase item here...

 

[Peter Loeser]

Great room! Looks very comfortable and I like the creative recycling of the cedar. Overall a very clean installation. I like the recessed shelving is another nice touch. Great job on the lighting too. It's very satisfying to be able to sit in a space that that after all the work is done.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Great room! Looks very comfortable and I like the creative recycling of the cedar. Overall a very clean installation. I like the recessed shelving is another nice touch. Great job on the lighting too. It's very satisfying to be able to sit in a space that that after all the work is done.

Thank you! You're right. There are often times I find myself sitting in that room just looking at the walls, the treatments, etc., for an hour after the credits finish rolling. I enjoy being in that room, it's comfortable. And the AV is right up there with the best of them.

 

[Tony V.]

Great looking room, the colors are warm and give it a nice cozy feel. I love the AV rack, you have a nice setup of gear.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Great looking room, the colors are warm and give it a nice cozy feel. I love the AV rack, you have a nice setup of gear.

Thanks...there was never really any question on the colors. As great as black/gray or crimson/black can look, I was always going with the dark brown cocoa color with the cedar highlights. The rest of my house is a very stark white modern look and feel, with bright color pops of artwork and furniture, so it's kind of odd that this room is so opposite, but it just works.

 

[mechman]

Beautiful room!

 

[tripplej]

You and your son will have many years of enjoyment. Great job!

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I've updated my showcase a little to reflect some equipment additions and changes. I should take more photos soon, too.

 

[Grayson Dere]

Great! It'll be exciting to see the changes/additions : D

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Just a quick update:

• I have finally finished the surrounds and have them in. What a difference they've made over the Missions.
• I have been applying for jobs on the west coast, and am hopeful to be moving soon.
• In preparation for a move, I have a buyer lined up for my house (he plans to keep this room a theater, but I'll be taking electronics).
• I've already gotten rid of the middle row couch.
• I'm looking at new processors, still happy with the XMC-1, but not confident on the XMC-2, might offload the XMC-1 while it still has decent value. Considering the Anthem and the Arcam.
• Still loving the JVC projector. Gorgeous.
• Bought an HD Fury Vertex this week, as it is capable of reading HDR metadata from content and automatically pulling up pre-specified user presets on the JVC projector, kind of a faux-auto-tone-mapping. Pretty cool feature, and I'm looking forward to it, though I'm not sure if I'll mess with connecting it and creating the custom calibrated presets until after I move. Depends on how bored I get in the meantime.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Well, I went with the Anthem AVM60 to replace my Emotiva XMC-1. It arrived last week and I have it in the rack, though I have not yet had a chance to run the ARC Genesis room correction yet. Still need to work out a network solution.

That said, so far I am very pleased with the sound. More to come, but it will be staying in the rack.