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.