Buiding a Home Theatre - From Scratch

[rdksrk2013]

Any progress on your project?

Still busy with finalising the interior works for the house. Once the work starts I will be starting the cabling and the ceiling mount.

In the meantime I had made my first purchases in my list:

1. Ordered on Amazon a Media player HIMedia 900B - I had to deicide between Sony S5100 and media player but finally ordered HiMedia 900B

2. Ordered Blackout cloth screen 66 x 110 " from carl's place website for DIY screen

Made these purchases first because one of my family member will be returning from US.

In the meantime I was trying to workout a rough sketch with a 120 " screen and checking out how much space will be left for speaker placement. Below is the sketch in PDF. Do not know if the picture will be clear or not.

 

[GeorgeO]

Sanjay mentioned subwoofer, you need to budget for it. It is also a fairly significant cost if you get a good sub.

 

[Swamy_HT]

Now the screen workout picture looks good. You have ordered for 120" or higher?
Because you may accomadate more size after you test the projection on wall.
Share your room pictures also while progress.

Buying projector from U.S is the best buy. Have you finalized the projector?

 

[msk2013]

Now the screen workout picture looks good. You have ordered for 120" or higher?
Because you may accomadate more size after you test the projection on wall.
Share your room pictures also while progress.

Buying projector from U.S is the best buy. Have you finalized the projector?

With rupee depriciation will it be worth buying from US?

 

[Swamy_HT]

With rupee depriciation will it be worth buying from US?

This month one of my friend buying W1070 through his friend in U.S.
It comes around 60K. The same here quoated above 90K.

And one more thing, Here in INDIA also all the projectors are increasing the prices due to rupee depriciation.

 

[rdksrk2013]

Hi All,


With the limited knowledge I have, I had listed below the sequence of the components to purchase:
1. Projector ceiling mount
2. Power cable, HDMI cable & speaker cables
3. AVR
4. Speakers
5. Acoustic material
6. Audio rack
7. Projector
8. UPS
9. Screen
10. BDP/Media player

Time to update friends on the progress of my HT.

HT room interior still did not start but made some progress on the procurement of eqpt.

I had proved myself wrong. It is difficult to follow a sequence for procuring eqpt for HT :lol:

I had purchased the following in order of sequence:

1. carl's blackout cloth online 120" ( yet to arrive)
2. Media player: Himedia 900 B ( Yet to arrive)
3. Bluerigger HDMI cable 16 ft & 30 Ft on Amazon ( Yet to arrive) Yes did not decide placement of HT rack so ordered two lenghts. Will sell whichever is not used
4. Polk audio 5.1 speaker set TSi300, TSI100's, CS 10 from a fellow member (delivered)
5. EPSON TW 8100 ( delivered) Yes still did not open the seal. DO not have room for projecting in the exisiting house/APT.
6. Ordered Monoprice banana plugs for speakers on amazon(yet to arrive)
7. Logitech Harmony 650 remote on Amazon (yet to arrive)

Now I am on the lookout for AVR.

With the depreciation of the rupee I had the fear that I may overshoot the budget(already EPSON has increased prices), so decided to go for a second sale speakers and utilised the money saved to go for TW 8100.

I though the only item inthe HT which will not have much outdate are the speakers and so bought the second's which were maintained by the FM in good condition.

I am thinking that the AVR which I buy should be future proof atleast till the next 3-4 years.

 

[Swamy_HT]

Even your progress took more time, but you got the excellent master piece (PJ & Audio).
Congrats on your purchase. Expect soon you will share your experience.

 

[rdksrk2013]

After lot of delays for interiors and shifting to the new location finally started to work slowly on the HT.

I need advice on the height for surround speakers. I had reviewed a the info on web. All the advice seems pretty clear on the placement of the placement of the speakers with respect to position but I am not clear about the height of the surround speaker placement.

I need advise from members regarding the following:

1. What should be the height of the surround speakers for 7.1 surround? I am going in for wall hanging (bought videosec speaker wall hangs!). Should it be 3-4 ft ie the ear level?

If you have speaker stands it is ok but if you have wall hangs then this might be inconvenient !!!!!!!

2. Somewhere I read that the surround speaker height should be at the same level as the front speakers for getting a better immersed feeling. I have polk TSi300's.

3. What will happen if the wall hung speaker is located at 6 feet height?

 

[rdksrk2013]

In continuation some exerts from different thread:

From Crutchfield:
".. Surround speakers should be placed high enough so that the drivers do not fire directly at your ears when you're sitting down one rule of thumb is to place them at ear level while standing. (If your surround speakers fire directly at your ears, they can overpower your front speakers.)
.. If your surrounds are mounted on the side walls on adjustable brackets, experiment with aiming them. You may get good results from pointing them at the ceiling or toward the rear corners of the room."

From THX:
"Place the SL & SR speakers between 90 to 110 to each side and 2 feet or higher above the listener. The SL & SR speakers recreate the enveloping sound and intense special effects that you experience in the cinema."

From Dolby:
"....just above ear level"
also,
"Similarly, when fine-tuning the placement of the surrounds, keep the idea of the coherent system in mind.
Surround sounds should emanate from within a general area (covering the sides and rear of the room). Even if
the surround sounds can be localized, the localization should be from within this overall area and not just from
an individual speaker. The sonic image should be a single entity or environment."
Dolby admits that not all systems are the same so there is no one perfect set up.

 

[manoj.p]

You should put the surround speaker 2~3 ft above listening position, pointing down. Left side surround should ideally point at the right person. That's how its setup in the theaters too.

Also, put the side speakers exactly on the side of listening position or slightly forward. If they are towards the back, then you will not be able to make out a difference between side and rear speaker. I went through the same. The soundstage was either in the front (front speakers) or in the rear (all surrounds). When I moved the side speakers slightly forward of listening position (approx 6 inch) it made a huge difference.

 

[rdksrk2013]

thank you. Taken the suggestions.

hung the speaker mounts at 6 ft.

 

[rdksrk2013]

After a long long delay finally could fix the screen !

I had discussed a lot with our fellow members on advice for fixing frame. Making a frame itself is not complicated but I feel the complication is in locating a proper carpenter who can understand and nail the screen without wrinkles.

It did not workout with my carpenter doing the interiors of my home and I was in search for an alternative. Taken advice from fellow member John K Antony for the frame.

I had observed that the posters put up for advt also has a flexi screen and a wooden frame(ofcourse of bad quality). Thought of the idea that if I could get the fixed screen made from the poster guys it would be easy because they know how to stretch the cloth without wrinkles and also have knowledge of the screen frame which is similar to the hoardings they put.

It was easy locating a flexi banner/poster maker in the vicinity of my home. I had discussed with the person and they immediately understood the requirement.

Below are the snaps at various stages of making. Finally I had projected a ganesha image as a starting.

I paid Rs 6k for the frame ( which i feel is on the high side but can be bargained for about 3k) and the carl's screen costed me Rs 3k approx.

 

[rdksrk2013]

Further snaps of making screen:

 

[rdksrk2013]

Some snapshots of the finished HT room without any decorations or acoustic works( will add later on):[IMG2][/IMG2]

 

[rdksrk2013]

Snaps of projected images:

 

[sdurani]

Can you slide your centre speaker forward so that the baffle just clears of the edge of the cabinet?

 

[rdksrk2013]

Thanks sanjay for the advise. I shall try to move it.

Problem all the equipment are struggling for space. After all the cabling is done and with space occupied for the Denon, the center speaker & Media player I have very less room for placing the PS3 which is used as my Blu ray player.

I will post shortly the bunch of cabling behind the AVR and need advise if there is a better way of organising the cables.

 

[rdksrk2013]

Can you slide your centre speaker forward so that the baffle just clears of the edge of the cabinet?

Thanks for the advise. I had moved the centre forward and oberved a perceptible clarity in dialogues.


I need another advise. I still did not use the audessey calibration. Still trying to explore all the sound menu options by playing different movie formats get accustomed and then calibrate to check the difference.

If you refer to the surround snaps - I had mounted the surrounds at 6 feet. The width of the room is 10 ft. If we sit in the middle @ 5ft my ears are approximately at 4 ft. Now if I turn around and check if the surrounds are facing me - it is not - even with the maximum possible setting angle of the speakers ( that is the maximum that my speaker mounts( Videosec make!) would allow !) .

Does it effect the surround experience ? Should the focal point of the speaker point towards me sitting at the sweet spot? Now with me sitting in the middle - seems the focal point of the speakers are faced to towards my left and right audience ie the right surround is pointed towards my left audience and the left surround is pointed towards the right handside person seated beside me?

Should I opt for speaker floor stands for the surrounds - but with this I will be loosing space for movement within the room on both sides. or toher option to raise the seating position. I now using a normal sofa.

Or all this does not matter and audessey calibration will take care

I could have made a sketch but I am now limited by the space this forum offers.

 

[manoj.p]

Does it effect the surround experience ? Should the focal point of the speaker point towards me sitting at the sweet spot? Now with me sitting in the middle - seems the focal point of the speakers are faced to towards my left and right audience ie the right surround is pointed towards my left audience and the left surround is pointed towards the right handside person seated beside me?

I am not Sanjay. But I can say that surround speakers pointing at opposite side is the ideal way. If you point the surround in middle, then left speaker will be overpowering in left seat and right speaker in right seat. The pointing away does the balancing act of with distance and works out better in the end.

 

[sdurani]

Now with me sitting in the middle - seems the focal point of the speakers are faced to towards my left and right audience ie the right surround is pointed towards my left audience and the left surround is pointed towards the right handside person seated beside me?

That's how I do it. Pointing the speaker to the listener on the opposite side is an old technique called "energy trading", which prevents the nearby listener from being overwhelmed by the nearby speaker.

BTW, your side speakers look very close to your rear speakers. Can you move the side speakers so that they are directly to the sides of the listening seat, or even slightly forward of the listening area?