Well, I've reached the phase in the (re)construction of my house where the home theater design needs to be hashed out and finalized, and any possible issues dealt with before too long.
The new room is going to be an interesting shape. I can't easily describe it in words, so I'll have to do it with pictures and drawings. Here's a couple of sketches I drew along with proopsed locations of speakers, screen, PJ and such:
Basically, the room is roughly 21x13 with a cathedral ceiling. The ceiling is 8 feet high at the far end of the room, and 17 feet high at the peak. The end of the room where the screen will be has a brick fireplace (note, this may end up being torn out, if it ends up costing too much to bring it up to code--I'm talking to the builder about this tomorrow). Fireplace or no, I plan on hanging a 50" plasma on the wall for TV watching, and having a motorized 6' wide screen drop down out of a soffit for movie watching.
Some interesting notes/features about the room:
1. There is a skylight on the north side of the ceiling. It will have an electrically operated room darkening blind on it for light control. The two windows in the room will also have room darkening blinds and/or drapes as well.
2. The back wall has a 8 foot high "shelf" where the wall is set back 2 feet from there up to the ceiling. This area is 7 feet high and I'm thinking of putting the back surround speakers on this shelf. The side surrounds (bipole or dipole type) will be on the side walls.
3. A friend of mine suggested putting the subwoofer(s) up on that shelf as well. That's an interesting idea, as then the subs won't take up any floor space. What do the bass experts here think of that? It should sound ok up there, right?
4. The soffit and drop down screen will present a challenge as to where to put the center speaker. One idea is to build the soffit so it doesn't go all the way to the sloped ceiling, leaving a gap where the center speaker can be placed. Alternatively, a shelf could be put on the front of the soffit and the center can sit there. In either case, I'd angle the speaker downward toward the listening area. Any other suggestions for the center speaker? I don't really want it on the floor or in the fireplace.
5. There will be a cabinet recessed in the wall to house the components.
As for the home theater itself, I'm thinking of going with Rotel or similar separates, a 50" plasma, a NEC 9PG CRT projector, Lumagen scaler, tower speakers for mains, bipole or dipole surrounds, bookshelves for back surrounds, and 1 or 2 SVS subs.
So, here I am tossing this out at you guys, if you have any great (or crazy) ideas to help me get the most out of this room, I'm all ears (and eyes)!
Thanks!
KJP
The new room is going to be an interesting shape. I can't easily describe it in words, so I'll have to do it with pictures and drawings. Here's a couple of sketches I drew along with proopsed locations of speakers, screen, PJ and such:
Basically, the room is roughly 21x13 with a cathedral ceiling. The ceiling is 8 feet high at the far end of the room, and 17 feet high at the peak. The end of the room where the screen will be has a brick fireplace (note, this may end up being torn out, if it ends up costing too much to bring it up to code--I'm talking to the builder about this tomorrow). Fireplace or no, I plan on hanging a 50" plasma on the wall for TV watching, and having a motorized 6' wide screen drop down out of a soffit for movie watching.
Some interesting notes/features about the room:
1. There is a skylight on the north side of the ceiling. It will have an electrically operated room darkening blind on it for light control. The two windows in the room will also have room darkening blinds and/or drapes as well.
2. The back wall has a 8 foot high "shelf" where the wall is set back 2 feet from there up to the ceiling. This area is 7 feet high and I'm thinking of putting the back surround speakers on this shelf. The side surrounds (bipole or dipole type) will be on the side walls.
3. A friend of mine suggested putting the subwoofer(s) up on that shelf as well. That's an interesting idea, as then the subs won't take up any floor space. What do the bass experts here think of that? It should sound ok up there, right?
4. The soffit and drop down screen will present a challenge as to where to put the center speaker. One idea is to build the soffit so it doesn't go all the way to the sloped ceiling, leaving a gap where the center speaker can be placed. Alternatively, a shelf could be put on the front of the soffit and the center can sit there. In either case, I'd angle the speaker downward toward the listening area. Any other suggestions for the center speaker? I don't really want it on the floor or in the fireplace.
5. There will be a cabinet recessed in the wall to house the components.
As for the home theater itself, I'm thinking of going with Rotel or similar separates, a 50" plasma, a NEC 9PG CRT projector, Lumagen scaler, tower speakers for mains, bipole or dipole surrounds, bookshelves for back surrounds, and 1 or 2 SVS subs.
So, here I am tossing this out at you guys, if you have any great (or crazy) ideas to help me get the most out of this room, I'm all ears (and eyes)!
Thanks!
KJP
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