Our cave is now finally ready for my wife to put the finishing touches on. Here are some details for anyone that may be under-taking a similar project.

Construction was with 4" studs, Roxul mineral Flexi-batt insulation in the outside walls and 7" Roxul Safe n' Sound in the 9" fir floor joists. The Safe n' Sound was also used in the interior walls and to fill any voids. Drywall all around is 12 foot long sheets, 5/8" glued and screwed. All doors are safe n' sound with an STC rating of 26 with rubber gaskets in the door jambs. The walls to the laundry room have off-set studs to reduce sound transmission. When the laundry room door is closed, I basically can't hear any of the appliances. I've measured more than 20 dB of attenuation with the door closed vs. open. The furnace ducts are lined with sound-proofing material. The 4,000 cubic foot main area that you see in these pictures is heated via the 30,000 BTU fireplace (I always have it turned down to 10,000 BTU) as I didn't want any noise pollution from forced air ducts. There is a return air duct in the back and that has been carefully designed to limit the noise. The place is lit with 34, 120VX50W, incandescent bulbs (par 20 I think).

The seating area is 10 feet back from the front wall which puts me about 8 feet away from each of the front speakers. The audio is dialed in to within a few dB of 0 for each speaker with the exception of the sub. For music, I set the bass management to 40 Hz and movies 80 Hz. I have the EP600 gain set to noon (almost all the way up) with the LFE gain on my Denon set to -9dB for music and -6dB for movies. Even at this low setting, the EP600 shakes the entire house during movies (but not in a bad way ). I know that these sub settings are contrary to what most recommend, but I have found, through a lot of trial and error, that this is what sounds best for me in this very live environment. The cave is completely tight with the exception of some fireplace resonance between 18 and 23 Hz. This resonance is really only a problem during movies. I also tried the sub in the front of the room with no difference in performance. I finally settled on this location because I feel it looks more balanced.

You can see I have some very aggressive toe-in on the M80s. I spent over 60 hours tweaking with their position. When I discovered this particular configuration, it was like heaven. At first, I thought that I had the surround going. I had to check each speaker for myself to convince myself that it was really only stereo. The same is experienced by others that listen to this system. I cannot stop listening to well-recorded music on this system (BTW, I do all of my music listening in stereo). Movies are also very theatre-like with a very immersive surround experience. Centre channel clarity is exceptional even 45 degrees off-axis. When people see pictures of this set-up, the first thing they say is I need a bigger monitor. The monitor is actually the ideal size given how far away we sit from it. Any bigger and you'd be able to see the pixels.

For anyone that is planning to develop an entertainment area, I strongly suggest Axiom for audio. Clarity, imaging, aesthetics, power and service all exceeded my high expectations. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

M80s, VP150 & EP600 (to the left)



QS8 left surround.



QS8s for left & right surround rears.



QS8 right surround.



View from the rear to the front.



The sweet area.