Designing a Home Theater Room - Axiom Message Boards

I'm about to get a pair of M60ti's, a pair of QS8's and a VP100. I have a room that I have been slowly converting into a home theater. The next couple of posts will describe my room, furnishings and A/V setup. I wanna know if I'm crazy, or on track. Comments?????????

Beth, Uncle Jack will certainly let you know if you're crazy.

you can't go wrong with that setup.

what size is your room?
will you be using a sub?
what amp/receiver will be driving those speakers?

John, the whole family is certifiable.

But we're a hell of a lot of fun.

Here's the room...

So let's take a tour...

Walking along the balcony you enter the room from the northeast corner.

The room is 20' x 20' x 10' with 2' beveled corners between the ceiling and walls. There's a ceiling fan right in the middle of the room.

The north wall has no openings or windows and is an internal wall.

The west wall is an exterior wall with two large windows and a window seat below them.

The south wall is an exterior wall with no openings or windows and is an internal wall.

The east wall is an interior wall with two large openings that overlook the space above the entryway downstairs.

Now here's what's in it...

The east wall has a bookshelf under the openings with a glass corner desk in the southeast corner.

The south wall starts with the glass corner desk and has 8' tall bookshelves all along the wall and wraps around the southwest corner.

The west wall is pretty much unchanged.

The north wall has deep bookshelves that are 6' tall all along until near the doors. There's a section that's low that's offset to the west of center. More about the reason for the offset in the next post.

There's a couch centered on the low section of the north wall bookshelves. Behind the couch is the foosball table.

Pretty good sized room, I think you mentioned a West wall twice, but I figured out you were talking about the East wall overlooking the downstairs.

I would say that would be a prett cool HT room. You may want to look at the VP150 for that sized room, and I would also recommend a sub. What are you plans for movie watching? Depending on your furniture arangement, the North or South walls would be awesome for a front projector to get a true movie experience.

Randy

M60's VP150 EP350 4-Qs8's
Denon 2805
Sanyo Z2 WideXGA projector
Toshiba P.S. DVD
Samsung HD OTA receiver

ignore my projector idea, I just saw your furniture picture.....pretty nice setup though...

And here's the A/V equipment....

The red thing is a ceiling mounted Infocus DLP projector that's offset west of the ceiling fan (AHA! That's why the offset in the shelves and couch placement!) There's a 76" diagonal screen mounted in the opening in the bookshelves.

The green towers are the Axiom M60ti's

The blue bar on the opening in the north bookshelf is the Axiom VP100

The orange boxes are the Axiom QS8s mounted on the bevelled corners between the walls and ceilings.

The black block with the circle on front in the north bookshelf is the as-of-yet absent sub. I intend to take out a shelf and have it sitting on the floor rather than sitting on a shelf.

The receiver, tuner, dvd player, vcr, etc are on the shelves under the screen.

sirquack:

In reply to:
mentioned a West wall twice

Good catch. I fixed it. Thanks.

ok, I'm going to wait until you post all your pics, again ignore my last post, as now I see your planning a front projection system, nice.

One thing, if you room is 20 x 20, and it looks as if your planning on a projector pretty much centered, your going to have to find a short throw model, like the Sanyo Z2 or Z3 to get a large image with such a short distance....

That's all the pictures... well isometric drawings, actually. (Did I mention that my grandpa, Jack's dad, was a draftsman? It run's in the family

).

I've already got the Infocus projector and ceiling mount.

Currently, I have all the electronics in place and a pair of mid 90's vintage 301's along with the center and surrounds that came bundled with my receiver (toys). A sub came with the bundle, too, but it's the next thing on the list to get replaced. The M60's, QS8's and VP100 are due in tomorrow.

Anyway, that's the idea.

OK, I see two things to think about so far :

1. The basic dimensions of the room (square) are going to be a bit of a challenge in terms of room modes, although the bevelled roof, the bookcases, and the openings in the west wall will definitely help (and half a cube is way better than a cube

).

Your main challenge is going to be a big response peak around 56 Hz.

2. If I remember correctly you have windows on the east wall and openings on the west wall. Assuming you leave the furniture oriented as it is now, you're going to need some VERY heavy drapes or equivalent over the windows on the east wall to keep the side reflections "balanced" and get nice clear imaging.

On the other hand your planned speakers are a good size for the room and the M60s sound great when they're pulled away from the wall. If I didn't screw up the math, you may find that pulling the M60s a few feet away from the wall (fronts 5' from the wall and 5' from each side wall) will tame that nasty 56 Hz peak. I haven't had a chance to do a lot of tinkering with this stuff though, so (a) don't worry too much about the bad things I'm saying and (b) don't get your hopes up about the good things. On the other hand, if I'm right about one I'm probably right about the other

Gonna wait for the rest of the posts now...

John

ok, I think I need to give up and go to bed, now I see you already have a projector. One bit of advice, I'm not familiar with the Infocus DLP models, as I own Sanyo projectors and need to stay away from the Rainbow Affect in DLP technology. Many projectors can be prone to dust collecting on the optics or internals of the projector. Make sure you don't run the fan while viewing, and I would make sure you keep the fan dusted often with a swiffer

Anyway, some things I notice regarding the speakers: Normally you need to allow some room for the M60's baffles on the back to breath and let the low bass filter into the room, the pictures shows them pretty close to the walls. In addition, this may also apply to the Sub, I don't think you want it enclosed within shelves. One thing to think about, the sub sound is not directional, especially below 80hz, so you can place it anywhere and still feel the bass, you don't have to have it pointing towards the listening area....that may give you some other ideas, heck some use them as end tables

good night.

Hi ravi,

In reply to:
will you be using a sub?

Definitely. Right now I have the pioneer sub that came bundled with my receiver. After my budget recovers from the M60's, QS8's and VP100, I'll be investing in a much more significant sub. Summertime? We'll see.

In reply to:
what amp/receiver will be driving those speakers?

Pioneer VSX-D711 Receiver. As pioneer (is that pronounced "Pee in my ear"?) goes, it's pretty good and well featured. It'll get upgraded after my budget recovers from the sub

Enjoy!

Thanks for the comments, bridgman!

In reply to:
openings in the west wall will definitely help (and half a cube is way better than a cube

Windows with wooden venetion blinds to the west. Openings to large airspace to the east.

In reply to:
a big response peak around 56 Hz

Fabulous!

Close enough to 60Hz that anything that does couple in is going to be REALLY noticeable

In reply to:
the M60s sound great when they're pulled away from the wall

The northwest (Left) M60 will be about a foot away from the west wall and about 8" in front of the bookshelves. Those bookshelves have some space left in them (unlike the south and east bookshelves) and they're 50cm deep (what... about 20", yah?). That should act as distance from the north wall , anyway.

The Right M60 will be the same distance out from the bookshelves, but a LONG way from the east wall.

In reply to:
pulling the M60s a few feet away from the wall (fronts 5' from the wall and 5' from each side wall)

That puts the Left one right in front of the couch. Probably bad for other reasons

Thanks for the tips!

In reply to:
As pioneer (is that pronounced "Pee in my ear"?)......

Yup...she's related to Jack.....

That's a lovely room Beth.
Pictures are always nice but drawings are just plain fun. Sometimes planning is more exciting than a finished product. With so much excitement, the project seems to never get completely finished and instead goes through constant transformations into the next level every other year or so.
That's when the hobby really gets expensive...

Hi sirquack
Thanks for the advice re: dust and DLP projectors.

As far as DLP rainbows... yes, I can see them, but no one else in the family claims that they see them. The wheel speed is really high, though, so it's no where near as bad as my first experience with DLP projectors in the Compaq business grade projectors a couple of years ago. BTW, I used to work at Compaq, now I'm at TI.

In reply to:
the Sub, I don't think you want it enclosed within shelves. [...] you can place it anywhere and still feel the bass, [...] some use them as end tables

Hmm... End table might be good. How about under the foosball table just behind the couch? Does being behind the listening/viewing are cause any trouble?

Thanks Again,

>>Windows with wooden venetion blinds to the west. Openings to large airspace to the east.

Whoops, I got that backwards huh ?

You live in Texas so you can leave the windows open without having to worry about snow drifts in front of the TV. Put the blinds at a 45 degree angle when you're doing critical listening, that should help

>>That puts the Left one right in front of the couch. Probably bad for other reasons

Mmm. Have to agree with that.

Anyways, looks like it's going to be a fantastic system.

Speakers arrive tomorrow, huh ? Have you already called in sick or are you going to wait until the morning ? Remember to drink some milk just before calling to help sound congested...

Hi Chesseroo

In reply to:
the project seems to never get completely finished and instead goes through constant transformations into the next level every other year or so.

I'm SURE it does! I know I have several upgrades in mind that will keep me busy for a long time to come.

Enjoy!

*laughs* Ever want to see two dozen guys tripping over themselves to be nice to a newbie?

Don't give her a Y chromosome.

Bren R.

Hi bridgman,

In reply to:
Speakers arrive tomorrow, huh ? Have you already called in sick or are you going to wait until the morning ? Remember to drink some milk just before calling to help sound congested...

I WISH!!! It's 11:30 p.m. here and I'm on a coference call with with a bunch of our engineers in a team in India. I'd rather be snoozing right now, but I'll probably be working through the weekend which means minimal snooze and delaying getting the Axioms tweaked.

Sigh.

Perfect solution for the QS8s. Nice.

Good advice about the sub. It can go just about anywhere it will fit. Try not to have it inside an enclosure.

There is a technique for finding the best spot. You place the sub in the sweet spot (in the center of your couch), and while playing a CD with good some good bass, crawl around on your hands and knees. Where the bass sounds best, is where you should place the sub. On the other hand, if the bass sounds best on top of the foosball table, I'd find another spot. I know you won't be getting your "real" sub until summer, but experimenting with your "toy" sub will be good practice.

If it's in the budget, pick up a Radio Shack Sound Pressure Level Meter, either the analog model, or the digital model. You'll hear people say the analog is superior to the digital. I have the digital and I disagree. The analog might be easier to read when using sweep tones to measure your entire system, but when it comes to your basic system calibration, I find the digital easier. However, the analog is less expensive, and if budget is a factor, by all means get that one.

Also pick up a copy of Avia Guide to Home Theater. You'll love it for calibrating your audio, and it will help you set up your projector for optimal viewing. The disc itself will pretty much walk you through the procedures. I like Digital Video Essentials, but there is a problem with the bass tones. Again if budget is a factor, go ahead and get it, but remember to calibrate your sub about 10 dB hotter than everything else.

Hmph... Too bad you can't offshore the speaker unpacking, wiring, placement and calibration work...

I'm starting to think this whole "do it cheaper in India" thing is just a scam to get engineers working 16 hours a day instead of 14. Between customers in Taiwan and engineering teams in Germany, Santa Clara and India it's hardly worth going home these days.

Have fun with the new toys !

Hi Uncle Jack,

In reply to:
Perfect solution for the QS8s. Nice.

Cool! I was worried about those pointing down 45 degrees. Glad to hear you don't think that will be a problem.

The trick about finding the location for the sub is also pretty cool. Ever taken the tour of the US Capital building? Story goes that when it was first being constructed, congress met in the dome since it was finished even though the wings with the house and senate chambers weren't ready. I forget which congress-critter it was, but it was a future president walked all around the dome before deciding where to place his desk. He put it at a focus point so that he could eavesdrop on lots of other people's hushed conversations.

Same idea. When I hear what the sub drives from my listening location, I can swap positions with it so I hear what it drives from the found location. Cool.

And I'm an Old-School geek and like the analog one I have kicking around here somewhere. Now it's a matter of remembering which of these as-of-yet unpacked moving boxes has it!

Beth, as John(bridgman)points out, your room has an especially nasty mode at about 56Hz.This results from the floor to ceiling mode(speed of sound divided by distance back and forth, or 1130/20~56)at 56Hz plus the second order mode of both the length and width also piling up at 56Hz. Trying to reduce this by placement away from the boundaries may be a bit impractical, but you can also create a partial suckout at 56Hz by separating the M60s about 12 feet, calculated from (1130/6)x 0.3~56. This assumes that the M60s rather than a sub are mainly doing the 56Hz area. Hmmm...on second thought, have you considered moving?

In reply to:
separating the M60s about 12 feet

That's pretty close to the separation I had in mind. Something like 10' or so just by eyeball. I'll know more when I have them set-up and running and get the sound of them in my ears.

In reply to:
have you considered moving?

Hey! I just moved in here last summer! And when we saw this room, we immediately thought "Home Theater". It's just an evolving process to make that into a reality.

G'Night!

In reply to:
The south wall is an exterior wall with no openings or windows and is an internal wall.

Cut and paste error. And too much time has expired and now I can't edit the post to fix it.

In reply to:
The south wall is an exterior wall with no openings or windows.

Actually, right now the room is set up with the 6' tall, 50cm deep shelves on the south wall and the 30cm deep 8' tall shelves on the north wall. When we got the projector and ceiling mount, I discovered the error of my ways. Routing the cabling up the south wall, over the bevel and across the ceiling to the projector was going to be a major hassle because the south wall is an exterior wall that's full of insulation. The set-up as drawn is the planned set-up which includes swapping the bookshelves north to south. A Big Job! But then we can mount the projector on the ceiling instead of having it up on a 4' stand behind the couch. The person sitting in the middle position on the couch has to slouch right now

Take Care!

In reply to:
The person sitting in the middle position on the couch has to slouch right now

*breaks into a wicked air-guitar of D.R.I.'s Couch Slouch*

Bren R.

Wow - you guys pulled this off while I was in bed. Excellent thread!!!

Beth - that looks like a great overall plan. I'm thinking about a projector in our new home.

Glad you picked Axioms. You must be thrilled.

Wait until you hook those bad boys up and take them for a spin!!!

nothing wrong with Pioneer, especially the Elite lineup.

i think thats gonna be an awesome HT room.

BTW- kudos on the awesome graphics.. i think this world would be much better if everthing was in pictures.. sure would make things easier..

bigjohn

Hey sirquack,

In reply to:
Make sure you don't run the fan while viewing, and I would make sure you keep the fan dusted often with a swiffer

I made an assumption when I read this the first time... you are talking about the ceiling fan, right? I don't have a choice of whether the fan inside the DLP runs when viewing... it does. I'm not sure I'd be able to get to the fan inside the DLP to dust it off, either.

But I have noticed dust collecting on the front of the lens, already. (We've had it since 25-Dec-2004). I have one of those little air bellows with a camel hair brush on the front of it that they sell (sold?) in camera stores. When I get around to it, I plan on using that to get the dust off the lens when it gets bad. I'm really leary of even using something that gentle on the glass.

BrenR:

In reply to:
*breaks into a wicked air-guitar of D.R.I.'s Couch Slouch*

Dude! You always make me laugh!

Ray

In reply to:
Wait until you hook those bad boys up and take them for a spin!!!

Counting the time till they arrive in hours, now! Thrilled is a good word for it... kinda weak, but at least in the right direction.

Yep I was talking about the ceiling fan. I'm just thinking that if it runs often, you could be blowing dust around the room, and in theory, that can migrate into the projector. With my Z2, there is potential for dust blobs to form on the LCD panels, it hasn't happened yet, but if it does I have some DIY instructions for cleaning them with compressed air. I don't know if DLP's can potentially suffer from a similar fate, I assume dust can get into anything....

sirquack:

In reply to:
nothing wrong with Pioneer, especially the Elite lineup.

Based on what I paid for it (not a lot - and it was part of a bundle w/ CD player and 5 itty bitty litte speakers and a tiny little sub) combined with the old adage "you get what you pay for", I'd always assumed it was in the class of "not bad for Costco, but not really up to home theater standards." I've been mostly pleased with it, but there are some things that annoy me.

The audio quality seems quite good and there's lots of features that I didn't expect in something that cheap (like individual calibration of all the speakers, not just a set of "balance" and "fader" controls).

The video quality is also good, but there absence of upconverting is annoying.

The old VCR is connected to the receiver via Composite. The Cable box is connected via S-Video. The DVD player is connected via Component. I had Composite to the old (I mean really old!) TV we had before the projector and all of the above went across this one connection just fine. When we connected the projector via Component, we didn't get any Cable or VCR, just DVD. So I ran ANOTHER cable (S-Video) from the receiver to the projector and Cable showed up, but not the VCR. Sigh. So now I have all three cable sets going from the receiver to the projector. I'm not looking forward to pulling that much wire through the walls when I do the ceiling mount installation.

bigjohn

In reply to:
kudos on the awesome graphics

Thank you! Thank you very much!

Funny thing is, I can do drafting like nobody's business, but I can't draw for @%$#! I can remember watching my grandpa draw a freehand line straighter than I could do with a T-Square! My freehand isn't anywhere near so good.

Thanks Again,

Hi Beth,

I just wanted to join in on the fun. Obviously, your project and its presentation have captured everyone's fancy.

Lovely drawings. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

With the exception of Bren's always rapier-like comic relief, I think everyone has been pretty helpful without being nauseatingly ingratiating.

Even though that is a big room, you have a LOT of stuff in it. I have only a couple of observations that might qualify as value-added relative to what's already been said.

1. I'm concerned about placement of the left M60 relative to the window seat. Get it "clear" if you can, and soften the window seat box acoustically if possible.

2. You don't HAVE to put the QS8's that high if you don't want to. I think it will be fine, but they'd likely be just as fine on the vertical wall. I'd put them a little behind the listening position; I can't tell if that's your plan or not.

3. Really, try to get the sub out of the cabinet. End table or under the foosball table or something.

4. I have M60/VP100/QS8 in a somewhat larger space (cubic-feet wise) and it is wonderful. Especially since you will be only ~10 feet away from the screen, I don't think you need to torture yourself over the VP150. YMMV.

I'll bet you have a lovely home. Thank you for sharing your project with us.

Add Beth to the Texas Axiom Tour list!

In reply to:
So now I have all three cable sets going from the receiver to the projector. I'm not looking forward to pulling that much wire through the walls when I do the ceiling mount installation.

Ah! Save your money kiddo. You need an upconverting receiver, doncha. I think there are receivers on the market now that upconvert composite and S-video to component. Does your projector have DVI or HDMI connections? I think receivers that will upconvert to those are gonna show up toward the end of the year. Save. Save. Save.

I don't run my video through my receiver, so I have about 4 or 5 connections to my HDTV. Of course, my equipment is only a 6-foot-run away from my HDTV, so no big deal for me. OK, for some things it's a 12 foot rum cuz I gotta run from the player down to the floor, along the baseboard, then back up to the HDTV. Am I the only nut that doesn't run his video through the receiver at all?

Jack, only the magical macro bliss of the MX-700 makes such a scenario thinkable. Mere mortals are hostage to the simultaneous signal switching of their receivers.

I'm at work, but I just got a call from home. The UPS man JUST dropped off my boxes!

Now if I can just get this simulation running so I can go home and swap out the old 301s for the new M60s and the rest of the gear. Last night I was here till after 9:00 and then ended up on another conference call with India till well after midnight.

I hope UPS didn't do a number on them.

There's a lot of evidence that the boxes had some rough treatment, but since they were shipped in their original shipping boxes the speakers were well protected.

I got them set up in their temporary locations last night and watched Finding Nemo (including running the audio calibration tests in the set-up menu). Right from the THX splash screen I could hear a difference! Instead of "the cow is somewhere over there", I got an experience like "the cow is specifically in that exact spot right there!" Cool!

Have you already got a ceiling mount and screen for the projector? If not, I have a couple cheap, but effective, DYI ideas.

I'm >< close to getting a front screen projector over DLP...but I'm worried about the lumens thing. I don't want to spend 10k for XXX amount of lumens.

It must be nice to be able to visualize your room using the software you have.

PaulM: Already have both. The screen is in place, as shown (but the room is mirror imaged). The ceiling mount is still in its box under the foosball table until we fix the room orientation.

kstel1974: The "lumens thing" doesn't seem to be much of an issue except for about an hour before sunset when the west windows get direct sun. We have some pretty heavy duty venetian blinds on those windows, but it still brightens the room a lot.

And the software I used to do those drawings was Visio, which was really really nice, but it was bought out by Micro$oft a few years back. The functionality didn't change much, but the price skyrocketed.

Beth,

You might check out Roc-lon Window Covering Products. Some of their products are carried by J.C. Penny.

That's good to hear about the lumens. I've always been worried about that. So you don't have any wish-wash during daylight hours?