Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners The HT Room Design

Like so many others on the forums, wei've come to the point in time where we are building our media room from scratch. We've purchased a new home and will be putting together a room about 11x18.
The floor plan (area D will be the media room, area A a spare bedroom, area B the games area and area C is going to be a wine cellar..see this link):



Now there are many things i've considered about designing this room, many pictures sifted through, many forums read, many websites perused, but ultimately we still do not have a whole ton of ideas as to what to do with this.
The room will be well insulated, but not sound proofed. The floor joists will also be insulated prior to adding a ceiling.
The ceiling for this room will be drywalled, not drop design and i have already thought ahead about having an outlet placed in the ceiling for a future front projection unit. I will also add an 'open' outlet for component video or hdmi connections leaving a pull string to run it later if necessary.
Wires will be run in-wall for a 7 speaker setup so in the least i need to figure out speaker locations ahead of time so no test listening to find best location unfortunately.
There will probably be wainscotting and baseboards, but no other real fancy features. We have to decide if we are going to add any 'architectural' interests to the walls or ceiling, but probably nothing too big. If we so decide to sell the house in the future we cannot have a room that ppl would walk into saying, "Oh my god that is so 2000s". We are keeping it simple and formal traditional (woods, stones, metals, earth tones, no flowery prints, etc.).
We have decided to put less wide, French doors as the entrance to the room, fixing them up with weather proofing materials (e.g. door sweeps, weather stripping) to keep them from rattling and help with sound insulation. We will also be putting some heavy curtains across the back wall in front of the doors to help with light dampening and sound dampening.
There should be a location to the right hand side near the front to build a cubby insert in the wall, about 6 feet wide and maybe 5 feet tall as a location for the electronics rather than having them in a stand against the otherwise flat wall. This removes them from the line of sound entirely while breaking up the room shape as well. It is likely that we will have some bookshelf units in this room to hold dvds.
The room will have a thick plush carpet and at present will also house our 2 oversize loungers (chair and a half style, 6' long). We will be placing beanbag chairs at the foot of the loungers for extra ppl when necessary and a console will fit between the loungers. There is not much room left for other furniture so further sound tweak will have to come from things like wall panels or curtains.

Any further ideas, tips or suggestions from those who have already gone down the pre-construction path would be helpful.
Links to simple ideas and traditional look media rooms would also be of great use.
The construction should begin this September, so we have 2 months to work out a plan. We are presently interviewing designers and building teams. Pictures of the completed rooms will be posted after it is done.
Of course, the sound system for this room is comprised of our Axiom speaker set.

Congratulations on the new house, Chess. The media room sounds terrific! Having no experience with media rooms, I'll offer no suggestions. Just wanted to express my pleasure with your move into a new home. Looking forward to the pics.

Thanks Jack.
I'm almost wondering if i've covered off enough items that perhaps i've left no room for suggestions to be made hmm?

How much height do you have to play with ? That will let us crunch the room modes and see if you want to be building in any wall treatments etc..

Hey Chess:
Having never been through the process, I don't have any substantial recommendations.

But... I will say that with all the bad acoustic issues I've had in my room, I know that if I were building a room from scratch I would definitely be putting absorbant and diffusing acoustic panels in there from the get-gp... especially at those "reflection points" on the walls and ceiling!

In my last house I built a large basement room solely for the purpose of audio listening. Some of the items that I could suggest would focus on the infrastructure - primarily electrical circuits and cable systems.

Ensure that you have an adequate supply of circuits installed. My suggestions are to have dedicated circuits/breakers for the AV equipment, lighting, and accessory items within the room. While this may have no effect on AV quality, it will ensure that you do not have a breaker trip, and you have to fumble around the room! I would suggest 2 circuits for the AV equiment, 1-2 for accessory outlets, and one for the lighting. This assumes your panel has sufficient capacity. If you are pulling wires from the electrical panel, a couple of more add little cost. Also make sure your grounding is sufficient to each box.

Also, you indicate that you will be drywalling. I did the same, and placed conduits inside the walls to allow future expansion I simply terminated them in wall boxes with matching covers. This allowed me to pull any new cabling into areas. This came in handy when I wanted to add surround and network connections. Even if you put conduits to areas, and sealed the ends, at least your flexibility is ensured. This of course is a personal decision.

We could address the issues of materials, which could address acoustical concerns, but you indicate a need to be practical and functional, without sacrificing decor. Based on some of the rooms I have seen - and the thread that once existed - I would agree with you on that point.

If I remember other items, I will be sure to post.

The height of the ceiling with drywall should be about 8'.

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While this may have no effect on AV quality, it will ensure that you do not have a breaker trip, and you have to fumble around the room!

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Considering there is no window in this room, this is reasonable advice.
We are going to be meticulous about how to setup the room for future expansion cable-wise.

I would certainly like to sound proof the room as much as possible, but i think within reasonable budget constraints, the R20 insulation along with drywall should be sufficient for our needs at this time. We are still planning on putting a custom home together (this is another transition home for 4-6 years) and when we do, i'll be designing the room with more exacting specs in mind. Since we are buying into what this house has for a basement, the media room dimensions are limited to what i have plus or minus a foot in 2 dimensions. If i can eliminate some standing waves within those limits, then i can at least modify the room dimensions slightly before we begin to build. I had actually thought about tapering the room towards the back a bit, but i could do that myself afterward with sound panels.
All the advice is much appreciated.

On the upside, it looks like i might have enough room to put a tasting table in the wine cellar.

Check this out... nothing you couldn't do with a little drywall...

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=36&pagestring=Room+Setup+10

I could actually do that with some chunks of soft foam starting wide at the front and making them smaller towards the back, mounting them on the ceiling.
What is interesting is that the room dimensions coincidentally come close to fitting the golden ratio. With 8' ceilings, a 13' wide room, 18' feet long fits the profile. The room will only be about 11' wide but the rest is correct.

>>What is interesting is that the room dimensions coincidentally come close to fitting the golden ratio.

That was what got me thinking. Playing with Modecalc for a while seemed to indicate that the golden ratio was not actually best for distribution of room modes but it is pretty close. Playing with ceiling height is your only option to fine-tune the modes, I assume, but anywhere between 7' and 8' the results look pretty good.

Question for you -- on the drawing, it looks like the "D" area is the left hand side of the top part of the floor, with the right hand side being "something else". Is that correct, ie will the room's long axis run "up and down" ? Are you going to drywall all around the room or will there be openings ?

Question for all -- in this case (walling off a portion of a larger area) there are two approaches. Making big solid walls gives you better sound absorbtion, gives you even reflections on both sides (imaging) and lets you control the room modes by positioning the walls, but having very thin walls allows you to take advantage of the possibly superior room modes of the larger surrounding area AND benefit from the fact that the room modes extend to lower frequencies because of the larger distance between walls.

In Chess's case the smaller room looks quite good from a room response point of view (decently spaced modes down to 31 hz) but the 20-30hz area is going to be weak. How heavy do the walls have to be before they dominate over the outside basement walls from a room resonance standpoint ?

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20-30hz area is going to be weak.

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Nothing a 600 can't handle, though, right?

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Question for you -- on the drawing, it looks like the "D" area is the left hand side of the top part of the floor, with the right hand side being "something else". Is that correct, ie will the room's long axis run "up and down" ? Are you going to drywall all around the room or will there be openings ?

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That right hand wall will be drywalled indeed. The room itself will be a rectangle except for a small nook that starts underneath the lower venting on that right hand wall which the a/v equipment will be put into. The tv/screen will go against the very top wall while the couches will be more towards the bottom.
I'll add another scan later of a newly sketched design that incorporates some doors and walls although not quite to scale.

As for the second part, weakness in that low bass range can be compensated with several methods: second subwoofer, louder volume gain on present subwoofer or relocation of the sub closer to a corner.
Personally i like the second subwoofer idea.
This system will become primarily HT but any entertaining in the games and wine cellar will be fed by the equipment. I haven't decided yet if i'm going to use zone 2 or whether the distance from this system into the games room will suffice. With 2 french doors opening into the media room, the bottom wall will not be very closed off unless the doors are shut.

Chess:
Have you seen this?

The HT room I’ve been painfully….slowly building, was going to be a bedroom. I could use a HT more than another bedroom, but I don’t want a potential buyer of the home (when I sell), to be stuck with a HT if they want another bedroom.

So I’m running smurf tube from the closet to the speaker locations, and I’m running 2” conduit to the projector area from the closet. All the electronics are going in the closet. The closet is the typical 6’ X 2’ with sliding doors. All the gear will fit just fine, and the conduit and smurf tube will be terminated into a cable tray that no one will notice if this ‘gear rack’ area ever gets turned into a closet again. I’m also building a screen wall, but no stage. The wall will be “floated” over the hardwood going on the floors. The window will get some tight fitting light-block blinds (which are very common in Alaska, and work well).

For sound proofing, the walls and ceiling get sound bats (tight cell fiberglass), and a layer of insulating board – that black crap that itches like crazy and is a nightmare to install because little pieces fall down your shirt……uggg….. But, it’s cheap and works well. Sheet rock will go over the sound board, and some Knotty T&G Pine will be placed up the walls 24” as a wainscoting. Not decided, but I may put the pine on the ceiling as well, just to match the rest of the house.

Now for colors, I’m going with a dark walnut hard wood floor, and a latex satin, dark grey and red paint on the walls, and a satin clear coat on the pine. I hate flat paint because it’s just too friggin hard to keep little kids fingerprints off of it. And semi-gloss will be too reflective.

Will it all work??? Beats the hell out of me, but I’m giving it go anyway. And if a new owner wants to convert this room back to a bedroom, all they will have to do is remove the screen wall and throw some different paint on the walls.

No Mark, i have not yet seen that specific article.
I'll give it a read tomorrow.
thx

mdrew, i have some bad news about the sibilance issue.
I'll post it over in the appropriate thread tomorrow.

Congrats on the new home purchase. Does this mean a new sound system too? I won't attempt to provide any electronic setup advice as your knowledge in this area is way beyond mine, but I will add a couple of points for the gyproc walls and ceilings. I did not hear anything mentioned about "resilient channel". It helps to keep sound in. The rest of the household may like that idea at 2am. It also makes up for uneven floor joist and wall studding. It is normally 1/2" thick so does not take away from the room height or wall space. I would prefer to have a drop ceiling as it allows quick access for updates or problem solving the mechanicals. Maybe not for this house but on your next one is using longer span floor joists to eliminate the dreaded floor beam support posts. Warren truss floor joist are perfect for that or larger JSI's.

Good luck on the project,

Troy

Thanks Troy.
We will be putting in a drop ceiling in the rest of the basement. Only this room and the wine cellar will have a drywalled ceiling. I'm doing it for the acoustic reasons (drop ceilings rattle) but i should have access to one long wall from the utility room on the right side and along the rear wall which will meet up with a drop ceiling outside the wall partition.
In a sense i still have some good access to the ceiling.
We are planning on roughing in for a front projection unit so at least that will be done ahead of time. I can't really think of any other reason to need ceiling access right now, unless i need to fix something upstairs under the floor.