Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Getting close HT listening room

It may have been a 2 year project from when I started figuring out the room and demolition of parts of the basement to get it done, but I am finally getting close to finished. I have come a long way from this





To a room that I can actually see myself sitting in and enjoying the fruits of all my labour. The hardest bits are finally behind me and all that is left is to get the sub floor screwed down solid, and the engineered hardwood floor laid. Finish the trim bits and hook up all the face plates for the speakers.

Very nice! I hope the rest is smooth sailing for you.

Good idea to use steel track for the bottom plate. So the wall with the door and drain cleanout is the front? Great job taping that stepped bulkhead.

Yes, the wall with the water meter is the front wall that will eventually get a new TV installed on it. As had to get the electrical panel upgraded to a 200amp service, all the wires for the house didn't fit in tight to the wall around the ceiling level. Rather than having another psudo bulkhead around the electrical box that would have stuck out, I decided to make that into a small room that houses the networking drops.

In trying to keep the sound from traveling though the house, I tested a set of speakers in the room before I finished it. The sound traveled mainly down the return air ducts, so I took extra time to put in better sound insulation around those parts. That is why there is such an interesting box around the back of the room. I put on it a heavy rubberized sound mat like they use on cars directly to the outside of the square duct that took out the ring sound that travels. Then I put on a 3/4" acoustic sound tile with 2 layers of 5/8 drywall. The hope is that the mass will deaden the sound travel through so there is not enough energy to get into the duct.

The ceiling is all on resilient track and 5/8 drywall with a layer of roxaul safe'n'sound. I didn't put in any pot lights into the ceiling as that could be another hole for the sound to get into the ceiling space through. I did end up having to put in a single access hole at the front for the outside water tap shutoff. It was just too much cost to get it repositioned.

The room is that almost square 15'6" x 17' with 4 doors along the back of the room. This kind of limits where you can place speakers and any additional sound treatment along the back wall, but we will see what is needed. The small bit of wall along between the doors to the laundry and workout room could support a parametric diffuser like some that I have seen designs for on the internet. I'm a woodworker so making one with some MDF that I have laying around would not be too hard.

I've got the OSB laid down and screwed securely, so I hope to get the engineered floor installed by the weekend.

Having a floating ceiling may help with bass issues. The floating walls and ceiling in my room seemed to. I tried looking. What's a parametric diffuser?

I've heard of polys, qrds and fractals. Parametric sounds cool. What are you tentatively thinking for treatment ? (if you go that route.)

You must have e got your ambition back. this is where it gets exciting.

My walls are just screwed directly onto the wooden stud. However, as I have 8'6 ceilings and the studs come in 8' lengths, there was a more fun way that the walls connect to the ceiling joists. If you look at the first two photo's, you can see that I used a metal track both top and bottom and then put on a small connection stud to tie the top track to the ceiling. I figure that way the walls are pretty much isolated from the ceiling and sound will not transmit.

I've gotten a bit farther in the room as all the sub floor is now done and I am 1/4 the way though laying the engineered hardwood. Its the oppressive heat and humidity that is dragging the build now. Can only work so long before I start to feel ill.

Unlike Marks square walls, which are just screwed.

Started to get the engineered floor installed. I know some will say it will have a horrible reflective surface, but it just looks so nice.



I look at many of the setups on here and other forums and I have concluded that most have made some sacrifice just to have a place to listen and that elusive perfect sound room is just a myth for the rich and famous.

Quick question. Have you ever layed flooring before, and how hard is it? I've always wanted to redo a bunch of our flooring on our main floor of our house with some sort of wood, and it looks easy on TV...

I have done loads of hardwood. This is the really simple engineered click and lay stuff that I got from HomeDepot. I really liked the colours inside the wood and how every piece is a totally different pattern / colour.

In my main floor I installed some sold walnut XL rustic hardwood. This was an unfinished 7/8" tung/grove that you had to nail down. I picked up a Stenco pneumatic nailer and it took me about 2 days with a cutoff saw on the front steps of the house to get it done. The boards were on average about 8' to 16' long (hence the XL). After it was installed i used Rubio Monocoat and it looks spectacular.

But this is a basement and subject to more harsh ware, so I went with the factory pre-finished click stuff.

Looks great.
Had a friend do his floors with the home depot stuff like 10 years ago. It holds up quite good.

YAY.. the floor is finally done. Now to get all the faceplates installed ready for the speakers.

eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww the push is on now you go girl

96 connectors that need to be installed. Not looking forward to that part of the job.

Been there. TEDIOUS!

Hardwood flooring isn't too difficult. you need a few basic tools; a compressor, a good floor nailer for thicker flooring (3/4") or a smaller one smaller one for thinner flooring (3/8"), and a couple of standard brad/finish nailers for tight spots, provided you have a plywood sub-floor to nail into - if not, then it can become more difficult. OR you can glue down a floor, or the engineered snap together kind like Matt is showing. For a basement, the engineered type is also more dimensionally stable as basements tend to be more humid.
Either way, you'll also need a chop saw and a table saw table saw.
So once you're past the $2000 or so in tools, the rest is pretty easy - be prepared to have a learning curve. With either traditional tung/groove nail down or the snap together kind, you are bound to tap an edge too hard and damage the finish, and you'll make wrong cuts so extra material is needed.
I've done several 1000+ sq feet installs of pre-finished 3/8" and 3/4" tung and groove nail down. The first floor I needed 15% overage, the last floor I did was under 5% overage. I've also done a "standard" nail in unfinished oak floor, belt/drum sanded it, then finished with a marine varnish (it was a laundry room). I prefer the refinished stuff.
Leave plenty of room around the perimeter for expansion, and let everything for the install sit in the room where its going in for at least a week, open the boxes of wood - wood expands much more width-wise (against the grain) than length-wise.

I paid for an install once, and it was a complete FUBAR. We had a slab floor and wanted nail down t/g, so a plywood subfloor was needed. The contractor ended up with a fresh batch and it was still wet from the treating process. He knew, but didn't say anything... After about 2 months of having the most beautiful santos mahogany floor, it started to cup, then it started to buckle, then small mountains, 4-6 rows wide and 6" tall!, across the length of the room, started to pop up. Called the installer and he said he installed it correctly. Called the flooring Mfr and they said "you installed it, its yours to keep!" So we were stuck in the middle. We repaired the mountains and lived with the cupped floor for years, but ended up replacing it all before we moved. In the process of tearing it out we found all the nails were rusty. We had done a moisture test on the slab prior to the install and it was dry, so it had to be wet plywood dumping its moisture into the flooring. Live and learn.
SO if you have a large enough room, DIY pays for the tools compared to having it installed.

Thanks. Yeah, I've got a good sized compressor, a brad nailer, finishing nailer, miter saw, and table saw. Don't have a floor nailer and would have to weigh the options of renting ($35/day - $135/week for a nice one) or buying whenever that day would come.

My "vision" would be to replace a bunch of cheap carpet from the previous owners, outdated tile in the entry, and the existing hardwood in the kitchen, which is actually in good shape everywhere but a 3 foot x 3 foot section where it is really torn up for some reason... Seems like a shame to rip that all up, but for uniformity, it would make sense.

Again, this will be WAY down the road, unfortunately. In the meantime, I am hoping to cut out that 3ft x 3ft section and replace just those sections as the previous homeowner DID have a good amount of extra matching wood pieces. Sure, then that would stand out a little bit as being really new looking, but it will just take a little time before it matched the light wear of the rest of the wood. I just hate the crappy carpet in the living room and dining room (why anyone would choose carpet in a dining room, besides cost I guess, is beyond me), and the dated white tile entryway which has grout coming loose.

Anyway, don't we have a HT to build in this thread? Sorry for sidetracking (in a normal Axiom derailment fashion).

Why don't you get a surface sander and take the top coat off the whole of the kitchen floor. Then it will just be bare wood. Then you can look into the Rubio Monocoat oil and just refinish the kitchen floor.

That way you can see if you like the oil finish rather than going with a pre-finishis urethane. If you don't like it at a future date you can still rip it out, but you get a nicer looking for for the time inbetween while you wait and figure out what you want to do.

Some of the areas are really gouged. Not sure what caused it, but it isn't just surface scratches. I am still baffled as to how they got so damaged. Almost like a large dog scratched and dug at some of them, but I don't think that is it, just that it would take something really damaging like that. Not sure if it would be easier to cut out and replace the damaged section, or sand, somehow fill in the deep gouges, and refinish the whole thing.

Spent my 5 1/2 hours getting all the speaker drops all continuity tested to make sure there are no cross talking and all the face plates installed. The master plate where the pre-amp and power amps got all wired up, then I went to install the face pate on. It wouldn't fit. So I thought it might be that the 5 way binding posts were just too large to fit through the holes on the face plate. So struggled for another 30 minutes to convince 16 screwdown posts off, only to find out the plastic insert is a no standard size. They provide a single face plate, but I have it setup for a 5 gang. CRAP!

Now I have to see if I can enlarge the openings for 4 of the 5 holes on the 5 gang face plate so that the insert will fit. I've already stood on one 5 gang pate and shattered it, so I had to order another as nobody had them in stock. you can't get them in the shatterproof nylon up here, and the regular ones are already $18.

Nothing like a bodge job. Got the benchtop router table out with a carbide spiral bit and slowly shaved off 3/16" off the top and bottom of the faceplate opening and 3/32: off the sides. Well, I ended up shaving a bit more than that off one of them as I screwed up a bit. But they now fit.



Once that got sorted out I could get on with putting up some of the speakers. I mounted the QS8's on the sides. Sadly due to bad planning on my side, or was it just that it would have been a total pain to try and get it to align up, but the speakers mounting bracket doesn't align up with a stud. I ended up useing 2 of the 75lbs wall ancor screws to attach it to the wall. I am pretty sure that it won't fail. There is a support beam for the upper level ceiling just to the left of the speaker but I thought it would look just wrong screwed into that.



I will have to wait for some friends or family to come around to get the LFR1100's installed. Just too flipping heavy for me to lug around. I also need to decide how I am going to put the VP180 on the front. I do have access to 3 studs around the center of the room, but wonder if it would look funny just hanging off the wall. I cam build myself a simple stand for the speaker and give myself some small shelving for CD's or DVD's along the front. Decoration really as everything is stored digitally anyways.

Looking good! I have my QS8 brackets attached with wall anchors as well and so far so good. I was also impressed that the brackets easily handled the 12G Axiom wire. I have the stand for my VP180HP assembled, but not in use, and it seems to be well built. Obviously if you build one you can customize the height, which may be factor.

If I was building a stand, I don't know what height I would want. I have not yet decided if I am going to wall mount the next TV or just have it on the pedestal and stand it on a table. I guess it comes down to size and how hight I want the TV.

Right now we have the family TV mounted on the wall over the gas fireplace. as such is has to be mounted quite high. I find it a bit more anoying and hard on my neck as you need to be looking significantly up to see it. On a table of some sort it would be sitting quite a bit lower.

Right now I have put in some wood backing behind the drywall so that I can mount on a flush mount vesa tv bracket and put in a recessed plug just in case too, but if I am making a stand for the speaker, then it might just be worth my while to make it to support a TV as well

5' to center of box is standard roughin height for a tv power/data location. Mount usually goes immediately beneath that.

What I'm planning for my room is to have the TV wall mounted with the stand mounted center speaker beneath it and forward. The stand mount will allow me to bring the center into the room and have the drivers on the same plane as my LFR's. I want to hear the three front speakers without too much interference from over 60" worth of glass panel inbetween. Any thoughts about how a large TV can mess the up the front end sound?

No worse than bare drywall I'd guess. A plasma tv is not the same as a plate glass window reverberating. There is no re-emission or coincidence effect, just spectral reflection. Plus its likely angled down a bit, so breaking up late low energy reflections anyhow. Reflections of reflections.

How did you know I had plasma? LOL Thanks

Well, the speakers are in, but I have not got around to truly voice them (play around with placement and towing). I just figured using some math, that if I had them 3.5' from the back wall (to the back of the speaker) and 3' from the side walls, I would be sitting about 11' away from them at the spot that I would like to be sitting.

Needless to say I was very disappointed. they sound bla.. or more to point, not very spectacular. Now I know that the speakers in a different room (that was far more finished) I remember them sounding a far more WOW. I have my work cut out for me now to get the room to work with the speakers.

I have to get some more softer items into the room and a rug for the floor. And figure out that first reflection point. The work is cut out for me

Yeah well...good luck! It took me 6 years to get my basement sounding good. Good by the way is one notch above acceptable and one notch below terrific.

I had a friend over and we concluded that Holly Cole sounds way to bright in the room, but Dire Straights sounds OK but not enough base.

Then it dawned on me that the Pre-Amp is a new (used) component for me, and I have not done any setup on it. So it would have all the settings from the last owner including all the Speaker Size setups and crossover settings, along with how Audyssey MultEQ XT has set the room.

I need to get some sort of TV or HDMI monitor in so that I can configure the unit. Can't do it remote from my iPad

You might try the Marantz remote app on your IPad. Oops, should have read your post a little better.

That app is a joke and a half. it's not even a properly functioning remote control as 1/2 the functions of the real remote are not even available on it. Compared to the Pioneer remote, there is something that actually works.

What I don't understand is that Denon is owned by the same company and it's ipad remote app has more functionality but I guess they decided to simply SHAFT the Marantz purchasers.

So.. the wait might soon be over. The tracking numbers have been sent and Fedex generally delivers to me the next day. Not as if its that far from Dwight to my house (about 3.5 hours non rush hour).

Can't wait to see how the LFR's sound with a set of EP500's connected.

Hearing low, tuneful bass is one thing. Feeling it snap with tuneful authority......



Congrats Matt!

I think you'll be glad you went sealed, I know I am.

So the packages arrived and got carfully carried down into the cave. Sadly due to some sort sighted planning on my side, I only have 1 25' XLR cable so hooking both up is a bit more difficult. I do have some 15' XLR to 1/4" but they don't do me much good.

So with one plugged in, I found my 1812 CD with the digital mastered cannons, and sat down to be blown away. It was enemic. So lacking in bottom end I just could not get into it.

HUMM.. check the cables. All is good. Perhaps the XLR cable is defective. Nope, works fine when tested as an interconnect to the amp.

I know, check the settings on the pre-amp. There's the problem. The speakers seem to have been set to SMALL and the sub set to LFE only. Set the speakers to Large. Crossover to 80, base management to sub+main. Give it a try again. Still seems wrong.

Check everything.. OH.. the volume on the Sub is set to ZERO.. Try turning it up.. There. Now the driver is actually moving when playing something. YAY.

Still sounds a bit lacking in the bass, but that is with only a single sub hooked up and I have not tried moving anything to get the best sound yet. Still have to figure out what acoustic modifications the room needs. But it sure sounds far better than what was playing before.

Sadly, the cheep Westinghouse TV that I have to try and set everything up causes a ground fault loop hum when it's plugged in. Will have to find a monitor that has HDMI input to test with, or just temporarily buy a TV from BestBuy then return it next week when everything is setup and tested a bit more.

Nice.

Please dont do the use and return route. Uber uber tacky.

You can use a computer monitor with dvi input and a dvi to hdmi cord in a pinch to your AVR. They are handy to have and cheap to buy.

I cant remember what AVR you are using, but usually speakers are set to small (or sat+sub sometimes) and crossed over at 60-80hz.

One sub behaves well at 1/3 points along front wall as a rule. Sub should have gain at 12 O'clock to start.

I wouldn't judge anything until you get your AVR setup correctly.

Better response than mine.

Your hum may be because of the 'Cable TV' or 'Satellite' system connections.

My 'Cable TV' system was with the culprit with my subs & is very common. Try removing it first before doing anything more drastic...

TAM

Bestbuy and I have a hate relationship going when they took my Harmon receiver in under warranty and sat with it for 3.5 months until the warranty ran out and returned it unfixed and then refused to fix it as it was then out of warranty.



I have 3 computer monitors but sadly all of them are old enough not to have the HDMI input plug. I will have to look into what it takes to get a DVI-HDMI adpator
Amazon Adaptor But it takes 3-5 weeks to get here. OK, I'll buy one of them and not take advantage of Bestbuy this time

As for the speaker size. I cannot figure out why I would want to purchase full size full range speakers such as the LFR's and then cripple them by running them as small. I have a high power high end power amp to drive them that is fully capable of driving down to 2ohms if I had to, so these speakers should be no problem what so ever.

For me the problem is time to get it done. I just posted so that someone could get a good chuckle of being a bit boneheaded. I know these speakers can and will do far more than what they are doing now once setup properly in a room that has the right acoustic adjustments.

The hum is as soon at the TV is turned on. I am using it as a glorified monitor. There is nothing else plugged into it. The TV came from my grandmother and it being used in the other room in the basement. Heck, I probably could steal the old 40" Samsung in the gym that my wife uses to watch TV while jogging.

Matt, I would not think for 2 channel listening there would be any need for a sub with the LFR's. Set it up so the subs only play the LFE channel and run the fronts full range and see how you like it.

As for BB, I would let it go. Anger is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies. I am not a rich man but hey , its only money .

The problem was that the pre-amp had the full range LFR's set to small with a cross over at 120hz. I have not really got the room anywhere near being done, and still need to get or more to point build a rack for my amps and equipment. The room is littered still with the empty boxes of axiom speakers and other stuff. I know acoustically it is not perfect.

I did have a friend over a week or so ago, and my go to Holly Cole sounded rather tinny and bright. I have listened to this song many times with these exact speakers in a different room upstairs and they did not sound at all bright, so I know the speakers are more than capable to playing correctly. It's an issue with the setup right now. When I played some Dire Straights, it didn't sound as bad but like there wasn't any low end. Will give that a try now that the pre-amp is correctly set up

I have to make the decision about the boxes and what ones I keep and what I chuck. I think I will keep the sub boxes as they are new, and I have no plans on getting rid of the LFR's so keeping the boxes for them is a bit more pointless. I might look into packing some of the foam ends into other boxes and just flatten down the outside box for the LFR's. That will save a heap of space.

As for 2 channel listening with or without a sub. It's like asking why inane needs a 97 corvette to drive around. You don't need the speed but it sure is more fun to have it. I own the sub's so I might as well use them to supplement the full range sound that I am getting from the LFR's

I sort of figured out the hum. I have to double check my amp plug wires as I think I might miss-labled the front plate. I put in a dedicated 20amp split plug for running an amp (so the top plug is split from the bottom plug but share a common neutral like you have in a kitchen) and another standard 20 amp plug for everything else. So I will need to figure out if the second plug is on the same phase at the top or bottom of the split plug.

Well, it was that I had the Axiom DSP plugged into the wrong outlet and that was causing the loop with the HDMI.

I did find a local supplier for the HDMI to DVI-D plug, and put one of my computer monitors down there. It gave the same humm so that is when I figured out the plug issue. But now I have a different sort of noise when I have my mini media computer on. Will have to see if running a proper SineWave UPS with the parts plugged into that will solve the issue.

With the Crossover set down to 40hz and the Bass Managment set to 80hz on the Marantz, the sound I am now getting is much better with Holly and Dire Straights. Must read that manual one more time to see if I can better figure out how the different settings work, and if Pure Direct bypasses the Sub's or not.

On another note, trying to think of how I would like the stand for my center channel to look like. I have seen how they do them with Axiom, but I am thinking of making mine more of a stylized table with some shelves or pull out draw on the front.