Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Dan's Delightful Dorm Theater *Pictures inside*

Hello guys. It's been a while, I've just been lurking now and then during my busy summer.

If some of you recall last year, I brought my axioms to my room and had my theater be at the mercies of how my room was made. This time around, the room is at the mercy of the home theater.

So, without further adue, here are some pics.



If you look closely, you can see some light light on the back wall. I have 3 florescent lights on the back of the wooden "table." When its darker (or my camera doesn't have flash on) it looks really neat to see light emitting from behind the couch.



Couch pulled out for multi-level theater seating.



The set up, everything arranged. My desk is on the left, roomate's is on the right. When we watch a movie, the monitor goes on the reciever, and the right speaker moves to my roomate's desk.


Might just be the most built in hi-fi dorm theater in a small college dorm room. Since I'm at a private school...dont need to worry about people jackin my stuff.

Anyways...comments? Suggestions? I think i should move the speakers closer together to the center since the blue couch is so close to the speakers. They are about 5 feet away from the blue couch and about 7-8 feet apart.

I don't think anyone should ever underestimate the ingenuity of the average college student (or should that be the above average college student )

Dan, a very deluxe "multi-level theater" indeed for your spacious quarters. Yeah, at that distance it looks as if the speakers could be a bit closer together, but if the toe-in allows for a firm central image don't worry about it.

Jack, you nailed it. Ingenuity is the right word for this setup. This is freaking awesome. haha

It appears that whomever is sitting on the couch at ground level automatically qualifies as a footrest for those above.

Awesome is the word. You have successfully crammed a full-blown home theater into a dorm room. Very nice.

The lighting is very slick. At first it looked like the back wall was floating with a gap between it and the side walls/ceiling, but now I see that is just a trick of the light.

Only criticism would be that it appears you actually have a mirror at the first reflection point (where the sound from the main speaker bounces off the wall and hits your ears). Normally the mirror is only used to determine the reflection points then is replaced with absorbent material to improve imaging

You are.....The Man.

Thanks for sharing, Dan! Awesome setup! Can I go back to college and be your friend? I'll help you ace psychology!

Heh, thanks guys for the comments .

The only problem is that I have absolutely no leg room under my desk...HSU STF-2 is too darn big . A small price to pay though.

Heh, I even had to drill a hole in my desk to get the digital audio from the computer to the speaker because the cord was too short...the original "cable hole" is 4 feet away from the reciever...heh.

Maybe I can ceiling mount the sub or something to get it out of the way :P

Sans-Utopia Shores University

Yeager Hall Room 3214

Nice room! I wanna come over and party with you.

Dan Dude, you need a bigger screen.

A very nice setup and what an excellent use of space! Do you actually get any studying done in that room? It's a good thing home theater systems (or even home computers!) weren't around when I was in college!

Dan, you almost won Googlewhack!

I just Googled the name of your "university" and only one result came up. It was irrelevant, but the point is, do you know how hard it is to stump Google into giving just a single response? So hard that it is a game, called Googlewhack.

So, you almost won, but I had to disqualify you because your entry was a combination of more than two words. Nevertheless, good show!

I think i just realized why they say you should stay in the dorms at least once in college because you meet soo many new people. its because the rooms are so dang small you cant help but only go there to sleep!

I suppose thats why when I was in college and had my own apartment I didnt leave as much Of course, i didnt have the luxury of my stereo there too or else i wouldnd have ever left at all. One more thing.. Where do you sleep!?

Someone is SO getting drunk and falling off that top couch.

Heh, no beer in my room.

Anyways, I haven't really even gotten any studying done. Classes haven't started going quite yet.

Most of it is done on my computer anyways...M22's blaring with music in the process.

Nice setup, Dan!

Have you thought about a projector above the seats to the far wall?

You are missing some things though - like a big Hookah and some bikini posters on the walls.

But... I think he meant...

Oh, never mind

Dan, picking up a "Barbarella" DVD will pretty much cover both the Hookah and the bikini posters.

LOL!!

Too funny, Mark!


Dan, great looking room. Nice use of limited space. I think you maximized what you got.

Apparently, last year's room was just practice. I agree on the posters- I still have the topless Samantha Fox poster from back in the day.
Perhaps we should start the predictions now for what he'll do next year. Projector for sure, no cash for a screen, so he'll build a 100" screen that rolls up to fit in his VW. I forsee accoustic treatments by spring break.

Dan, I'm nearly speechless.

Your priorities seem to be in order (entertainment over the basic necessities of college life like studying and sleeping).

That whole thing about "no beer in my room" was hilarious. I laughed until I cried.

Where do you sleep, btw?

Great room. Very inspirational. Your dorm-mates are lucky to have you.

I definitely see a bigger screen in your future

In the 2nd picture you can see part of the bed on the right.
You can only see about half the room, "behind" the picture are a couple closets and our beds.

Nice job Dan. I can't remember anyone with a setup even half that nice or ingenious. I seem to remember that everyone's excess money went towards "consumables".

That's a heck of a super slick setup Dan...I'm digging it! Which is the better listening position, upstairs or downstairs?

Oh, and I probably won't upgrade the monitor any time soon because the furthest people are going to be away is 5-8 feet.

Geez, buncha kids. Farrah Fawcett was the poster girl of choice. Samantha Fox was probably about 6 years old when I went to university.

Ahh, "When I went to university." Silly canadians.

Actually, a university and a college are very different in Canada, you can't get a degree in college the same way you do in a university. So if you say "I go to college" people think you are stupid.

It's even wierder than that now. Some of the colleges and polytechnical institutes are getting certified as universities so that they *can* grant degrees. It's really confusing

I'm not a big believer in judging people based on where they went to school, in case it isn't obvious...

Hmmmph, only someone who didn't go to university would say that.

TO the OP: Fitting Axiom's and TWO couches into a tiny ass room, I salute you sir!

As a fellow college student (well graudate now) I too made the leap to Axiom's, however my space is 14' x 10' (basically half of my 20' x 14' bedroom) for the theater + bed, and instead of monitor I fit a 82" screen

However for the total "crash and watch a movie" your setup delivers.

How is seating up on the row, wouldn't you fall off that top couch when you lean back, or the pillows fall down or what?

- CG

*sigh*

And so my sub problems begin.

When I watched...what was it...Behind Enemy Lines on the lower "blue" couch, the sub sounded fabulous. Perfectly mixing with my M22's. Well, today I decided to sit up top so I could hear my wonderful QS4's work their magic, and realized the sub was incredibly boomy.

So, I started moving my sub. The problem is, the way my cords have to get routed, I only have about a foot of slack to work with, so moving my sub consists of getting the most out of the cord, and moving the sub in a circle around the cord so the back where the cord "ends" stays in the same spot, if that makes any sense.

So I moved it about a foot, and huge differences could be heard, the sub was definately a lot less audibly heard, but not nessesarily mixing with the mains as well. My friend who has pretty good ears said the sub didn't sound as good when I moved it.

It looks like I'm just going to get a cord from bluejeanscable and get an extender for my sub.

First of all, is there a male-to-male connector I can get somewhere for cheap? That is probably the easy question.

Second of all, about the positioning of my sub. The picture I showed you is pretty much exactly half of my room, the other side just has 2 closets and a bunk bed. I intend to move the sub somewhere in there.

The biggest problem of all is that some peoples heads are about 7-8 feet above other people's heads, and the top row has their heads against a wall. I tried putting the sub on the chair sideways (pointing towards the "theater" area) and it sounded alright, but was very directional for the blue couch since it was pointing RIGHT at them.

Another option is to put the sub behind the blue couch, but it would be under the other couch and below thick wood, I don't think it would sound very good under there, or would it?

All I know is I have a lot of sub moving to do. Problem is I can't really crawl around to find my sub location, unless I levetate.

Is all hope lost?

Maybe one of you audio experts who spent years moving a sub around a room could lend some advice. I'm really a huge noob when it comes to that because mostly I've just had one spot and one and only spot to put my sub, and it always sounded good in that spot.

Dan, Is that a refrigerator next to your upper couch? Is it possible to replace it with your sub, temporarily? Might help with the LFE for the upper seating, but may compromise the experience in the lower seating. There aren't many HT's (that I'm aware of) with seating presenting such extreme variables, so you are in uncharting waters here. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out.

Now...where to put the fridge...heh.

I think that thought crossed my mind once, but good idea, I guess I could try that. Thanks for re-putting that idea into my mind .

Only thing is, the best place for the fridge would be my roomate's closet (he has room I checked). I just don't know how happy he will be since I already have kind of...um...well "controlled" the room.

Yea, I remember how that can get. I had the better space when I was in school too. Get your roomate involved in the whole sound experience and maybe he will go along with it, at least temporarily. After all, it would be interesting with the LFE coming from above if you were sitting in the lower seating area. Then again, it may not work out anyway and not be an issue at all. After you pay for the longer cable, it's all in the fun of experimentation so why not. You can always put it back.

Sure, Dan, I suppose that you're talking about this , which RadioShack, etc. probably also have, plus a short coaxial cable from MonoPrice, etc. for about $5.

You're thinking "oh nuts, I have a sound problem"; we're thinking "oh cool, we get to work on vertical room modes not just the horizontal ones"

First, I would DEFINITELY try putting the sub against the back wall behind the blue couch. The impact on sound will probably be much less than you think.

Second, I couldn't find room dimensions anywhere in the thread; any chance you could provide approximate length width and (most importantly) height ?

Worst case, you could probably combine some bass trapping with headrests for people in the upper couch and kill two birds with one stone

Monoprice has the adapter, as well as the cables. Might as well get everything at the same place. Besides, the adapter at Radio Shack, though hardly prohibitive, costs twice as much.

Ya know the problem with Monoprice is that everything is so low priced, that the shipping ends up costing as much, or more, than the product(s) purchased. You somehow end up feeling like you've paid too much for shipping rather than being happy with the bargain you got.

Heh. Alright. Here they are. I had every last inch of the room measured out so I could build my table so no problemo.

Listening Area: 100'(W) x 118'(L) x 98'(H)

Non-Listening Area off to left side(narrower because of closets): 104'(W) x 92'(L) x 98'(H)

Total Room size: 204'(W) x 92-118' (L)

If you want the exact coordinates of the sub location it was around the 110' (from left wall) and 36' from front wall. When I was playing with it, one of the positions was pretty much right next to the couch, which I'm sure blocked a lot of sound.

Cable is in the mail soon. Time to play...

Thanks for the cable links too, browsing around for the best price. And 25 feet for...7 bucks. Wow. College-student-budget friendly.

Holy Crap! That's a freakin' big room! And here I always assumed that dorms were small! Did they put you up in the gym?

Oh. Wait. Betcha you meant to use the "inches symbol" of ["] instead of the "feet symbol" of ['], huh? That would be smaller for sure!

>>> Holy Crap! That's a freakin' big room! And here I always assumed that dorms were small! Did they put you up in the gym?



Now I see why Dan was looking for some good inexpensive sub cables....it's not too terribly often that one needs a couple hundred feet of it.

I think I'm going to need a few more subs...

The cable came!

So, the quest began. I wanted to find a good sub spot that sounded good for music at my computer chair and be a good spot for movies. Thus was the ambitious adventure.

I tried behind the couch. In the corner, middle, and the other corner all behind the couch. Definately was not going to happen. I tried on TOP of the refridgerator, sidways, normal ways, even upside down (woofer was 3" from the ceiling). No go, Joe.

After an hour of moving the sub to and from various spots in the room, I gave up. I put the sub back under my desk.

However, all hope was not lost. V for Vendetta was the scheduled showing for that night. I set up the room and positioned the sub in front of my closet, memorizing the exact position. I popped in the movie and sat on the top row. The movie rambled along, beginning with the crisp slicing of V's swords with the incredible LFE thumb and rustle behind them. Wow. When the "old Bailey" exploaded, I think a tear came to my eye, it just sounded so darn good. Probably because I saw it twice in theaters, looking around thinking "this sounds like CRAP". Ah yes, the sub found its spot. I didn't hear much upper bass, but the sub did not stand out, which is exactly what I wanted. It all mixed perfectly with the mains.

Happy Dan :-).

I cannot BELIEVE how amazing V for Vendetta sounded. Excellent surround effects. What tops it off is the swords slicing and flying through the air with the perfect combination of crisp highs and rumbling lows. It just sounds amazing. I <3 my Axioms!

Thanks guys for the help/moral support. Thank you Jack for that link. After I found the site I was banging my head on the wall for paying $17 for a 10 foot USB cable for my printer.

- Dan

My pleasure, Dan. Glad to be of service.