Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater diy screen vs. acoustically transparent diy screen

I am planning on sitting 11 to 12 feet from the screen. I misread the review (at www.audiohoics.com) of the Panasonic PT-AX100U. I thought they were using a 130 inch screen for the review but it was just a 100 inch. They said that with Panasonic's Smooth Screen technology they could get very close to the screen. They were able to sit at just over 11.5 feet from the screen without the screen door effect found in most LCD projectors.

A 100 inch screen would be 87 inches wide. My front wall is 120 inches wide. So that seems to leave enough room to fit the speakers on the side of the screen without putting them in the front corners.

I guess all that is left to decide is if I want to do a diy screen for about $100 to $200 or just buy one for around $500. Can anyone suggest a brand of screen material that would perform as well as these more expensive Stewart, Da-Lite, Carada or Draper Screens.

- Nick

Fabrics from Dazian Fabrics are pretty good, that's what Sirquack and I have used. They have a website where they sell by the yard and also a store on ebay that sells precut fabric, which is usually cheaper.

I bought the Da-Lite fabric cut to size from an online dealer in Canada, if you call Da-lite they have a list of dealers that sell fabric. If you go with the Z5 i would suggest the Da-matte white (1.0 gain), the cinemavision (1.3 gain) which i have is pretty bright in a dark room and is not required for your setup, if I did it again thats what I would get, the matte white gives the most accurate PQ. The Z5 is alot brighter than most folks think, at least in a small to medium size room, my unit is ISF calibrated and is on econo mode.

monoprice has some very affordable remote screens for under 200 smacker.

A really affordable DIY screen that is less than 30 bucks, is to go with Parkland Duro-therm light panels. Menards has them standing up in the paneling aisle. Home Depot and Lowes may have them as well. They come standard in 4' x 8' sheets, so you would have to trim the length a little to get a 16:9 screen.

48" x 85" or around 99" diagonal. Once you create a nice border around the material, it would look very nice.