Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New Home Theater layout

The is setup change #1 (the second one will folow tomorrow or Wednesday).

I recently had a significant water infiltration in my appartment's basement (2-3" for about half the surface). Fortunately, I got 0$ dammage as most of my equipment is in slightly higher portions and also always at least 4" from the ground, except the main speakers in my Home theater and the subwoofer. Anyhow, we had to remove the carpet, which caused a lot of disruption (and still causing) and clearing out of rooms as we went along.

The owners are a young couple and I told them that, when that type of situation happens, you need to take it advantage of being forced to do work to do it in a manner that leads to a much better situation. My Home Theater is in a room that has 2 entrances and a "cupboard" used for pipes that is causing layout headaches. When I moved in, my Pallinder furniture had 3 seats. But one (my old central one) was beaten down (too much use) and did not open anymore, likely due to the last move. So, when I got rid of that seat, it finally occured to me that I could swap sides and go from a 18" space to deal with inter-connects to 6'! Quite a diffrence, and I ended up with a cosier seating space.

Anyhow, so I took advance of that to first flip the system left-side-right-side. Then I got enough space on the equipment to move to back projection with all the equipment behind it. So now I have a 100" screen at about 5 feet away from me. I then also put velvet drapes around the screen and on a removeabal bottom piece made out of a piece of wood with feet to allow more sound to pass through more easily. The screen material is a "Wraith" elite screen material, which although not sonically totally transparent is still surprising accurate (after ARC) to be a totally acceptable compromise between an awesome movie theater and music.

The following 2 pictures were taken using wide-angle lens so it is a LOT smaller than it looks. When sitting, you barely see the velvet drapes. it's when playing something that you have so much less light dancing around and distracting the eyes. 3D movies are gorgeous! In the back, all the equipment is either mounted (projector) or on a 3-plateau trolley on wheels so next time there is work to be done, it will take a minute to get everything cleared out. Also, now the projected image is within 1 pixel off. Never had such a perfect projection in all the setups I built over the years. Even the PC I have in that room looks like on a normal screen. Nothing cut, nothing deformed.

Very happy with the result of this water-imposed work!
The table that is now usable in front of the seats used to hold the screen. So another net gain.





I also took the opportunity to use D-Line racetracks to hide cables as much as possible. Later I also wallmounted the power bar.