Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Help with the building of a HT

I was wondering if anyone has some good resources I can look into to help me design and build a modest home theatre (rec room/play room) in our basement. As you can tell this will be a multi-purpose room, but I would like to make a half descent room for watching movies and listening to music.
This weekend we clean up the basement and start to buy 2X4's and maybe start studding the outside walls.

So you are handing me a blank cheque and carte blanche?.....Well the $30k Matin Logan system will be delivered as soon as they get your credit card number....... ;)

Seriously, you need to possibly address some items upfront. First ensure that you have proper elctrical supply. Several independent, isolated circuits are a must. Ensure enough to meet any changes in equipment placement you may want to expereiment, or need to make.

If you plan to stick to a floor plan, you can hide the speaker cables in the walls. This eliminates most flexibility, and can be a problem if you encounter a flaw in a cable.

Acoustically, there as many thoughts as minutes in the day. Insulate the walls, and cover them with a material of your choice. Drywall is common, and fairly easy to install....but sanding is a chore!

I would start by asking yourself what I want, need and can afford. These will guide your choices, especially with a multi function room.

Regards,

BBIBH

Thanks for your reply, yes, I think the Logan system is out for sure. I've read somewhere that I should dedicate atleast 1, 15amp breaker just for the home theatre. As for running the speaker wires through the walls I had intentions of running them to banana plug face plates. By your response it sounds like you don't agree? What would you suggest?
I've been looking into sound insulation this afternoon. I've heard that you brace the studs a little different to stabalize them a bit more. (metal strip inbetween the stud and drywall) Lots of decisions to make, we'll be taking our time doing this, I want a half decent room, but am not looking to spend 10's of thousands of dollars.
I've been playing with possible floor plans for the basement and am thinking about breaking the basement up into basically 3 rooms; laundry/furnace room, rec room and theatre room which could be about 10X15 feet. But we'll see, I originally wanted 1rec/theatre room, but that would be a little more difficult to put speakers into.
Oh, one last thing, I finally went down to a retailer who sells axiom and got too listen to the M3's.....I'm sold!

Yes, I have heard th M3's as well, and was impressed. My buddy is a dealer, and we went overboard trying to find fault with them - using very expensive high quality amps and cd player, and comparing to speakers in their market space and just above - and I was impressed.

There are numerous concepts to designing a listening room. The primary driving force must be the local building codes and safety codes. Structurally, mechanically, and electrically your renovations must follow local codes. This is for safety reasons.

Beyond that, a friend in the acoustic industry helped me build a proper listening room in my previous house. It is very easy to spend BIG dollars attempting to address all of the factors. Things like spacing of studs needs to be more random (not 16" on center for every stud), with a mixture of wall thicknesses (2x4, and 2x6, and 2x2) portions of walls to eliminate resonances. Hanging wall covering on furring strips attached to the studs to eliminate continuing resonances from one material to another, varying thickness of wall insulation, using differing R values and fibeglass and mineral wool based insulation....and on it goes.

Electrically, use a couple of circuits if possible. Here is a tip - use a different circuit to feed the lights than you use to feed the system - a tip I learned from building my garage (put the outlets and lights on different circuits, so if you blow a circuit at night with your drill, you can still see!). Use a couple of outlets per circuit, and remember that equipment plugs add up in a hurry! Count your current pieces (TV, DVD, Amp, Powered Sub, VCR, etc...) Power bars can be used, but since you have a clean slate, put extra outlets in and plan ahead. Ensure proper polarity and grounding of the outlets, and panel connections.

As for burying cables in the walls, you need to weigh the pros and cons. The planning before installation can eliminate, or reduce the risk of some of the cons.
Pros:
- unsightly cables are out of sight and harms way
Cons:
- eliminate flexibility of moving equipment to new positions in decor
- difficult to repair damaged/problematic cables in sealed walls/ceilings
- costly, as patch cables are required at amp and speaker ends to connect to faceplates.
- introduction of more points of failure
- less opportunity to experiment and upgrade cables (although this could be a pro as well LOL)
- careful routing around sources of interference (computer data network cables, flourescent lights, cable/satellite feeds, electrical circuits, telephone cables - 90volt ringing, etc)
- adherence to local electrical and fire codes for inwall wire - FT6 wire rating is recommended

Note that some of the cons can be eliminated by planning. For example you can use PVC conduit to feed the cables through walls, and this allows replacement, protection and covers some building code articles. Note that there are cables that can be purchased that are coloured to match decors. They offer flat cables that can be used to solve numerous issues.

Having built such a room, the main premise is for the room to become neutral, or not add, emphasize, or colour the sound. Having played in college in an anechoic chamber, I can see the reasoning speaker designers test designs in neutral enviroments. But this is difficult to reproduce in a home. Odd size rooms can help, the same way Ian designs cabinets that are not square. This eliminates certain variables that can affect sound.

My recommendation would be to ensure proper power, build with some thoughts of acoustics, tune with fabrics and furniture after, and spend the extra money on the pieces you will choose to include in the system. There are numerous resources on the web, so search them out. This was my thought when I designed the room in my new house. It contains equipment of great quality, and the room is somewhat tuned.

Let us know how you make out!

Regards,

BBIBH

Well, I've finally got some walls up (2)...I know I'm moving slowly. The HT room ended up being 12.5ft wide and 15 ft long. Of course, the more you build the more questions you have. I'll just ask 2 for now. The first is concerning rear channel placement. Basically the main watching area (couch) is at one end of the 15ft. It is off centre do to the fact of a door into the furnace/laundry room. That leaves me with on 1 side wall about 2ft from the side of the couch and no wall on the other side, a door will be there entering into the room about 4ft away. The couch is right up against the wall so my first question is this....I assume with a room this size I would go with a QS4, but where would I put it? If I put them on stands they would be only 1ft away from couch on either side which I assume is too close. The other option is to mount them on the wall. I read in a post that Ian reccomends a wall mount to be 7ft from the floor, my room being a basement would put them next to the ceiling so that won't work. As far as i can tell the best option would be between 4-5ft up and mounted on the wall. The problem is of course the speakers are directly behind the seating area. Anything I'm not thinking off?

My second question is this............does anyone have any experience using resilient strips on the 2X4's before the drywall is applied? I'm thinking of using them with a rubber gasket on the screws. And also double drywalling the walls. I'll definitely double up on the drywall on the wall between the furnace room (that is the wall the couch backs onto)

Well, thats it for now. I'll be back with more questions as the room takes shape.

Scott