Custom Home Theater Project in New Home, Opinions appreciated.

[thadman]

A Friend of mine has asked that I design the home theater for his new house being built this summer. I've got some fundamental ideas for what I'd like to incorporate into the project, but some third party ideas are always appreciated. The room is 17' wide and 25' deep, I've attached a PDF file of the room and surrounding rooms. He wants to spend between $10,000 and $15,000 on audio/acoustics (speakers + absorption/diffusion, labor will be third party) and for it to be as discreet as possible, it's much more impressive when you're not expecting it 8)

[Paul W]

Looks like a great opportunity for a Double Bass Array...or at least an "ordinary" IB.

[thadman]

What does everyone think about using Dr. Geddes' Abbey 12 and Nathan 10 (appropriately smaller versions of his Summa, available as a kit) loudspeakers built into the walls? The Nathan 10s run $700/pair and the Abbey 12s run $1200/pair. The L,C,R would all be Abbey 12s and the SL,SR,BL,BR would be Nathan 10s.

For bass reproduction, the suggestion for doing a double bass array is a good one, one I'd enjoy doing especially with several AE 1B15 drivers (4 front, 4 rear) and building two false walls (front and rear), although I'm not sure how deep I should go.

For amplification, I think 4 PLX1804 (600@8, 900@4) amplifiers for the loudspeakers and 2 PLX1804 (600@8, 900@4) amplifiers for the DBA would be sufficient.

I'm not sure what surround processor to use? Does anyone have any suggestions?

What does everyone think about 2D Quadratic residue diffusors along the walls? Labor will be third party, so 2D would be the only reasonable structure to make at a reasonable cost.

He will be using a projector and the height is around 8' or 9' I believe.

[Paul W]

Considering the uses for the other two rooms, I wouldn't build any false walls...just build very stiff single walls and use the rooms as the DBA/IB enclosures.

I haven't heard Dr Geddes speakers but, according to listening reports they should be quite good, at least for the front channels. You may want to angle the front walls for the L&R speakers. Personally, I would use wide dispersion surrounds.

The Integra 9.8/9.9 has a very complete feature set and appears to be the best bang-for-buck processor out there right now...the built-in EQ should handle any baffle compensation issues with in-wall speaker mounting.

[CraigJ]

What does everyone think about using Dr. Geddes' Abbey 12 and Nathan 10 (appropriately smaller versions of his Summa, available as a kit) loudspeakers built into the walls? The Nathan 10s run $700/pair and the Abbey 12s run $1200/pair. The L,C,R would all be Abbey 12s and the SL,SR,BL,BR would be Nathan 10s.

Thadman,

We should have some additional info on the Abbey here pretty soon. One of our fellow members has purchased the Abbey kit, and has said he will start a thread when he builds them. FYI, the price for the Nathan is $1400 per pair, and the Abbeys run $2400 per pair. Both "require" three subs.

Craig

[Dennis H]

The new Pioneer SC-05, SC-07 and SC-09 receivers with the ICE amps have been getting rave reviews. Owners prefer the sound to the Onkyos and Denons they replaced and they have tons of real measured power.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Audyssey EQ -- it tries to do too much, doesn't tell you what it's doing and doesn't allow any user control. I prefer Pioneer's simpler 'do no harm' approach to room EQ -- octave band GEQ for voicing, BSC issues, etc. along with a few bands of PEQ to knock down the worst bass modes. It's simple enough that the automatic setup actually works and sounds good after it's done, unlike many people's experience with Audyssey, and it can be manually adjusted if you don't like what the automatic thing did.