AV Theater Designs

I agree with you also that 5.1 can fill a room no problem. But with Blu-Ray now encoding a lot of the discs in 7.1 it sure would be nice to be able to take advantage of this. If you have ever heard a really nice 7.1 home theater with a true 7.1 decoded disc it’s a pretty amazing experience. Our THX Theater is 5.1 and not big enough for a 7.1 set up but I really wish I had the room to add in the rear surrounds. We just did a 7.1 with the THX In-walls and played Hairspray Blu-ray and it was truly awesome.

The THX System produces a LOT of sound. It is really designed for a dedicated home theater and hopefully a lot of sound proofing. I would not recommend using one in a family or living room environment unless you are the only one living in the house. When played at mid to high levels you would rock the house and most likely the neighbors. It’s really hard to play the system soft also, it’s kind of like driving a Ferrari and only being able to go 55 MPH. Not very fun now is it? In our THX Demo room, the room was built with plywood and then drywall and soundproofed and insulated to the max. When played at a loud level you can still hear the room 2 stores down from us. We cannot demo the room to its full potential during business hours but after 6 pm when other tenants leave. Just something to think about when going with the THX Ultra 2 system. BTW Our room is 18 by 20 and they sound great. I would not go much smaller then that with the THX System.

The 42s will work just great. Dont forget that most of the time your surrounds will be used for effect only. You dont really need big surround speakers for this. If the room allows for bigger surround speakers then go for it, but if they look like they stick out to much go with the 42s. IMO it doesnt make too much of a difference for rear surround until you get into the Ultra THX System where you dont have any other options in size. Go with whatever works for your room.

I would also look at Denon. They sound very nice with Klipsch speakers. I use the 2808CI and the 3808CI for a lot of my jobs. They will also overlay OSD over 1080P via HDMI. No other receivers will do that yet.

In my opinion their isnt any other system out there that will compare to the THX Ultra 2 for home theater. Dont forget this system was designed for home theater in mind. The system is a bit to the extreme for a living room enviroment at loud listening levels. Its geared more to the person who is building a seperate theater room. Also dont forget the system sells for $10.000 so with that in mind theirs not many home theater packages around that price range. The only other Ultra THX 2 sytem that im aware of in this price range is made by Atlantic Technoligys and I dont beleive the subs are a part of that package.I heard that system at the home entertainment show in NY powered by all Cinpro equipment. Although very impressive it was also $75.000 for the speakers and equipment. Our Klipsch THX Ultra 2 demo room in my opinion sounds just as good with the same type of experience as the Cinpro room and can be had for around $30.000 complete with Audio,Video and speakers and thats also installed. The THX System is somthing that must be experienced in person.Only then will they be impressed with a true home theater experience. If you have the THX system already and have it set up correctly and tuned in their should be no doubt that you made the right purchase.It simply ROCKS!!!!!!

Hi Ray, It is a small world after all isnt it. I just came across your post and was shocked to see your opening in Branford where our store is located. I would love to come down and take a peek at how the store is coming along and maybe run down some ideas with you on the whole audio/video setup. Your also welcome to come down and take a peek at our brand new Klipsch Ultra THX 2 showroom which is only weeks away from being completed.Its the only Ultra THX showroom pretty much in the whole North East that I am aware of. Its just a bit overkill for your store and besides at $10,000 for the speakers alone that would pretty much kill your buget right there Its still an awsome experience and well worth the trip over to give it a listen though. We also work with a computer tech who is in the same buisness complex as we are so maybe between all of us we can sit down and figure out a great multimedia experience for your customers and at the same time keep you in your buget so you can get the buisness going sooner than later. Trust me,I know how tough it is to work on a set buget. If it wasnt for companys like Sherbourn,Screen Inovations and Klipsch who helped out so much with demo deals for the showroom I dont think the room would have been done unit 2006. Most of the building of the room was done by us because the prices we were getting from contractors were way,way out of buget.Phaze one which is the theater room is just about done and then we move on to phaze two which will be the multi-zone room with key pads and in-walls demo area. That wont be started until after the new year since we have a ton of work coming up that must be completed first. Sounds like you have a nice place going up.Give us a call if you want.Our number is at the bottom of the page.

"Interesting"? Mike, almost seems like you were biting your tongue... It may be a little late now, but I'm a little surprised by two items actually... including the front speaker placement as well as the room dimensions which are nicely dividable by three. The vertical staggering of the LCR is a little odd given that they could have been optimized much more by simply modifying the equipment racks on either sides. I realise placing a large screen would still have obligated lowering the center... but why not place the LR at ear level? This would have made Left to Right (and Right to Left) transitions much more transparent esp since the three front units are identical. I'm not sure if you "rounded" the numbers when you posted room sizes, but having a width which is exactly twice the height will produce some pretty important peaks and nulls. The length is also closely related. Without running the numbers... I'm guessing 62.7Hz and 125.5Hz will both be trouble frequencies for the completed room (1130ft/s divided by 18ft and 9ft). It could have saved some room treatments.... Only trying to help [A] Rob Rob im sorry to disapoint you with my room design and although speaker placement may not be perfect the room was designed not just as a dedicated theater room but also a working showroom for other equipment such as multi-room servers and amplifers,tower and bookshelf speakers such as RF-7s and RB-75s as well as other goodies as simple as a popcorn machine. We built the room as big as posable to fit all of these products and as far as the front wall is there was no way to lower the left and right speakers because of the height of both equipment racks unless we used a pirferated screen which I did not want to do.Moving the racks elsewhere was not an option either. Trust me when I tell you their are no problems with sound in this room from the recent testing we have made.The THX system in this room is 100% for movie viewing.Thus when customers come in for music listening I would not even try to sell them on the THX system but rather a RF-7 setup as discussed in another post comparing the two systems. Again I will say their isnt a demo room on the complete shorline in Ct. or even all of Ct. that will come close to this room as far in your face home theater with the THX Ultra 2 system.If someone comes in and proves me wrong after demoing this room I will change it to your specs Rob, I promise Tim Tim, It seems like you took a bit of offense at Rob's comments but I am of a mind to agree with him. Placing the center speaker at the floor instead of behind a perforated screen seems to be all wrong to me. If anything, it should have been placed ABOVE the screen if you are not willing to use a perforated one because then it would have been closer in line (horizontally) with the LR speakers. That would have made the L-C-R imaging better. My suggestion is to create a recessed box for your center channel above the screen and slant all three boxes (LCR) slightly towards the listeners' ears. Of course, the center box would have a slightly greater slant because it will be slightly higher. You could just put them all parallel to the floor and use shims under the rear of the speakers to accomplish the same thing. In one of your earlier posts, you made the point that the room is free-standing and you showed photos of how easy it is to walk around the outside of the room in order to get access to the backsides of the walls, etc. How difficult would it have been to put some greater thought into room dimensions? I am not in the business but even I know that. I have no control over the dimensions of my family room but you as a professional have total control over the dimensions of your demo room. Sure, some of your customers will be idiots with too much money to spend and they won't notice but some of your customers will be like people in this forum and they will notice those little things and you will lose credibility as a result. By the way, use the spell check tool and proof your posts for grammar errors. Like I said, it is all about credibility. The room was built as large as possable for the area we had to work with.With 9 foot high ceilings and the way everything layed out with the 105" screen this idea worked best. We also talked with Klipsch directly about the speaker placement and because of the way the THX speakers were designed and also because of the horns they told us although its not prefered this set up will work fine. Again in a perfect world would the speakers all be set up on axis? Yes of course,but again this is an actual showroom not just a dedicated room. We had to compromise some things in order to show other products. Again the proof is not in the visuals of the pictures but in the true listening experience.Your quite welcome to come to Connecticut and demo for yourself. If you walk away disapointed because the front stage is soo far off and not exactly perfect then you will be the first and you deserve a metal. When you go to a theater to watch a movie do you always get the best seat in the house? The perfect seat directly in the middle and 3/4 of the way up maybe? Your answer will be most likely No. Have you ever heard anybody sitting to the left or the right a ways say"man this really sounds like crap"? No,most of the time its what they are looking at is the problem. The angle they are viewing. The THX System is designed for the MOVIE EXPERIENCE in mind.Sounds to me like you are looking more in the direction of music and the perfect sound and imaging which the THX system isnt really designed for. I am not trying to debate back and forth with you but until you can actually hear the room when its completed then why bring up stuff like"well you should have done this or that" I have a few people coming down from this area after reading this thread and I will make sure they post their opinions on here about their experience.

Yes you are correct that steel studs are not preferred for building home theater rooms. As it turned out my landlord was very strict about how the room was built and he insisted on using steel studs for construction of the room. This was one of the reasons we used plywood before putting up the sheet rock.Trust me when I tell you we used every way possible to keep this room from rattling and it seems to have worked. In a home location rather then a industrial location theirs no doubt wood will be the prefered choice hands down. In my situaction I didnt have the option but to use steel in which case use the thickest steel possable and get ready to charge up the screw guns because you will be their for a long time building the oversized erector set.

"Interesting"? Mike, almost seems like you were biting your tongue... It may be a little late now, but I'm a little surprised by two items actually... including the front speaker placement as well as the room dimensions which are nicely dividable by three. The vertical staggering of the LCR is a little odd given that they could have been optimized much more by simply modifying the equipment racks on either sides. I realise placing a large screen would still have obligated lowering the center... but why not place the LR at ear level? This would have made Left to Right (and Right to Left) transitions much more transparent esp since the three front units are identical. I'm not sure if you "rounded" the numbers when you posted room sizes, but having a width which is exactly twice the height will produce some pretty important peaks and nulls. The length is also closely related. Without running the numbers... I'm guessing 62.7Hz and 125.5Hz will both be trouble frequencies for the completed room (1130ft/s divided by 18ft and 9ft). It could have saved some room treatments.... Only trying to help [A] Rob Rob im sorry to disapoint you with my room design and although speaker placement may not be perfect the room was designed not just as a dedicated theater room but also a working showroom for other equipment such as multi-room servers and amplifers,tower and bookshelf speakers such as RF-7s and RB-75s as well as other goodies as simple as a popcorn machine. We built the room as big as posable to fit all of these products and as far as the front wall is there was no way to lower the left and right speakers because of the height of both equipment racks unless we used a pirferated screen which I did not want to do.Moving the racks elsewhere was not an option either. Trust me when I tell you their are no problems with sound in this room from the recent testing we have made.The THX system in this room is 100% for movie viewing.Thus when customers come in for music listening I would not even try to sell them on the THX system but rather a RF-7 setup as discussed in another post comparing the two systems. Again I will say their isnt a demo room on the complete shorline in Ct. or even all of Ct. that will come close to this room as far in your face home theater with the THX Ultra 2 system.If someone comes in and proves me wrong after demoing this room I will change it to your specs Rob, I promise Tim

another

Actually right now the room is 5.1 which I may or may not change in the future. The room is 16 w x 18 L x 9 H and with the Berkline chairs in place a 7.1 really wont work correctly in this size room. This room design is very cool because its built inside a shop,you can actually walk around the whole outside of the room to do any wiring at anytime or to switch out equipment from behind the front wall. As for acoustical treat for now the room was bulit with plywood and then sheetrock,this way if we need to hang anything on the wall or want to add plasmas down the road its easy,it also cuts down on noise because of the neighbor factor. So far we added black sonex acoustic foam tiles on the ceiling and once the carpet and chairs are in we will take further steps and looking into the fabri-trax system and also some bass traps if needed. Here is a few pics which shows the outside of the room.

I think these may show up.I will check on another computer but the others did show up on mine.Dusty Rack

photo 3

photo 2

Hey all, I just wanted to say a big hello to everyone in these forums. We are building the ultimate demo room out here in Connecticut and will be the only working THX Ultra 2 demo in most of the North east. The room should be completed by the end of November. I have tested this room so far without setting up the processor and also without the carpet in and I must say this room will be somthing unlike anything in this area.This room will be open to all Klipsch followers to enjoy in the near future but will be by appointment only since its located in an industrial complex with other places of buisness connected.Ive already had complaints from the neighbors and im not quite ready to move my buisness to the middle of the woods I would like to thank Klipsch of course for all their support along with Sherbourn Technologies both who have helped a bunch in making this room possable. Here are a few pics just so you can get an idea of what its going to look like.We are waiting for the custom made 105" screen from Screen Inovations and also the Sharp DLP projector.More pics to follow soon.