Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Is this theatre layout workable?

I have limited space in my theatre, originally I was going to have just 1 row of a couch and 2 recliners seated 38% back from the back wall. This design would have let me accomodate 2 guests and my wife, 4 people total.

I was discussing with my wife the possibility of a riser, but the downside is that now the back row will only be about 1 ft. back from the back wall.

Below is a diagram of my room (finally signed up with photobucket to share my pics!). Is this ok for a layout? I am even thinking about buying another love seat and placing both love seats on the top row, and keeping the poangs handy for when 8 people are over for a movie. I could put both the poangs on the bottom floor to fit 8 people in comfortably.



The room is 16 x 14'3". The rectangles on the edges of the room are feet.

I am breaking the 1.5x rule for the front row with seating only 1.35 times the screen width with an LCD projector. This will be negated by buying a panasonic AE900 with softscreen technology to eliminate SDE. So I am not worried about that.


A couple more questions:

1. Are there any things you guys would do different?

2. Are the QS8's far enough back for the back row and front row to enjoy?

3. I am able to put the screen 37" off the floor while having a 8" riser, is this riser height too high for a 8' ceiling? My other option is to opt for a 40" high screen with a 6" riser. But they may cause the front 2 recliners to have neck pain?

4. Do you use 1/2" plywood for the riser or 1" floor board? Does it matter if I have enough studs to support the weight?

5. How high should the tweeter be on the M22s? High enough to match the front row seating height or the top row? or in the middle somewhere?

Thanks for the advice in advance! I am posting here because AVSforum is not very responsive sometimes.

Nice picture! The measuring marks on the edges are a nice touch.

I agree that with the Panny 900, you'll have no screen door effect, even for the front row viewers. I am in a HT with very similar dimensions to yours, with two rows, and I get no SDE from my Panny 900.

I would probably move the QS8s about 3 feet back to give better rear effect for the second row viewers. The benefit to them will be greater than the loss to the front row by such a change.

BTW, where will you likely sit when it's just you and the wife? If it's on the sofa, then definitely move the QS8s back.

Good luck!

Looks like a nice layout. Definitely move the QS8's back. Also, I had my fronts that close to the back wall but ended up having to move them out into the room about 17" off the wall to get the "right" sound...just a hint.

Were you using M22s?

A recent blind test by Allan resulted in the M22s wall mounted producing 9db more response under 100hz. when placed 2 3/8" from the wall. The only reason I would place them that far back would be to get more bass response. Also because that is where the entrance to the room is, i don't want people knocking into the M22s at ANY cost.

-Robb.

EDIT: i just read your sig, you have M60s which are known to need some "breathing" room, i think the M22s would prove to be a different case. Although I do not own them yet I am just speculating.

Yes, you are correct that I am using the M60's. With the M60's close to the wall I got boominess. I am sure that yours will gain low-mid from being close to the wall. Just make sure that the wall does not change their "voice". I am currently running my subwoofer about 2" from the back wall which really brought in the 35-50Hz range. If I move the sub away from the wall, that range virtually dissapears in the sweet spot. These are all things that will occupy your time when you are finished with the room. Tweaking is fun and you have the right layout to tweak with. I had ALOT of success controlling my subwoofers frequency response by changing its "distance" setting in the Onkyo surround receiver. This was much to my surprise!

Good luck and have fun.

A thought just occured to me. Should I be making the riser high enough so that the back row can physically see the centre channel?

If this puts the riser too high for the ceiling would it be ok to mount the centre channel above the screen? What is prefered, below the screen or above?

Ideally yes, you want an unobstructed view of the image, and sound path to your ears. This is why I recommend getting the center close to the bottom of the screen.

You can mount the center above. There has been some discussion on this- and which is best probably is something only you can answer for yourself. I prefer below, mainly because my screen is close to the ceiling. Having the center close to the ceiling is like having your L/R mains close to the side walls, it may cause more unwanted reflections. It would also put the relative distance of the tweeters between the center and mains a lot further apart.

Unless you have something in the way, or are really tall, you could go with a higher riser and be fine, say 10" or 12". You'd need an interim step- but it would give you the clearance you need.

With my riser at 9" and ceiling height of 90", I still have 81". This is very comfortable for my height of 73". You should be better off with a 96" ceiling height.

Thanks for the advise. according to the riser calculator ( here) if I have a bottom screen height of 42" and subtract the height of the VP150 (7.5") I would need a riser height of 11" to see the bottom of the VP150 from the second row.

I see no problem in that at all. I will build the risers (i plan to build 3 in the garage and then haul them down my extreamly crappy designed stairs with a 180 degree turn!) with 2 x 10s and 3/4" plywood.

My wife expressed excitement over the risers today...this is a good thing! I am not sure weather or not to carpet the floor first and then put the risers down and carpet the risers. If i didn't carpet the area first how would I secure the risers to the concrete? Cement nails? And if for some reason the riser is not level on the cement, is there a handy way of fixing that?

-Robb.

Yes, that riser calculator is a great tool. I would think 10" will be fine too, if 11" will let you see the bottom. You may want to measure the floor to the top of your head in one of your recliners (if you have them) and compare that to what the calculator defaults to of 42". I found that reducing this to 40" makes a huge difference in the riser height. Go with what you need, just good to double-check the defaults.

Are you going to frame the outside of the riser with the 2x10, and then use 2x4s as supports throughout the middle? Make sure it will fit down the stairs, and through the doors- you don't want to find you cannot get it in the room after. You may have to build it in the room. I did this and put it up on its end in the kitchen area when the floor was carpeted. Then the riser was carpeted and just set in place. A waste of carpet under it, but no need to secure it down as you mentioned.

Hey Robb,

Nice drawing...

First of all I think the Qs8's would work fine where you have them, moving them back slightly would be ok also, but don't go to far. Are you planning on any rear's for 6.1 or 7.1? So far it looks good. My front row is 13ft back and my screen is larger than yours, you should be fine.

1) Not sure how big your riser is going to be? The couch on my riser is a full 3 person couch with recliners built in. There is enough room on the front side to walk to your position, however, I only have about 5" on the sides and 3" on the back extra. Also, make sure you place cross members and corner braces out of 8" material as well. Mine is built like a tank and has padding and carpet to match the floor.

2) Your placement of the left/right Q's is very similar to mine and it sounds awesome, they are very forgiving.

3) As Dave mentioned, I would still with at least an 8" riser. Keep in mind, a 2" x 8" is not really 8" wide, at least in the states. However, once you put some plywood on top, it will be higher. I also put "moving buddies" or sliders under my platform to make it easy to move if required, it is very heavy.

4) As mentioned above, I put one cross member, and also corner angled pieces in all corners. Think about the weight that will be on this thing. I think I used 3/4" plywood.

5) Ideally you want the tweeters of the center/mains to be at ear level. This may be difficult for all seating positions. You will be ok if your a little off. My center is actually a little lower and at first row ear level, my m60's are a little higher.

AVS has many Axiom haters, so that is most likely why you are not getting responses.

>>First of all I think the Qs8's would work fine where you have them, moving them back slightly would be ok also, but don't go to far. Are you planning on any rear's for 6.1 or 7.1?

My room is quite small So I wasn't planning on having 7.1 but since I am adding the riser the sound needs to be more dispersed througout the rear so I am thinking about running some wires just in case.

Regarding the QS8s, What would be the best spot for them? 1 ft back? or just keep them where they are? If I am planning on 7.1 will this give me alot more forgiveness on the placement of the sides? I am hesitant to even move them back 2 ft because I don't want to have the front row suffer.

>>Not sure how big your riser is going to be?

In order for them to see my centre channel I calculated on the riser calculator the bottom of the VP150 as the bottom of the screen, I need something like 12 11/16" riser if the screen is 40" from the ground and the bottom of the VP150 is 32.5" from the ground. And a 10 9/16" if I put the screen up to 42 inches from the floor and the VP150 bottom would be at 34.5".

I am leaning more towards the 12 x 2 solution and 3/4" plywood than the 10 x 2 simply because once I do it, it is done! and whats 2" anyway?

>>As mentioned above, I put one cross member, and also corner angled pieces in all corners. Think about the weight that will be on this thing. I think I used 3/4" plywood.

Corner pieces straddling the corners on the inside? I was planning on making 2 halfs of the riser in the basement and combining them. I will be using at least 1 middle beam of 2 x 12 and the rest 2 x 4. I wasn't planning on having a riser back there when I wired the room for electrical, I have outlets that end around 12 1/2" up from the floor. DOH! So My plan is to build the risers with 2-3" of space on all sides in order to access the outlets...

>>Ideally you want the tweeters of the center/mains to be at ear level. This may be difficult for all seating positions. You will be ok if your a little off. My center is actually a little lower and at first row ear level, my m60's are a little higher.


I plan on making my own stands for the M22s so I can make them the exact height that I need them to be.

thanks for the advise!

-Robb.

They make a right-angled drill that contractors use. It may fit in the smaller opening. You can probably visit a tool rental shop and find something you can get that will make it easier. Wait and you will probably get better suggestions.

I must say you guys have an awsome community here. Very helpfull and very passionate about helping others achieve their goals and such. Just thought I would say that about you guys, you rock!

On another note, here is an updated pic with a 7.1 setup, and I added stairs too The only thing I am wondering is if the rear Q's are too far to the outside of the listening area. From the primary middle in the front row they are at about a 150 degree angle. I could move them 1 more foot towards the middle and they would both be on some studs.

Take a look and feel free to chime in!



-Robb "not getting any work done"

I think the rears are perfect about where they are. I have found I like them spaced about the same as the front left and right. 150 degrees would fall perfect into Dolby recommendations:



Just my vote. They would sound awesome in either location.

Your drawing looks great.

Robb, the back surrounds are supposed to be located to the outside of the listening area, if possible, so that the listeners can on occasion experience either a left rear or right rear effect.

>>but I do desire to get that extra 9db under 100hz when wall mounted. So I will just have to suck it up and use stands

Do you really need to care about that extra LF response if you have a sub, or do you want to listen to music without the sub ?

>>Do you really need to care about that extra LF response if you have a sub, or do you want to listen to music without the sub ?

Just the fact that I COULD listen to to channel music without a sub and have decent LFE makes me want to wall mount them. I am not sure how much 2 channel I will be doing...I will be watching alot of DVD Concerts though!

-Robb.

I think you will have a much better idea of what to expect and want, once we get that audition going; as I have almost the exact set up, speaker wise, that you are looking at purchasing. Only difference is I have the VP100 and my sub is nowhere near the quality of anything mentioned on this board but it does shake the house, it is very boomy.

You should be good either way. I don't think you'll be lacking in bass. Not with the EP500.

>>I think you will have a much better idea of what to expect and want, once we get that audition going.

I can't wait to find the time to fit it in!