Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Plan D

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HP style

Looks to me like anyone sitting in the sweet spot is going to be killed by those laser beams.
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OK, sorry. It's been a long day.

Lasers would be a cool feature..

I am confused, last week you were talking drywall and such and now your changing your layout again? What brought this on.??

Haven't done the drywall yet

The contractor sprained his foot bad enough the doctor put a cast on it.
New guy starts tomorrow.
The final layout will be similar.
We moved the back wall back 2 feet today and have agreed on the additional insulated wall beside the right hand/weight bearing wall.
Will be 7.5'×12'×21'.
Its all I got.
I'm looking forward to making the acoustic panel and bass trap order.

I'm curious to hear from someone who has the M100 or an LFR pair to confirm back wall to back of speaker distances.
This should be the week the HP's ship. With any luck (and a little less procrastination)the paint should be dry when they arrive.

There is something that baffles me, why a builder scrimps on that extra 6" in the basement. As for the sound insulation, do as much as you can. Remember , happy wife happy life

We've added 2 layers of safe and sound in the ceiling leaving a 2-3" gap between them and will have another 1"+ to the top of the T-Bar.
Two of the walls are outside walls, already insulated. I hummed and ha'd about tearing out the existing 1/2" drywall and R-8 (maybe R12) insulation but I need to draw a line somewhere. Opening up the outside walls is the right thing to do but I really want a bigger room so going to far here makes a little less sense.
That and I could easily double my budget, assuming its completed by hired labour.
I've got another day to decide. The electrician needs to come in before we hang the new drywall and I've asked the new contractor to strip and insulate the weight bearing wall tomorrow after noon while we wait.

The house was built in 63'. Maybe people were shorter back then?

Existing drywall comes out tomorrow.

Concrete walls are in better shape than I thought they would be. No apparent cracks or signs of water penetration.
The existing insulation was/is installed correctly.
The 2 new walls go up tomorrow, electrician tomorrow afternoon, insulation and drywall should arrive Friday morning.

I covered everything while they bring in materials and set up the walls.

I like pictures!

Looks like I see stuff in their boxes , that's gotta be tough.

Actually the boxes are empty. The storage room + 12' of the pre existing room is/will be the new screen cubicle.
My gears all on the shelf centered against the back wall. The speakers are hiding in plain sight execpt the M80's(below the hot wheels sheet and poly with the kids chairs as bumpers) and QS4's which are on the bottom shelf along with my former center.
I took down the screen two days ago and wrapped everything else last night. So far the excitement of the new room is keeping me positive...

Progress is good.

I thought drywall went on the wall not the floor dude.
Hey did you get your HP's yet

Richard

Got my notice today.

Electrician couldn't come till tomorrow morning.
To be fair the drywall showed up early.


Blair

My favorite picture if the day.
It's not pretty but the second wall has has fiberglass and I had safe and sound installed in the back wall leaving a gap between the walls/ batts.



The last few pieces of drywall go up tomorrow.

I should add the Roxul you can see is around a telepost, the gap between both layers is about 3".

Nice!

Scheduled Delivery Updated To:
Thursday, 02/06/2014, By End of Day

I put he pressure on the dry waller... he said "just have them delivered Monday" I said "Thursday works for me, no pressure" lol.

3 M80HP's units arrived a day ahead of the schedule UPS posted on their tracking system.
Favorite picture of the day coming later.
Picked a carpet, and 2 paints today.
Spent more time out of the office than in.
Guess I should get to work now that I'm here...

Son you have a serious addiction goin on.

I don't normally add smilies but I might make and exception.

Did I mention I might need new surrounds?

Welcome to AA - Axiom Audioholics I just bought a new amp and im pinin after either a Yamaha cx-a5000 prepro or the Emo XMC-1 which is a carrot they have been dangling in front of us for 5 years but I can almost taste it now LOL

I've got the RX-A1010 for everything but my front channels.
The ADA-1000 will now be powering the three towers.
I had always planned on going bigger in the future and to run the surrounds off the 1000 when the time came.
I just need a different pre-amp or reciever. I want to go true 9. or 11. sooner than later.
I'm undecided if I'll run front heights or rear surrounds this time around. Think I'll keep the tweak freak in me busy with both.
After all I need time to save up the money for the..............

You have the sickness that only job loss can cure. I have buyers remorse before any kit I order even arrives.

I look at it a little differently then most.
For all my working years I couldn't buy what I wanted.
A few years ago I was offered a career.
I starved the 1st year but am damn glad I stuck it out.
Funny you should say "the only cure" as we think we might be expecting our third child.
The screen room should be done just in time to start worrying about that...

Forgot to add some happy news...the boxes are a little beat up but they’re here.



Here hoping they're the only triplets in my near future.

Oh No! They sent you the French versions of the speakers!

! ! ! LUCKY DEVIL ! ! !

My large VP160 carton arrived with quite a significant scar/hole on a bottom corner. The foam packing inside was very visible; however, the offending assault did not reach the speaker.

While it was sitting in the foyer overnight, my cats really took a liking to that type of cardboard & added significantly to the scarring, ha! Kudos to Axiom's fine shipping team.

Time to get dressed & start integrating that beast into my system...

TAM

Many years ago I had a large assortment of stereo equipment box's and speaker box's. I let a friend stay with me for a while and he had cats, they went apeshit on the cardboard. I suspect it just felt good Boredom is probably a factor. I know what you up against tam, I have to redo mine this weekend UPS permitting and im not really looking forward to it. There is just so many wires and no matter how hard I try to organize they seem to get together over night and tangle with each other. Some sort of cord sex.

Richard

There are certain types of cardboard that they really love to scratch & tear up. Others they won't touch.

Costco is a great source of cardboard boxes that I regularly bring home to replace the ones that they've had at. I have to be selective tho.

Alright, I have to get away from this keyboard & get at it....

TAM

I miss having a cat. I really don't want my boys to grow up and not experience new born kittens and all the good that comes with them.
For what ever reason cats and my wife don't get along. Maybe I should rephrase that, the cats are just fine its my wife who can't deal with cats that climb her leg or hide and attack her at random....Its a beautiful thing to watch, a good conversation starter or fight ender IMHO.

First sand tomorrow. Should be one more light coat of mud and then primer tomorrow night.
T bar and paint are being delivered tomorrow morning.

Figured I'd go with a deep red wall, dark grey ceiling tile, white unpainted t bar grid and complimentary carpet colours.

First coat on walls, primer on first 9 tiles

I used a 500 watt (assuming) light at 6' to take this photo.



Carpet


I'm sharing now because the room should be too dark once the painting is done.

I had to add something...

Honestly can't remember if I shared this or not...
I got 6 x 4 shelf AV units(3 silver 3 black)for the price of 2 (6@$50 instead of 2 @$150).
Here's the three silver units in the pre planning stage..
PS4 goes on the top empty shelf... ADA-1000-4 is +/-17" off the floor.



The wait is killing me.
I know the room will sound different, the towers will sound different, etc. etc.

Next weekend..breathe,,,huff huff, breathe...

So here's where I'm at in the moment...

A 40°viewing angle is shown at each seat and one centered between.
Looks like 9' wide will have to do.
I would have revised this image but it reminded me of Andrews comment in the placement video added today.
I was worried about the towers being too close together. At roughly 8' center to center (L to R) I'm now considering toeing them out to reflect off the wall (more than normal)
No real harm in trying...

So you want to create stronger first reflection points? [shudder]

That is a big acoustical no-no. In fact, you would want an acoustical panel at the reflection points on the wall. Those slight delays in the direct audio from the reflected audio make a big difference in clear and precise audio and muddy audio.

So if you are putting panels up anyway, then you are just absorbing what you are trying to do with toeing them out.

The beauty of it is that toeing in or out doesn't really change the reflection point on the wall, so if you put a panel at that reflection point you can experiment all you want.

Just my 2 cents.

my philosophy in this is: ALL needed reflections - acoustic ambiance - are already contained in the recording, so if one sets the room up for added reflections from walls, this muddies the original sound and makes it worse. it cannot sound "natural".

this means that anything playing loudly will not sound as good as it should.
this is like a hall of mirrors; the sound is everywhere but it lacks definition, precision and realism.
it's also a bit like using "multi channel stereo" on a monophonic source, but worse yet.

room setup is more important than the speakers because no speaker will sound good in a bad (reflective) room.
do a favor to your Axioms, put them in a treated room, they'll love it and you will too. and it does not cost much.

hope this helps.

So having additional reflection points makes it obvious that Jeans don't fit the bloated sound very well anymore?

I'll be the first to admit I'm not sure what to expect from these towers in the small room.
I just want the best SQ I can get and a good place to start is with capable speakers.

Carpets done. Seams like the echo is worse with it though.
Final dimensions are far from ideal but it sort of falls under the "best you can with what you got" category.
At 7' 3/4" × 11' 11 9/16" x 21'2" I seem to have achieved few of my goals.
The first was the wider space.
2nd an enclosed dedicated space.
3rd remove the basements fresh air return from the room.
I didn’t achieve much in the way of sound reduction/flanking. I'll wait until the door is installed before posting the actual difference. I did a couple tests from different rooms before and during. I'm pretty sure it'll be about 10% quieter in the rooms above.
Tomorrow will be the last day a contractor is onsite (excluding the door install) for this room.
The basement bathroom will need to wait until July, I am uncomfortably brokish once I pay the final bills.
Can't wait to get off work on Saturday afternoon.
Think I'll celebrate with a smoke (or 3) and an MGD (or 3) and start moving in.
Hopefully life will get back to normal after, I haven't been myself lately.

The last coat of paint went on today.
We had to change to eggshell, the flat marked up way too easy. Baseboards are cut for 3 walls, waiting on the door to cut and install the rest.
I moved the AV tower into place and the components are sitting in there new locations.
The boys and I built the 3 speaker stands and they're in their exact locations.
My coil of wire didn't show up so Mondays the day, assuming I don't string speaker wire across the floor while I wait.
Got 2.5 hours in tonight, feels good to be moving in.
Pictures to follow before and after the screen goes up.

With flash and 3 lamps

this is a very impressive looking installation.
if this is for audio only, why the center channel?

This will be for 2.0 and 7.1/2/3/4.
In a week you'll only see screen.
I had an amazing night.
I got 6 hours just listening time averaging 75db at 11'.
No one noticed my 85db moments. Even the wife slept through my first night.
The Boston Cherry towers are for comparison only, they are going on the refurb site shortly.

Before the celebrating started.


http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/brwsaw/media/20140216_010000_zpsd648c786.mp4.html

Looks nice, im envious. I can well imagine its even nicer in person, I know when I take pics I can not come close to conveying what its like being there. Along with that I don't own a slr camera with a wide angle lense. Bet ya cant wait to get that screen up and do some movie viewing.

I am pretty exited to have the screen back up.
I've got a design in mind and know how to build it now.
I has to be self supporting and be movable while looking like a completed trimmed out wall. The border will touch the walls, ceiling and floor. That's the plan. I'll probably use magnets for all the border to make the end result easier to achieve/fit together while looking finished.
All images I take/share are taken from my year old Galaxy S4. I live on this thing. Most of what I post and 99% of my lurking (on all the forums I read including face book) is done with it.

I got thinking about what you asked about temperature. I am not sure how cold your room was but I can tell you that my car stereo sounds awful when its cold . The colder it gets the worse it sounds. The Surrounds on the speakers get stiff as hell, my 2 12" subs barely move.

richard

While there are 2 vents into the room its been fairly warm outside lately. The furnace isn't kicking on nearly as much and because of it the basement actually gets cooler than it normally would.
I placed a decorative thermometer in the center of the room and was correct, the difference was 5 degrees (22 upstairs- 17 in room) last night.
It didn't feel as cold, or as cool as I remember it being, Monday afternoon.

Well TBH I don't think it should matter at that temp but frankly I cant say for sure. I find that since I listen to more music in my car and my bedroom I have to adjust when I go watch a movie. Some postulate that every time you start using a speaker the foam/rubber surround loosens up a little.

Richard

Its probably all in my head.
I'm listening to them now, internet radio, and am happy.
Think I'll keep working with the 2.0 placement for a while. I just moved the HP's out to 8' o.c. and toed them in quite heavily.
I do think I'll move them back a bit. At 23" to the closet corner there's quite a bit of space behind them.
I am figuring out my bass traps atm, if I use the 24" batts I already have I'll need to leave them where they are.
I have 16" and could always cut one or both down to 12" or 8".
I need 1 8×8×12 for the door corner, kind of leaning towards 24x24x? Across the rear corners and then cut the 8x8x12 off the back of each of them for the rear corners.
It's a start, one I could do. For better or worse...

Its nice to see it all finally come together. For a while I thought I was going to have to wait for plan Z.

Funny you say that. I almost posted plan Z the title of the thread as a joke but I could see everyone's eyes rolling at D so decided against it.
I'll be focusing on this room for a while and with any luck it will be as good as it'll ever be by mid May.
I'll post pictures and misc details as I go.

Trying to be normal.

How is that configured

2.0 x 2. The center's not connected.

I like this view, same layout as the last image.

Working a complete redo at the moment.
Tried moving the HP's around over the last few days and really didn't like the differences I heard. I now know what "bloated" sounds like. Left alone I would't be able to turn my subs on, too much (muddy) bass already, just not what it was. I'm not blaming the speakers, I moved them...
I've reread up on speaker placement, specifically how it affects the bass.
I'm going backwards on one had, raising them back up 12" off the floor(they were there when I had my ah ha moment) but I brought them out from the rear wall a bit further than they were during the first layout. With 31" behind them the faces are now sitting at 1/5 of the way into the room. They will be fairly tight to the screen once installed.
At 13" to the sides from the wall they are a bit closer than they should be. Catch is the room is already narrow.
I turned the PJ on this morning before work and watched 45 minutes of Robots on the wall to get a feel for sounds entering and leaving from the left and right. I found them too close together at 8' on centre.
I'll definitely need to cut up the Safe and Sound I have but that was always the plan.
I'm hoping the difference in placement and a bit of corner treatment will help with the overall feel/sound. They sounded crazy good already, I just have to get it back.
When I had the room rebuilt I thought it would be easier to get a crisper sound. Crazy how different it is with the extra wall.
Long story long, I'm literally changing a pile of things at once.
Location, height, level, cables, AV tower orientation, AV tower height, seating locations, adding seats, moving my subs, adding DIY bass treatments...
I won't be listening to them again for another day or so, too much to do still.



This was the goal as of 6pm tonight. I only got the towers disconnected, raisers levelled, and the HP's installed in their exact locations (not what's shown, it didn't work because the centre was too close to the wall).

Tomorrow (today) is a new day.

@Brsaw

My living room is narrow as well, it is right around 10ft wide.
I have my M80's 9" from the back wall amd 15 inches from the side wall with 65 inches between. I toe them in only slightly ,maybe 15dg. We sit about 11' back. My suggestion is to not make big wholesale changes. Chasing that aha moment is like trying to get that same rush someone gets from their first time ................., totally elusive. Fill in the blank with the addiction of choice . I sat down last nite and watched Metallica Through the Never and it took about 15 mins before I had the volume ramped up and I was lost in the movie, it takes time to just let go of everything else and slip into the moment.

richard

Its all good, (some of) the changes need to made.
A lot will be around the seating which we already own.
The towers are already in place and will be wired up today if I don't turn the av tower. There's a couple of reasons I'm thinking twice about that, mainly the amount of the work involved and that I could put the love seat tight to it if left alone.
I was hoping to clean up and hide the cabling, turning it 90 degrees would also mean the lights would possibly be a distraction so it might just have to stay as is.
I'll try plugging the bottom ports next.

All speakers connected.
Loveseat as shown above.
Subs as shown above.
YPAO still shows the front three channels out of phase when properly connected.
I knew it would but had hoped I would get away with it.
No time today(I was cut off at the 3rd hour mark) to switch them.
Only two appointments tomorrow (day off) so I'll have a chance to place the insulation I have, swap the 6 cables and listen.

Looks like the stars have aligned.
We should have the screen up by the end of the day.

MoRe PiCtUrEs PlEaSe!

MORE THEATER PRON for Nick

Last night



Before we started



Just about there...



Release


Its a kids show but they were watching it with me so its all good.

I placed a few Safe and Sound batts around the room, quite a few actually. It did work. 2.0 is nice. Definitely noticed the sound of drums change. Still like 2.0 better for music.
Not quite where it was on one hand but I made a few huge improvements today.

The screen is 128x76 but I ended up scaling it back down to around 100 inches diagonally. Will toy with it some more as time allows.

The changes worked. 2.0 is imaging very nicely.
I haven't re ran YPAO but probably should. The subs sound good during game play but when listening to tunes I have them at -10.

Never did listen with them like this, just thought it was a cool picture.

Yesterday I posted I'd be happy with 11.1 and I would be, no doubt. It was meant as a joke, to some extent.

Really, I should say I'm very impressed with how well the 3 towers work in my room with subs but no surrounds in the mix.
Several times now we've turned of the surrounds off while watching content off the satellite, keeping "Drama" as the output on the AVR.
In turn I've also lowered the volume from my typical -20 for movies to the -30 I'd otherwise use for 2.0 music (when its just me and my selection of music). I might adjust the volume a little depending on the loudness of the commercials or the quietness in the program but -30 is an average we've learned to enjoy in this quite room with the nice imaging/fullness/realism/surround we're experiencing.
The boys have logged much more time than me in this new room than me, all 3.1 listening (except with the PS4 which outputs 7.1 in pure direct).
Good news, very happy with the HP's.
Bad news, at -30, I'm probably only using 1 watt per channel from my ADA.
Good news, I still own an ADA and may even consider another so I can add a XMC-1 to the mix.
Will need to get through a few movie nights to see if I can find a happy medium between the imaging from the front and the addition of surrounds first.

The electrical engineer needs to come in before we hold the new sheetrock and I've requested the new specialist to remove and protect the standing and walking wall the next day after mid-day while we delay.

The sound must be amazing in your room. I would have loved to of had the space for three towers as LCR behind my screen.

They sound great.
I didn’t know what I was missing.
To be fair I didn't spend alot of time with my M80v3 in this room. Once I started hearing what I was hearing from the HP's they were packed away for shipment. They sat in the box for about a month before I shipped them back.They should be online shortly.
The HP's are very nice in this room. Can't imagine how good they'll sound in a bigger space.

I can well think about its even better in individual, I know when I take photos I can not come near to offering what its like being there.

I like it, wish I could spend a bit more time in there than I do. Right now I'm averaging a half hour a day compared to the 1.5 hours per day I used to spend. In reality it feels like I've been cut off.
As much as the quieter room has helped at night it isolates you from everyone/everything else in the house. They can't hear me and I can't here them. That is of course until I turn the subs on, then there's a modest rumble outside of the room but nothing close to what it was.
In our last home the living room was the music/movie room which was between the Master bedroom, Kitchen and dining room. There was no hiding/separation. I kind of miss it, if only because I could spend more time doing what I liked while everyone else put up with my music, movies, etc.