My dream Home Theater - DIY

[HT999]

It was my dream to build a hi-fi home theater, once moved back to India. Also this was the promise I made to my son a year ago prior to our move. Settling down took a while and here I am to begin with my plan. Actually I have started execution last November and by now it is almost ready to be finished in another 20 days.

I started learning from lot of websites and honestly grabbed a lot of info from this forum. So I decided that I should also contribute towards this forum and may be some of the stuff could be helpful to others.

I have planned on using following hardware:
Projector Optoma-3D HD DLP Projector-HD33 , a friend already purchased this in US and bringing it here soon.

ONKYO HT-S9300THX 7.1 channel. This is 3D & HD complaint. I have already purchased this from ONKYO @80K. I am not that technical in this department so just went with one simple solution. I dont have enough knowledge to build my own HT (I know that is the suggested route :sad: but will take ignorance as bliss for now.)

Bluray - Sony PS3 3d ready
Screen - So far thinking of 120" diagonal (16:9). Once the projector is in place, I want to play different sizes and decide to buy the screen. Please note my projection wall is 15 ft width and 11 ft height. I welcome any suggestions on the screen size.

Here goes the construction part:
I have a 15x14 squarish room on second floor which was just used for laundry and other misc purposes. I have decided to build a nice home theater along with small bar area behind the seating.
I used to have an impromptu home theater in my basement while I was in US. I moved back to India a year ago. So now we have planned to extend existing room to 15x30 a perfect rectangular room. I felt square kind of room is not ideal for home theater purpose (Too symmetrical for acoustics). We broke one of the existing side wall and extended slab out. Breaking the existing wall and extending the slab was completed in couple of weeks. After curing the slab well enough, the supports are removed. Wall construction took about another couple of weeks. All the walls are of 9 thickness so it will be better for sound proofing.

Here are some pictures to explain. Pic#1 shows the extended area with false ceiling hangers on the sides. You can see the joint of old and new rooms in Pic# 2&3. This room also has an attached bath (door of left in Pic#4) which I kept intact. There are some cement racks which we removed (cement lines on the right side in Pic #4)
My existing room has a very simple false ceiling done. I know I am going to make the new area very fancy and nice so decided to bump up the look of existing false ceiling. I thought a lot about it and asked the false ceiling guy to make a 4x4 square center drop as you can see in Pic #5.

I will update more details later. I appreciate any suggestions regarding my HT.

 

[HT999]

This room has two windows and ventilators. I planned to close all the ventilators but keep windows. I will think about sound proof issues at a later stage. Keeping the windows open makes me feel better about ventilation when theater is not in use and also avoid any moisture issues. I may have to apply silicon sealant incase if there is any rattling. Since this is on second floor, I dont expect any complaints from neighbors. As of now, I am using my existing HT setup with 55 Sony Bravia downstairs. Over the weekend we watch a lot of movies but never had any complaints.

As far as acoustic issues are concerned, I read a lot from this forum and decided to do a good portion of ceiling with acoustic sheets (Anutone). I have already ordered the sheets and they said it takes 2-3 weeks to deliver in Hyderabad. These are 2X4 in size and I went with black color tiles to avoid any light reflection issues. I have also considered Armstrong and it is way too expensive. I felt even Anutone is also expensive but better than the other. Hopefully, this should take care of acoustic treatment. If not, I will review this after all done and furniture is in.

Finally, Anutone tiles have arrived after a week delay. You can see in the picture#1 below on how I have designed black tiles inside while maintaining gypsum border on the sides. Also 4x4 drop is ready as shown in picture#2. At this point, I have worked with my electrician and purchased all required wiring and completed that part. I got the projector mount installed and pulled 1.4a HDMI cable (3D supported) from screen wall to projector mount. This cable of 30 ft costed me 10K. Also I ran 12AWG audio cable for my 7.1 channel setup. I am not sure if the price is fair; I did some research but ended up paying around 150rs/mt. This costed another 10K towards audio cable. I was told that 12 AWG is better keeping in mind that my rear speakers are almost 50 ft away from the receiver (running length).

 

[sanro]

Congrats HT999.. nice setup ...Its great to see that you are converting your dream into reality . Very few can do that actually .. well done.

Will be watching this space... all the best ..

 

[srinisundar]

Congrats Ht999 to join the HT club

 

[HT999]

Thank you Sanro and Srinisundar.

 

[edjamesx]

ONKYO HT-S9300THX 7.1 channel. This is 3D & HD complaint. I have already purchased this from ONKYO @80K. I am not that technical in this department so just went with one simple solution.

Congrats for your purchase. I am reading really good reviews about ONKYO HT-S9300THX.Only problem is Factory wires(to speakers) are not best it seems , that's what people complaining in the reviews.Overall this system is excellent. Try this system with factory wires and upgrade the cables if necessary.

 

[HT999]

Thanks Edjamesx. Actually I haven't received any cables with package. I have a friend of mine with JBL and he told me to buy 12 AWG gauge pro quality cable. The cost is 150/meter, hopefully this should do it.

 

[vinay]

Dream - Home Theatre

It is great to know that your dream to build a home theatre has come through. Many congratulations.

It is brilliant that you believe in the culture of seeding keeping in mind that you have benefited a lot of learning from websites and this forum.

You are having a excellent room width. It is rare that one will have such paramount width.

It is a great idea that you will beam different sizes and decide accordingly to buy the screen. In my case i too had watched several full movies on bare ball in different sizes and then finally got it correct, to do this it required a lot of patience.

I too had a attached bathroom but had to forgo in order to get bigger room length. My room originally was 15 feet long, after breaking the bathroom my renewed room length is now 23 feet.

As this was a very tough decision to do away the bathroom i had exercised a lot of test run by watching several movies from 23 feet before breaking the bathroom.

V.

It was my dream to build a hi-fi home theater, once moved back to India.

I started learning from lot of websites and honestly grabbed a lot of info from this forum. So I decided that I should also contribute towards this forum and may be some of the stuff could be helpful to others.

Screen - So far thinking of 120" diagonal (16:9). Once the projector is in place, I want to play different sizes and decide to buy the screen. Please note my projection wall is 15 ft width and 11 ft height. I welcome any suggestions on the screen size.

Here goes the construction part:
I have a 15x14 squarish room on second floor which was just used for laundry and other misc purposes. I have decided to build a nice home theater along with small bar area behind the seating.

So now we have planned to extend existing room to 15x30 a perfect rectangular room. I felt square kind of room is not ideal for home theater purpose (Too symmetrical for acoustics). We broke one of the existing side wall and extended slab out. Breaking the existing wall and extending the slab was completed in couple of weeks.

Here are some pictures to explain. Pic#1 shows the extended area with false ceiling hangers on the sides. You can see the joint of old and new rooms in Pic# 2&3. This room also has an attached bath (door of left in Pic#4) which I kept intact. There are some cement racks which we removed (cement lines on the right side in Pic #4)

 

[RamboV]

Wow this is amazing, something am always dreaming of, my very own home theater. hopefully i can get some knowledge from how yours proceed and plan some thing for me in future if i accumulate some cash for the same.

I must again bow down to you for making your dream (& your sons ) in to reality, very few can achieve this

 

[HT999]

Thanks Vinay,
Yours was one of the inspiration for my design...I was excited when I saw the look of your theater in forums to begin with...ofcourse I have taken inspiration from yours and couple of others from this forum when I designed mine. Simple fact is that I talked to couple of HT designers and they have asked 1.5 lac towards design and suggestion services. Now I can definitely take pride that I have designed this on my own and saved the money. So is the reason why I wanna pay back to this forum..

Thank you

 

[HT999]

Thanks edjamesx,
I havent received any cable along with the package. But I already went with 12AWG cable due to the advice from my friend working for JBL. The cable is quite expensive @150/mt but as you mentioned it looks my decision will turn out right.

Thanks

 

[HT999]

Now I had my electrician to pull all electrical wiring and as well audio cable pulled to the points. Thanks to my JBL friend who came to the site and explained me the height and placement of speaker wiring. By now, I have designed a clear picture of how the lighting should be. Again here I have to thank once again the knowledge and pictures from forum that helped me. Trust me guys, lighting plays such important role in theater look along with audio and other components. Here started my struggle as in India it is so difficult to find things. Here everything goes by word of mouth unlike Googling in the word I lived so far..Google gets me to every store precisely in US to find things. No offence but still Google still doesnt get me where I want and what I want so efficiently in India. No regretsI came back to my mother land to enjoy my life and make my kids learn the culture here. Of course we are thoroughly enjoying the life here. I told my electrician that I want remote control for all the lightingthe next moment I saw a shock in his face? remote what? He only knows remotes so far for TV etcI understood the situation and told him not to worry about it. I did more research on google and finally found one number in Banjara Hills. I went there, talked to them and explained my scenario. The only application they know is for fans and not for lighting. I thanked myself for the engineering knowledge my gurus provided during my Engg and told them that just give the tool and I will make it work for lights as well.it is all electricity finallyof course I am a computer science guy any ways. So I got the remote switch panel finally after a lot great research and worked with my electrician at every step. This is a four switch control panel but this will be great when I sit with my family to watch movie and can control every light in the room at my finger tip. AlasSome of the things are so difficult to find outbut end of the project my electrician agreed that he learnt a lot out of this project!!
If any of you wanna know..the brand is TOYOMA and looks good so far with remote control. I have installed 4 switch panel with 4 switches on remote as well. I will post pictures soon regarding this.

 

[vinay]

Windows - Black Tiles - Passion

In my case when i was making a dedicated movie room i too was reluctant to remove the huge windows for good. I did a lot of risk management by which the outcome was clear that there will be no issues of moisture etc.

You will be the first person on this forum to go for black color ceiling tiles many congratulations. This is a highway to passion for the guts to go for black.

Indeed Armstrong tiles are expensive, it seems they are world leaders in such tiles. I have used this brand of tiles, it is over 4th year in running and they are doing very good though these tiles are very fragile if some repair work is required with the lights etc but there are easy ways to overcome this single drawback.

V.

This room has two windows and ventilators. I planned to close all the ventilators but keep windows. Keeping the windows open makes me feel better about ventilation when theater is not in use and also avoid any moisture issues.

I went with black color tiles to avoid any light reflection issues. I have also considered Armstrong and it is way too expensive.

 

[HT999]

Thanks Vinay, to begin with I was also little hesitant about the look with black tiles. But the false ceiling on the edges (1.5ft width) compensated for the look.
I went to couple of lighting stores and purchased 6 wall lights 3 on each side to give theatrical look, recess lights (LED to stay earth friendly) and floor lights. Researched for LED rope lights and went all the way to troop bazaar (very famous in Hyd with cheapest rates). Found out I have spent too much earlier by going to fancy stores in hitech city area, rates are almost half here. They both sell the same China stuff but the way they display things is very different. Bought LED rope lights from troop bazaar. By now, false ceiling work is complete and the electrician finished his work and coordinated the lighting with 4 switches available on the remote panel as per my instructions.
Next part is about wall treatment. First I thought about wall paper and went to couple of stores. They gave me a quote starting at 100Rs/SFT to begin with. I had my own apprehensions being a father of two kids. Especially my daughter is a very keen painter and only knows to draw on any plain surface. Thanks to the ad on TV about Asian paints Royale finish. I opted for this and ordered for a specific texture and it only costed me 60Rs/SFT. The guys from Asian paints came home and painted the texture, while my local painter and other workers were waiting outside to learn about it. But these guys, closed door and all the windows and finished the job in three hours. They made sure that nobody could watch it. I can completely understand their point that they are professionally trained and dont want anyone else know their work secret. Of course, my local painter was so upset but there is not much we could do about it except that we were all excited with the end result.
Afterwards, Flooring guys have installed a cheap tile on the extended floor. Now I have got a nice wood floor installed on the whole entire floor. This is another major factor I thought would play role in my acoustics. Now I have total ceiling completed and as well wood flooring completed. By now I took care of the ceiling, side walls and as well the flooring.

Here is the look after painting and light fixings...hope you all will like it

 

[HT999]

more pictures....

 

[cmsajith]

Are you not doing acoustic treatment to the walls and floors esp the corners? Since you are having a dedicated room (but windows have to be closed some how), you are having a lot of options. Except ceiling I could see all other surface in the room are reflective which will degrade the sound.

 

[HT999]

I have done acoustic ceiling and wooden floor so far...I am treating windows with curtains. I will take it step by step, first listen the sound and decide on what kind of treatment in needed. I think bass traps are a must on all 4 corners. I dont want to use glasswool and I heard it is not good for health. I welcome any suggestions on the bass traps. Also I might have to treat first reflection points as well.

 

[pdhanwada]

HT999,

Good job. I think you visited my place. For Bass traps and first reflection points, I used rockwool covered with 4mm sponge, burlap and cloth.
I dont see any rockwool particles comming out of them any way.

Well covered.

We dont get commercial level bass traps here in india. The only way to get them done is thru rockwool or glass wool. As far as I know there is no other material available to do Bass traps. The reason being bass traps need mass.



It has been over a year and half no issues so far.

Thanks
Pandu

 

[Moviela]

Thank you for sharing the pictures of your home theater. I enjoyed them. I am not sure about the selection of the wall covering with respect to the sound character in the room. You might need some drapery or tapestry on the walls.

I do understand the need for HT's to have other purpose in the house. My wife insists it is the only room to fold clothes. The window is problematic. It will not only rattle, but let sound out, and moisture laden air in. If you are serious in the pursuit of a true home theater you must run Air Con 24/7 at 21/23 C with rh of 45 to 55%. It is for the equipment, not for the humans, although they do benefit.

I installed a private theater in Hyderabad, and the first thing staff would do was switch off the climate control system as soon as I walked out of the room, even if the time away was a moment for "personal needs." This naturally caused many problems with the equipment. Even though most chassis were "climatized" for use in the Tropics, rust and corrosion could be seen almost overnight when power was turned off and windows opened. One fellow explained that "The night air was free." I explained the theater equipment was 15 crore, and the electricity was only a single lakh for the year. It took some retraining of staff and domestic help to allow the climate control system to manage the space. Domestic help liked to languish in the theater, but left the doors open should someone call them. They needed to be disabused of that practice with group punishment.

I know promoting a home remote lighting scheme is a headache in India. In dealing with local electricians I need to set my watch back fifty years. They have little knowledge of proper earthing, shielding, fire prevention, human safety, wire and fixture selection, and on and on....I use the X10 home automation system in my work, and while there are better schemes in use none are as popular or inexpensive as the X10 system. Whilst made in China, you would need to source them from Europe. There is a broad array of hand held and wired remotes, computer interfaces, and just plain fun things you can do with X10. My personal favorite is the ability to turn on the exterior lights from my car when arriving in the night, the other is a remote using my smart phone to start the sauna so it is toasty before I get home. Here is a link:

Make your home a house of the future - today! - X-10 Home Automation - Marmitek

 

[mav]

Adios folks..am off to rob a bank !!

Thank you for sharing the pictures of your home theater. I enjoyed them. I am not sure about the selection of the wall covering with respect to the sound character in the room. You might need some drapery or tapestry on the walls.

I do understand the need for HT's to have other purpose in the house. My wife insists it is the only room to fold clothes. The window is problematic. It will not only rattle, but let sound out, and moisture laden air in. If you are serious in the pursuit of a true home theater you must run Air Con 24/7 at 21/23 C with rh of 45 to 55%. It is for the equipment, not for the humans, although they do benefit.

I installed a private theater in Hyderabad, and the first thing staff would do was switch off the climate control system as soon as I walked out of the room, even if the time away was a moment for "personal needs." This naturally caused many problems with the equipment. Even though most chassis were "climatized" for use in the Tropics, rust and corrosion could be seen almost overnight when power was turned off and windows opened. One fellow explained that "The night air was free." I explained the theater equipment was 15 crore, and the electricty was only a single lakh for the year. It took some retraining of staff and domestic help to allow the climate control system to manage the space. Domestic help liked to languish in the theater, but left the doors open should someone call them. They needed to be disabused of that practice with group punishment.

I know promoting a home remote lighting scheme is a headache in India. In dealing with local electricians I need to set my watch back fifty years. They have little knowelege of proper earthing, shielding, fire prevention, human safety, wire and fixture selection, and on and on....I use the X10 home automation system in my work, and while there are better schemes in use none are as popular or inexpensive as the X10 system. Whilst made in China, you would need to source them from Europe. There is a broad array of hand held and wired remotes, computer interfaces, and just plain fun things you can do with X10. My personal favorite is the ability to turn on the exterior lights from my car when arriving in the night, the other is a remote using my smartphone to start the sauna so it is toasty before I get home. Here is a link:

Make your home a house of the future - today! - X-10 Home Automation - Marmitek