Home Theater Discussion Thread

[fitbrit]

How do the buttkickers feel underneath an inflatable seat? Does it act as a buffer? Waterbed effect? I screwed my aura's directly to each recliner so I'm trying to imagine what your setup would feel like.

They feel great. I was concerned before purchasing about damping effects, but it's actually really cool. I can keep the amps down low as well, since there's much less mass to move. I have a Buttkicker LFE in the couch/loveseat combo in the main floor media room. That works very well indeed, too, using just the mini platform under the furnitures' legs.

[r1lee]

Ok. Project is up and rolling. Sourced a few images to use as posters. Found somewhere to order the stretcher bars. Found another place to order the acoustic board. Going to use spoonflower to print the posters.

Q's for you.

1) For your 1" depth stretcher bars, was 1" foam just right or a little too thick/thin? I'm going with 1.5" bars and wonder if I should go with 1.5" or 1" foam. I'd like the 1.5" for extra sound absorption but I"m afraid if it's too thick for the 1.5" bars, the fabric will puff out a bit.

2) For your smaller posters, did you find the cross bracing necessary?

Awesome, can't wait to see the pics.

If you get a fiber board, then don't worry about it since it's really not that flexible. The fiber board fits snug and if cut properly to fit into the larger frames, it won't move. Some people use roxul safe and sound, which can cause a problem with how tightly it fits.

All my bars are 1.75", where the large ones have the brace. Even without the brace, it would still stay put, cut a little beyond the dimensions and squeeze it in, that baby ain't moving.

For the smaller ones, no brace was needed and as long as it fits, if you keep it snug length wise or width wise, that board will not move.

[r1lee]

i live in an apartment so i cant do more than this..and even this i run at 20-30% max volume for obvious reasons.

Marantz SR6005 Receiver
PS3
Toshiba Regza 240hz LCD 55 inch
Polk RtiA speaker series (A6 center, A9 towers, A3 backs)
Submersive HP Subwoofer 2400w dual 15 inch drivers
Denon AHD-2000 closed cans (if i have people sleeping at my place)

Pics are older. Removed the painting from above Tv, got the eye toy cam up on the TV as well, tidied up a bit. These were right after intial setup and first sound checks.

Aside from the spider webs of cables (almost impossible to hide) I love the black theme there. Have you noticed any tonal difference considering how low the center is? In my initial design, my center was going to be much higher, but now I'm looking at only 18" from the floor.

[enigma54]

Anyone have recommendations on a mid-range 1080p projector? How about a fixed frame screen? Trying to help a friend put something together on a budget but would like good bang for the buck set-up like most RFD'ers obviously

[Buggy166]

Oh man. That sub is intense! Maybe I can get one and convince the wife it's really just a fancy end table

Are your headphones long enough to reach your sofa? I'm thinking of using a pair of audio-technica headphones I have but I think the cord is too short... I have a pair of Sennheiser wireless but I've found them a bit underwhelming but I guess I get what I pay for ($55).



I think there are plenty of receivers in the $500-750 price range that would work great. I was looking the other day and it seems all the major players have a 7.1 speaker, hdmi 1.4 3d ready, network interfacing, etc model in that price range.

Headphones by themselves no, i think the cable is about id say maybe 2 meters by itself? maybe a bit more. I bought an extension cord (female to male) thats another 3 meters on top of that and it does the trick. You can find'em at the source if moneys no issue or check amazon.ca theyre generally very cheap so not worth overspending on.

The sub as an end table is really it to tell you the truth. the statue on top is 18 inches tall for reference. I wanted to get an Espresso submersive so much because it just looks super classy but im stuck with old furniture my parents got and the rest of my set is all black speakers (and i dont have cash to get'em re-done in espresso on a custom order anyways). Also for resale value, black is more of a default color to most peoples homes. It also goes away when lights are turned off and stays hidden during the viewing.

One word of caution when buying subwoofers, stay away from piano looks. Extremely reflective and to people like myself very annoying. I work in film and i need to spot grain sized detail when i work on footage so when something that huge and reflective is popping off at me with lights in the room turned off, its a big disturbance. Piano finishes look very nice and seem like a good idea until put into practice. Also dust magnet and figerprints galore.

[Buggy166]

Aside from the spider webs of cables (almost impossible to hide) I love the black theme there. Have you noticed any tonal difference considering how low the center is? In my initial design, my center was going to be much higher, but now I'm looking at only 18" from the floor.

yes its ****** to have it down there(edit: i mean in my case, not your 18 inches, thats actually a respectable height though id probably like something in the 20s depending how high or low ur seats are in comparison). best place is either above tv or right at its base. My top shelf is taken by the TV base and the center is too deep in girth to fit. My second shelf is too small by about half an inch so i got stuck with putting it at the bottom.

It really takes away and makes the "stage" seem very small when listening to it. On my setup i actually cranked it up a bit compared to the rest of the front speakers because of its crappy position, and while it does pop out a bit more, you cannot overcome a bad placement (same goes with subs i find)

[fitbrit]

yes its ****** to have it down there(edit: i mean in my case, not your 18 inches, thats actually a respectable height though id probably like something in the 20s depending how high or low ur seats are in comparison). best place is either above tv or right at its base. My top shelf is taken by the TV base and the center is too deep in girth to fit. My second shelf is too small by about half an inch so i got stuck with putting it at the bottom.

It really takes away and makes the "stage" seem very small when listening to it. On my setup i actually cranked it up a bit compared to the rest of the front speakers because of its crappy position, and while it does pop out a bit more, you cannot overcome a bad placement (same goes with subs i find)

In my media room, my CV centre speaker is on the floor, angled slightly upwards. I can't wait until I have time to custom make a stand for it. Dialogue does lose its impact. In the main HT, I used 4 centre speakers- two above and two below the 120" screen. It really works giving the illusion of speech coming from the centre of the screen.

[Symcor]

Reproducing my post from another thread:
My HTPC powered home theatre (with 10 speakers and 2 subs in this pic alone):

Rest of the pics here:
Constructing the home cinema - with detailed captions

120" 16:9 homemade screen.
HTPC (Home Theatre Personal Computer) driven 1080p projector with a mirrored 23" 1080p in-wall touchscreen.
11.2 sound system (9.2 active at any given time for now) comprising 14 speakers, two subwoofers, up to 12 buttkickers and bass shakers.
Seats 6-7 with great viewing angles.
HTPC Specs: i3 530, Gigabyte H57 USB3.0 ATX mobo 4 GB RAM. 60GB SSD (35TB unRAID server in another room), GTS450, 500W Seasonic PSU, BluRay/HD-DVD combo drive, iMon VFD in LianLi PC-C32B case. All HTPCs in house run J. River Media Center 17. Each HTPC's playback can be controlled and/or synchronised from any other.

The whole room can be converted into a gym in about 10 minutes. Back to HT in about 20'. There is another HT in the house with a 61" screen and the same type of 11.1 format sound system (with buttkicker), and the dining room is also hooked up for 7.1 with a 1080p touchscreen for music.

Like the Intex Lounge, is anyone know we can get them in Toronto?

[colemac]

I also had some home theatre questions on a budget.

46 Samsung LED TV 120 HTZ
Xbox 360
Harmon Kardon AVR 130
2 Energy C Series Bookshelf speakers - all that could fit in my condo for the time being


Would like to add 1 centre and and sub and 2 more speakers for room for new house

I was wondering if I should buy say a whole set and sell the energy speakers?


Thanks in advance,

[r1lee]

yes its ****** to have it down there(edit: i mean in my case, not your 18 inches, thats actually a respectable height though id probably like something in the 20s depending how high or low ur seats are in comparison). best place is either above tv or right at its base. My top shelf is taken by the TV base and the center is too deep in girth to fit. My second shelf is too small by about half an inch so i got stuck with putting it at the bottom.

It really takes away and makes the "stage" seem very small when listening to it. On my setup i actually cranked it up a bit compared to the rest of the front speakers because of its crappy position, and while it does pop out a bit more, you cannot overcome a bad placement (same goes with subs i find)

How much room do you have below? Could pull it out just a little and angle it up with some feet.

I didn't realize the piano finish may kill my viewing pleasure.. Just another thing I didn't think about, oh well those speakers aren't going back.

[r1lee]

HTPC Specs: i3 530, Gigabyte H57 USB3.0 ATX mobo 4 GB RAM. 60GB SSD (35TB unRAID server in another room), GTS450, 500W Seasonic PSU, BluRay/HD-DVD combo drive, iMon VFD in LianLi PC-C32B case. All HTPCs in house run J. River Media Center 17. Each HTPC's playback can be controlled and/or synchronised from any other.
.

Just realized, 35tb of space? How many drives do you have in that sucker. I'm building a new whs 2011 home server to replace my old whs 2003.

Taking my old PC, went with a super micro 4u super quiet case. So I can throw it into my AV rack.
Intel q6600
8gb of ram
2 * ssd's in raid 1
Waiting for the 4th drives to hit and then adding 5 of those for raid 5. Which should give me about 16tb of free space. So your 35tb blows me away.. Crazy.
Feeding the house for video, music and maybe pictures and my HT with XBMC.

My old whs 2003 will still be running and going to remove the core2duo and throwing in a celeron so that it can run passively. It will be my box for surveillance and my personal files. Thank god a lot of the new surveillance cameras work with whs.

Then throughout the house, there will either be an appletv or a htpc like the zotac ad02 mini running xbmc to each tv.

The whole house was wired and terminated with cat6a cable and ends. Every seating position in front of a tv and including the bedrooms has a hdmi port next to it so that if you have a tablet or any other device with hdmi out, you can plug it in and view it on the tv. No need to walk up to the tv to plug your device in.

I think by the time I was done, we went through about 4000 ft of cable. That's including a double siamese quad shield rg6, double run of cat6a, HT cables, and the hdmi cables for all the rooms.

[r1lee]

I also had some home theatre questions on a budget.

46 Samsung LED TV 120 HTZ
Xbox 360
Harmon Kardon AVR 130
2 Energy C Series Bookshelf speakers - all that could fit in my condo for the time being


Would like to add 1 centre and and sub and 2 more speakers for room for new house

I was wondering if I should buy say a whole set and sell the energy speakers?


Thanks in advance,

Why not keep the energy's and add 3 more energy's to them? Either 2 of the same bookshelf's and a matching center. Or if you really don't mind, add whatever other brand you want but make sure the front sound stage is matched. Designate your energy's to the rears.

Www.canuckaudiomart.com is an excellent Canadian audio site where people sell used stuff. Just take a look and I'm sure you can grab some real nice things on a budget

[fitbrit]

Like the Intex Lounge, is anyone know we can get them in Toronto?

I got mine from K-Mart and had them shipped to the US-Canada border in Champlain, near Montreal, using Bordermail.us. I couldn't find a reasonable deal in Canada for these IIRC.

[fitbrit]

Just realized, 35tb of space? How many drives do you have in that sucker. I'm building a new whs 2011 home server to replace my old whs 2003.

Taking my old PC, went with a super micro 4u super quiet case. So I can throw it into my AV rack.
Intel q6600
8gb of ram
2 * ssd's in raid 1
Waiting for the 4th drives to hit and then adding 5 of those for raid 5. Which should give me about 16tb of free space. So your 35tb blows me away.. Crazy.
Feeding the house for video, music and maybe pictures and my HT with XBMC.

My old whs 2003 will still be running and going to remove the core2duo and throwing in a celeron so that it can run passively. It will be my box for surveillance and my personal files. Thank god a lot of the new surveillance cameras work with whs.

Then throughout the house, there will either be an appletv or a htpc like the zotac ad02 mini running xbmc to each tv.

The whole house was wired and terminated with cat6a cable and ends. Every seating position in front of a tv and including the bedrooms has a hdmi port next to it so that if you have a tablet or any other device with hdmi out, you can plug it in and view it on the tv. No need to walk up to the tv to plug your device in.

I think by the time I was done, we went through about 4000 ft of cable. That's including a double siamese quad shield rg6, double run of cat6a, HT cables, and the hdmi cables for all the rooms.

I have 20 data drives, mostly 1.5 and 2TBs, with two 1TBs still in there. I was hoping to replace all the 1 TBs with 2 TBs, and eventually the 1.5s with 3 Tb drives. However, with the price of drives skyrocketing, that may not happen for a while. There's also a 2TB parity drive and a 750 GB cache drive. Unraid is awesome!

I had my 1923 downtown Montreal townhouse wired up with Cat6 to 18 different drop points. Unfortunately, the price charged was extortionate by the company that did it. My contractor could have done it for about 1/10 of the price, but that was before I knew how awesome he was. If I were to do it again, I'd have probably run 6 Cat6 cables to each location in most rooms, and possibly used 3 of them to carry HDMI and USB for wall-mounted touchscreens in the future. My theatre room has gigabit ethernet, power, Optical, Coax and RCA stereo inputs in four different locations for LAN gaming, or DJ set ups for parties.

I thought that was a lot of cable until I read yours!

When I next get some time, I'm thinking of getting into driving games, or going back to combat flight sims on the big screen.

[hyperactiveme]

Anyone have recommendations on a mid-range 1080p projector? How about a fixed frame screen? Trying to help a friend put something together on a budget but would like good bang for the buck set-up like most RFD'ers obviously

Need more detail about the room like size, and light control. Best bet is to hit up a dedicated forum.

I have the optoma hd20 and a DIY screen.