How big of a "sin" would it be to make a false, acoustically transparent front wall to hide bass traps yet still give me full width for a screen size that I want... That means that I would be hiding my FCR Axioms. They look so nice, but I think that I want the full 13' width instead of something about 9' max after bass traps are added.

So early into the planning, but I am framing up exterior theater walls this weekend, and this question is on my mind. I am going to get a VP180 either way and could always get an in-wall version, but I am not going to be able to shell out the cash to replace my M60s just to get in-wall versions...

I will still be proudly showing my QS8s (should be 4 instead of 2 by the time I am done)...

Hi Nickbuol,

So long as the framing supporting the acoustically transparent "wall" isn't too elaborate, you should be OK, at least for home theater playback and casual listening. The diffraction effects from the framing might mess up the stereo soundstage and imaging a bit for ultra-critical listening, but frankly, it's not a comparison I've ever made. All the double blind tests I've done have used an acoustically transparent curtain hung from a track on the ceiling, so there isn't any framing to potentially mess up the soundstage.

You could always run an experiment with the frame and "wall" temporarily in place, if that's possible, and compare it to the sound quality with no obstruction.

Regards,
Alan

Thanks Alan. I've seen a lot of these type of false walls around the internet while searching over the past few weeks for design ideas, but I wanted to do a sanity check here first.

I was thinking about minimalistic framing with no framing directly in front of the speakers at all. The area behind will be about 13 feet x 8 feet by 2 feet deep.

Here is a design idea that I had seen elsewhere...

Basic framing (no wood in front of speaker areas for my design though)


Panels with no framing material in front of speakers.


Finished, clean front wall. My needs are different in that I want to be able to accommodate a larger screen.

That should work quite nicely and the clean look is very nice.

Not too different from how a real theater would be setup, no?

A real theater would use just an acoustically transparent screen I think. This would be the whole front wall.

I still am torn. I am looking at a 2.35:1 screen, and if I did that, I would love to have thick curtains there to "mask" the right and left side of the screen when not watching that wide of material, so that would mean just an AT screen and the wall is just there to allow the bass traps to work, or I build the entire thing acoustically transparent, and then put the Axioms out front where they can be seen (and in front of the curtains).

Of course, my wife hates the look of my SVS tube sub, so she also likes the idea of hiding it behind the screen.

Decisions, decisions...