Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Home Theater Riser Construction

Wow! Very inspiring and instructional. Good think you got that done before the blessed event, eh?

Excellent job! I wish I had the room and budget for that in my HT.

Thanks guys, glad the pics were interesting. Tom, yes, this absolutely was a 'must do' before the baby arrived or spousal support for the project would have dropped through the floor. (She does admit now though that she's impressed it turned out like it did - I can't really fault her lack of confidence, I was far from sure myself when it started)

I can't claim to be an expert by any means, but if someone in the future is going through this, please feel free to hit me up and I'll share what I learned during the project.

Now that the riser is done, I'm getting really excited for the chairs to arrive (~2-3 weeks). Hopefully between now and then I manage to get some sleep.

Jason,

VERY nice. That boomieness is what I encountered when I put my riser in. I was hoping a nice dense insulation in your riser would help a bit. I was actually thinking about cutting the holes in the front of my riser (my internal supports go front to back instead of side to side). Did you only but the holes in the front board? If so, is it too late to pull the top off and do that to the other supports?

It looks great Jason, lot's of hard work there!

Wow, Jason, that looks amazing!

As someone who's been in the room pre-riser, I can attest to what appears to be an incredible job. Really impressive. Looking forward to someday seeing it again post-riser. Need to borrow that SPL meter again?!?!

Good luck with the pending arrival (baby, not seating)!

Rich

Hey Rich, thanks for the note. Baby is officially here, so we're in recovery mode now.

Steve,

Actually, I think it is better if your supports go front to back for what you're trying to do with dispersing sound through the riser, but to really accomplish what you have in mind, you'd need to cut holes in the front as well as registers (or ports, whatever you want to call them) in the back, especially near the corners.

In my case, I get the job done with the horizontal cross beams and the front ports (as opposed to drilling them all the way through all cross beams) as all of my cross beams are floating. i.e. the cross beams only go across the top level (1 2x10 high, hanging on joist hangers, not 2 high resting on the floor).

So the riser consists of two large cavities that run front to back divided only by the center beams which run front to back and do sit two high to provide structural support in the middle of the riser. The sound can pass freely front to back in each cavity and be dispersed through the insulation in each side. Don't get me wrong, sound in the back of the room still is not good as the primary position where the bass is tuned to a flat response, but it is quite a bit better this way than without the ports cut.

Picture added again just as reference for what I'm talking about with the floating cross beams. They hang only on the top level, the area below is open and stuffed with insulation.

Jason,

I see, so it passes through on the lower level. That was a good idea.

Since mine goes front to back, I was thinking of hole-sawing out holes in the front step, then maybe put some registers in the back like you did. It's too late to insulate for me however...

Did you have any guidance on how big the holes should be in relation to the chamber space?

Steve

I read accounts of people doing it with both 1.5" - 2.5" holes... Unfortunately I didn't see any explanation of why a certain size should be used... the only thing I read about size of the holes was that the larger total "hole space" (combination of the size of each hole and number of holes) the more sound could pass through and the more cancellation would occur. This is definitely anecdotal, so if you find anything that conflicts with that advice, definitely go with that source over what I remember.

Check this article on Audioholics for a good review.

This should be the last time I revive this thread from the dead... but my chairs came in and this seems like the right place to post the pictures since the riser was built specifically for the new chair setup.

If anyone is interested in the specifics, the chairs are Berkline Model 45004 (which is one of their two most popular narrower lines for setups that don't have huge amounts of room). The color is pattern 7110, leather #87. The front row has a love seat in the middle for the wife and I to share, and the rest are all single chairs with armrests on both side.

I got a GREAT deal on these from a place called Home Theater Authority. For all of my Canadian Axiom buds, they gladly ship to both Canada and the US. If anyone wants more info, please feel free to ask. I'd love to send them some more business after all the help they were to me (the main guy there even helped me with the design of my riser to make sure it'd work with the chairs).

So... with all that said, pictures!

Close up view from the front (one seat reclined):


Zoomed out a bit showing the back of the theater:


Profile view of the back row from the door:
[img]http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.cumberland/HomeTheaterPicsSecondPhase/photo?authkey=Xuj_PXKMenI#5240086076086932386[/img]

Back to front view:


With this addition, I think I can safely say I'm done with the work in the theater for awhile... but then again, every time I say that I find something else to do in there.

Jason