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Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419431 06/14/16 04:10 AM
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So, my oldest got married a week ago, and my wife and youngest are in Mexico for a week helping to build houses for 3 families.....time to work on the theater again...

So a few days ago, I ordered up some more custom printed fabric for 2 more acoustical panels and to put a large star (Milky Way) image on my fiber optic star ceiling. I made 2 more frames, and then go down to business tonight...

I took the existing panels out of the room, removed the four M3s from the wall, and took down the 2 rear overhead M3s for Atmos.

I wasn't super happy with the results I was getting by trying a fairly new concept in placement for the rear overhead speakers to get them working well for 2 rows, so I said that heck with it, and am going to adjust them for primary 1st row coverage, and the back row will be a little less effective.

So that meant pulling out and re-running the rear speaker wires to move them back another 3 feet from where I had them before. This now falls within the official Dolby Atmos spec too. I also had to make new angled "blocks" for them to mount to in order to get a better angle on them as well. Not quite enough of an angle to justify ordering 2 more Axiom FMBs. The rear overheads will now pretty much be aligned with the middle of the side surrounds and the rear surrounds to "fill the gap" so to speak.

All initial drywall patching has been completed and I have a big box fan blowing air at the ceiling to try to speed up the first coat drying time since it is the thickest. Last time I put in a heater, but since it is summer, I don't want to be heating the inside of the house if at all possible.

I am also relocating the acoustical panels to make them a bit more aesthetic. Now with 4 panels per side, I will still have one at the front most FRP, but the 3 along the back of the side walls will line up under each wall sconce light. I think that this will look a lot cleaner, and I am still able to get good placement where it is needed. The 2 sheets of 2" OC703 should arrive tomorrow and I will get the insulation inside the frames, and the fabric attached to get them complete.

I also, as mentioned, needed to rip down my 4ft x 8ft fiber optic ceiling panel. Keep in mind that I had this back when very few people had any sort of star ceiling, so the more economical way to do it back then was to make a "window" to the stars. I did a test with some fabric and as long as I clip off the ends of the fiber optic strands (as they had a light coat of blue paint on them to "dull" them down a bit) to make them bright again, you can see them great through the printed fabric image. Also, the panel was made out of somewhat rough 2" styrofoam insulation, and the fiber optics were held in place with small globs of hot glue. You could see all of this before and it annoyed me for many years. Now that all gets covered up and you really can't see the texture at all due to the printed fabric. I am hoping that I can just wrap the styrofoam and have friction hold the fabric tight enough, but if not, a few light sprays with 3M 77 glue spray will do the trick. Tearing this sucker down by myself was a bit of a challenge as I used 3" long finishing nails shot in with my air gun at angles to, well, hold it securely. Good thing that the panel itself is light. It did make a bunch of spots that need a little bit of touch-up on the ceiling, but that is easy enough. I plan to put the star ceiling perpendicular to the way it was before, and parallel with the seats, positioned just in front of the first row.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Wires in back pushed 3 feet rearward, star ceiling down.


Side wall panel hooks moved, or in the process of moving to be centered under the 3 wall sconce lights:


The other side. Notice the patch work on the closest wall sconce area showing where the panel used to be aligned with, and if you look closely, you will see two "nubs" lined up under the sconce edges to reflect how far I am moving that one. Maybe 8-10 inches forward:


And here is the Milky Way image draped over the 4ft x 8ft fiber optic panel when I was testing it. I didn't take a picture with the lights off, but you can easily see the fiber optics, trust me. Oh, and the printed image looks better than the photo depicts. The photo looks a little "washed out" but it isn't in person.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419435 06/14/16 05:36 AM
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I miss spending time moving stuff around the room.
Can't wait to see (hear) your thoughts on the completed install.



Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419436 06/14/16 09:27 AM
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Super 77 is great stuff. Your idea to have the lighting wash over the panels is great.

Can you please load a pic with your old immersive layout vs new. Are you trying to get better seperation between your front and rear height objects?

Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419437 06/14/16 01:13 PM
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I was originally messing around with the layout based off of this website from a guy that I have met and trust:
Dolby Atmos: Dispersion Requirements for Ceiling Speakers

Specifically this layout as it deals with my room height (ok, I have a little more than 7.5 feet of height) but attacks the 2 row problem.



I had pushed the front overheads closer to the screen to try to adapt better to some of the DTS:X recommendations that I've seen and that plan was confirmed with a resounding "YES" from a number of people at AVS. By the rear overheads just seemed to not even be noticeable like that. They are just too close to overhead and changing them on the receiver from Top Middle to Top Rear didn't make any real difference.

So screw the second row. They will still get some good overhead sound as part of the Atmos experience, but I want to the front to sound the best since that is where I sit. Instead I am getting mediocre sound in both rows so it was time for a change.

I checked on my drywall patch work this morning, and everything was ready for a second coat, so I did that quick before leaving for work and left the fan blowing. With any luck, it will be ready for wet sponge sanding, texturing, and painting by the time I get home from work. My target goal is to get the room put back together, including wall panels and even the star ceiling finished, although I am not 100% sure how I am going to get that hung up on the ceiling again by myself, but I am pretty crafty and will come up with a way. Maybe even a set of 2x4s in a "T" configuration to help prop it up while I put some finishing nails in again.

I will work up a modified version of the image above to better reflect the "before" and what will be the new "after"...


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419438 06/14/16 01:46 PM
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So here is what my v1.0 of my Atmos setup looked like (or pretty close):


And here is what the changed layout will be close to (NOTE: The rear Atmos speakers will have a little more angle to them):


These are NOT exact by any means, but gives an idea of the speaker layout.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419440 06/14/16 07:50 PM
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Great graphics. Very helpful and quick. I think my backer boxes are somewhere between what you have going on. Front heights are about 5' ahead of the listener plane. Rear heights are about 3 1/2' behind the listener plane. I hope it works. Thoughts? We hosted some friends I previously designed a room for. He is built and into the buying gear stage and is going 11ch ATMOS right away. The envy....

I will probably end up going angled for the front heights and down firing for the rears as they are a little closer to the listener plane. Thoughts?

Good info Nick. Still a go to for all things HT!

Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419441 06/14/16 08:07 PM
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My overheads are around 5ft in front and 5ft behind the first row MLP. That is a bit further out than most people are doing Atmos, but I've angled my speakers to compensate for the distance and the lower ceiling. Plus, DTS:X (whenever I actually get the update) likes the speakers a bit further out, heck even directly above the front and rear main speakers, so this is the compromise that I've come up with and again, seems to get the blessing of several snooty "know-it-alls" on AVS.

If you have reasonable ceiling height (especially around the 9ft or more range) then straight down will work well. It is when you are around 8.5 feet or lower that angling becomes more important, with relationship to the distance away from the MLP of course. A lot of in-ceiling speakers designed for Atmos are angled at 30* (fixed angle), so there is something to be said about angled speakers if possible.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419442 06/14/16 08:11 PM
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So I just finished the initial wet sponge sanding, and a touch of light block sanding (done this way keeps the dust to almost zero).

I had just some super light skim coasts for the larger repair jobs that should be dry within an hour with the fan (finished that about 30 minutes ago, so another 60 minutes). I already textured the area around where the relocated acoustical wall panels are going, and where the frame of the star ceiling was repaired.

I then assessed my paint supply... Looks like I am off to get a little more ceiling paint as I will be close, but probably short a little bit. Plus the finish never looks right is you "smoosh" out every last drop of paint from the roller. It typically ends up looking really dull, so I would rather error on the side of "more than enough"... I better check the wall paint supply too I guess, even though I don't need much at all...


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419447 06/15/16 05:28 AM
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Good progress was made tonight despite being delayed by other errands that I had to run.

Here is a shot with the first layer of texture on the patched areas (minus the larger patch area in the back left). I to one layer of texture right over the primary areas, let that dry, and then do a wider "blending" texture spraying. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph that.



After two coats of texture spray, I ran some errands to make sure that the stuff was fully dry before painting...

And here is it with the 1st coat of paint still partially wet.



While that was drying, I started working on my 2 additional acoustical panels. Simple construction like before and using 2" OC703 insulation.

The back gets covered in cheap fabric (thank you Walmart $4.98 twin bed sheet) to keep insulation fibers from getting airborne. They really never should, but this stuff comes with a warning label, and for $5 it is worth being safe than breathing this stuff into your lungs.



And OC703 insulation added:



And the one fabric image just laying on top of it:



After I got about this far, I went back to the theater room, noticed that a few textured spots could use a touch more texture. Gave them a zap, put a fan on the bigger spot, and ate a late dinner before putting a 1st coat of paint on those areas.

I put on a second coat inbetween working on the 1st and 2nd panel, and then got into a long set of phone calls with family while it dried and while I worked on stapling the 2nd panel.

A little while later and I am back to a 7.2.2 setup (the 2 rear Atmos speakers still need to be mounted, but I wanted to make sure that the ceiling paint was REALLY dry, so that will be for tomorrow and should go rather quickly.

Here is one side:



And the other:



And looking straight back with some still wet paint (the 1st coat ended up being me painting about 75% of the entire ceiling to paint over the "blend" texture, but it is worth it in the end to look like nothing was ever needing touched up...
Again, this is with paint still wet over the primary patch areas:



That is enough for tonight. It is 12:25am and I need to be up for work in a few hours.

Tomorrow I plan on getting the fabric attached to the star ceiling, mount the rear overhead Atmos speakers, re-run ARC (Anthem Room Correction), and then start on my next project... Running a new fresh air duct from outside the house to our furnace room. More drywall work to do. The area is right above my pinball and arcade machine, so I've already moved them out of the way and located the screws in that part of the ceiling. Once that is done it will allow me (some other time) to turn the current fresh air duct into an air return for the theater (finally) as it runs almost directly over the equipment rack. If only I knew that I was going to need to do this 5 years ago, I would have done it all before framing and drywall back then. Thursday night is "take the dog to the vet" night, and then a buddy from work (another Axiom owner) is coming over to watch '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' in Atmos, so I probably won't do any project work that night.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
Re: Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere
nickbuol #419459 06/16/16 02:41 PM
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So yesterday's project list included a few things non-home theater related, so I didn't get a ton done, but I did make progress.

I got the fabric on the old star ceiling. Here is the old one. Notice how ugly the surface is with all sorts of hot glue bumps, and the "ripple" across the entire styrofoam surface. In my V3 of my theater when I built this, you could never see that because of where it was positioned in relationship to the lights in the room. You could definitely see in in V4 as the wall sconces would cast light that caused those big imperfections to be noticeable.

Ignore the "white" spots. Those happened while trying to separate the styrofoam from the brown wood border.


Here is it with the fabric being "tucked" in the newly created separation between the styrofoam and wood border:


And here is the final trimmed and final tucked version. NOTE: As expected, I did have to use a little 3M Super 77 spray to get it to stick and not sag when turned upside down.


I did also get my rear overheads mounted and tried out some Atmos demo material. About an hour later of pure enjoyment, I decided that I should go to bed (about 12:30am again) and forgot to take a picture. I still need to mount the star ceiling, but doing it by myself is going to be a challenge just due to the awkwardness of the size of the panel, and needing at least 3 hands and arms to hold the panel and use my finishing nail gun to secure it to the ceiling.

I will do that today and post an updated photo. I do need to clean a bunch of the house as I have some guests coming over to watch a movie tonight, so that will be the only update for today.


UPDATE: I just noticed that the pictures make the frame look "bowed" in the middle, but that was just due to a lens setting on my phone camera.


Farewell - June 4, 2020
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