Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Room Layout Ideas Wanted

Interior space is 13 feet wide by 22 feet deep. Ceiling will be about 7 feet 8 inches tall when done.



Would like 2 rows of seats (may end up with couches since I can get the same seating in less width).
Left side shows gray "stage", black bass traps, dashed line is possible screen location to get a cleaner look, but maybe not...

Toying with putting front speakers behind screen wall.

All interior walls/ceiling will be incorporating double drywall and green glue. Exterior is poured concrete from floor to ceiling with a 2x4 stud wall gapped about 2 inches in from the concrete wall. The other 2 walls will be staggered with 2x6 floor and ceiling plates and 2x4 studs staggered and 16 inches on center.

The space to the right of the theater is a family room. The space to the bottom of the image is a hallway except the extreme left 10 feet which will be a walkway and wet bar.

Going to go with 7.1 sound.

Need:
Storage for equipment
Storage for movies

I hate the idea of spending the bucks to do some sound proofing just to punch holes in the walls for equipment/movie storage.

Thoughts? Ideas? I would like to start framing the room this coming Saturday.

If you put speakes behind the screen wall, then you should use 3 identical speakers with an accustically transparent screen. Depending on budget, I'd use 3 M80's, or 3 M60's, or 3 M22's. It might be better to use the in-cabinet versions with the ports on the frontsize, because the bass traps may interfere with the rear ports on the other version.

As for subwoofer placement, I'd wait and try it in different places to see where you get the best sound quality. Don't plan on a single placement, because you'll be dissapointed later.

Nick already has speakers, i do believe he is adding a 180 soon. Nick, can't help with green glue, soundproofing, etc. Everything I've read is you need to be disconnected from your two walls, otherwise the sound/vibrations with transmit right through any dual layer, insulation, etc. Not familiar with the green glue. Will give some thought to your AV equipment placement.

Thanks for stepping in Randy.

Yea, I don't want to dump my M60s for M80s, and I heard that the VP180 is purely awesome. I don't see how having the speakers behind the acoustically transparent screen/wall would be impacted by the bass traps any more than if they were directly in front of them like others have done. I am sure that there is some difference, but the wall would be more of a culprit than the bass traps, in my opinion (and I could very well be wrong, just thinking out loud so to speak).

As for the sub, I am going to put a couple of sub "jacks" in the walls and see what works doing the ol' subwoofer crawl. My plan is also to add a second sub to the mix to help keep things more even in the room.

Someone at work told me to put the equipment and movies in the back corner near the top right of the diagram. His idea was to build a "cabinet" in the wall there for the equipment and movies and would bump the wall outward into the family room area, but along the outside wall, and not in the middle of the basement as if it was in the lower right part. He said, just frame it bigger, and do the double drywall, Green Glue deal in there, stagger the studs, etc. I would need to seal the crap out of the edges and corners, but that MIGHT work. It seems a bit tight though with the seating.

I was looking at the ever popular K-Mart home theater seats. 2 rows reclined requires 11 feet by 11 feet of space, this I would only have 2 feet to get around the front row, and a 2 foot wide opening maximum for the equipment/storage rack.

Keep in mind too that I just will have a receiver, blu-ray player, hd-dvd player, and satellite receiver. I would leave some space for any sort of future expansion, but that is the basic count of items anyway.

The other option that I thought of (just brainstorming in my own thread) was a small (short) equipment rack that sits off in one of the front corners in front of a bass trap. Short enough to be under the screen. that still doesn't help with the dvd storage issue though.

I didn't look at the name of who left the message when I replied. I was just assuming it was a newbe, oops. I hadn't had my first cup of coffee yet.

Personally, I would want the equipment away from my view so all the lights wouldn't affect the viewing pleasure. As for movie storage, you could put that in a different room. There's no reason to have to have it in the HT room.

I've always heard, and it makes sense, that 3 identical speakers across the front would sound the best. Since you already have the M60's.... But I suppose you could mount a VP180 on a stand behind the screen so that it's approx in the center of the screen. I would raise the M60's also.

I thought that the rear ports had to fire off of the rear wall from about 2 to 8 inches in order to get their effect.

I used Green Glue and am happy with the results. I have a HT in the corner of my basement where one wall faces a bedroom and the other interior wall faces a hobby room that is overrun by Simpsons memorabilia. But I digress.

I don't know what the results would have been going with single sheetrock (didn't do an A-B comparo), but I can listen to a rock CD really loud in the HT and then step outside it and notice a huge dropoff, like it's just minimal background noise. I know this is very vague - I probably need to get an SPL meter to quantify this, and help with calibration, etc - but, again, I'm happy.

Note: I highly recommend the use of an exterior door, or other such solid door for the entrance to your home theater. If you use a typical interior door, it's hollow and will sabotage your soundproofing efforts.

'ollow doors and zer evil ways. Saboteurs! All of zem!

Mr. Cat (Using that just because I like the sound of it). No worries about thinking I'm a newbie. My previous hypnotic avatar has probably just put you into a more relaxed state that you have yet to recover from.

I agree that there is a guideline that 3 identical fronts should create the best soundstage. I just would hate to buy a 3rd M60 just to have something change down the road and then really wish I had a "regular" center channel. As for the ports, if the speakers were behind the screen/wall, I could push them a little more towards the middle of the room (not IN the middle, but a little away from the wall since they will be behind the screen) and have solid wall behind them and not the bass traps. I would probably mess with amounts of toe-in since they won't be as wide.

I was planning on messing with heights as well, thus half of the reason for the stage. Raise the speakers a little bit, plus I like the look.

As for the lights up front, that it a concern of my wife's and I tend to agree. I would probably construct the cabinet and put some tinted glass (not glass with vinyl tint on it, but real tinted glass) like I used in my MAME cabinet. IR and RF signals go right through just fine, but it can block a lot or light depending on the level of tint.
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I am glad to hear that the Green Glue seems to be a worthwhile investment. I am still debating if I should go the normal 2 tubes per 4x8 sheet for the ceiling and just 1 tube for the walls to try to keep costs down (plus I am staggering the walls already) or if I should just cough up a few hundred $$$ more and do 2 tubes for the whole thing. I wasn't AS concerned about sound leaking into the rest of the basement since there is a whole other set of walls between the home theater and the bedroom that will get very rare use down there anyway.

Oh, and exterior door with all of its seals is what was planned. Not sure yet if I should do a steel door (original idea) or if an external fiberglass door would work as long as it is solid.

I've got time to figure that out though. As long as I get the opening framed right for the size and maintain some level of decoupling through the wall, I can decide that part a little later.
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So, ideas on the storage and equipment?

I will have to run the idea of the movies stored in another room past my wife. I don't see what the difference is between walking to the back of the theater to find a movie vs. looking in a storage cabinet half way down the hall just outside the home theater, but you know wives... (note that I didn't say "women". Didn't want to offend SonicFox if she happens to read this.

Nick,
If you're going to position the equipment out of the way make sure to think if they have on-screen displays or not. My Pio receiver has no OSD so I need to be able to read the front for channel level, sound mode etc... That may or may not affect where you want to place the equipment.

Also, don't forget about your air vents in the HT room - that's an easy way for sound to find its way out and could undo to some extent all of your other efforts. When I was building I had one of the local pros come evaluate and give me ideas (free visit cuz I was buying stuff from them). I would never have thought of that if he hadn't pointed it out.

Movie storage - I am partial to some nice thin book shelves in the back of the room. It keeps all of the HT stuff in the HT room and doesn't take up much space in the room. I am using some cheap Ikea shelves that I ended up cutting to a good height for my low ceilinged basement HT room.

Nick you could hide your equipment in another room/closet and use one of these

http://sewelldirect.com/IR-Injector-Kit-For-HDMI.asp