Bret

The floor system above the theatre consists of steel floor trusses made by Deitrich, supporting a product called Vulpan (Looks like corrugated steel). To this add rebar and 4-4.5" of concrete. On my plans it is called a safe room but we all know what it really is....For what it is worth, they placed the forms on Friday and are pouring the footings on Monday! Woot!

That's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you very much for the info. For what it's worth, all 4 walls are ICF in the theatre. With a 4" concrete floor system over the top, I am hoping I should not have a problem with waking the children while watching "The Matrix" I was planning on either covering the foam with a fabric and synthetic stucco so I guess I will still have to play it by ear....

Not a bad investment if it saves me more than $250.00 in unnecessary time and materials as opposed to just winging it and throwing cash at it until it sounds right.....Thank you very much for the suggestion. As a plus, with this setup, I can at least perform some authoritive measurements and perhaps save someone else the aggro.

Thanks! It "sounds" like I am just going to have to wait until everything is built up and then go from there. I am concerned that the foam which will already be in place may act as an absorber of some form or another and was hoping that someone may have built something similar. I am spinning in circles at this early point trying to decide if the room will be too dead with the foam as my wall surface. If so, how much of it should I cover with drywall to liven it up? On the other hand, maybe the foam does nothing acoustically and I will need to treat the walls as bare concrete. Trying to make decisions before sinking un-needed time and money into installing something I don't need. After doing all my research, I am surprised there is so little info on ICF used in this manner. Not even the ICF manufacturer could give me any idea of the sound absorbancy other that the room will be very, very quiet... Thanks again, Bret

Prologue: When my wife and I purchased our last home, her requirement was a pool. My requirement was a theatre. We compromised and she got a pool...fast forward to now... I am in the process of building a home here in northern Florida and I was able to fit a 16' x 25' dedicated home theatre (officially called the "safe" room) in the basement. All 4 walls are 6" of steel reinforced concrete sandwiched between two pieces of fairly dense foam approx 2.25" thick on each side. The 9' ceiling is approx 4" concrete. The ICF foam forms have built in furring (sp?) strips and are effectively isolated from the concrete inside. Has anyone done anything similar with this material? I am trying to decide if I will really need to add the typical absorbers up to eye level or simply cover the whole wall with some sort of fabric. I understand the need to add a couple bass absorbers to the mix but after that I am really not sure where to start. Hate to ask such an open ended question...I have done a ton of research but have not seen much info on this material. (For what it's worth, I am planning a 7.1 system using 7 ea. Heresy II's. Think that's a bit of overkill for this size theatre?) Thanks all! Bret

Thanks! I appreciate the quick response. The receiver has not been purchased at this point. I was looking at one of the newer Yamaha AV Receivers but may have to look at the Pioneers now as well... While the screen does have perforations, the consensus seems to be that they become invisible at approx.5-6 feet with this particular material. If you visit the AVScience forums, there is quite a lengthy thread on the material. It is actually a DIY screen which has worked out far better than anyone would have imagined. If you read the reviews, it appears to be as good as the higher end microperf screens. Just do a search for SmX... Back to the Klipsch related questions, I was actually looking at purchasing 5 used Heresy II or even "plain old" Heresy due to budget constraints. Will this be an issue? Bret

Seems alot of people mix and match the different Klipsch flavors but I am in the process of building my HT and thought I would go the all Heresy route. The room is 14x24 and I am planning on putting the fronts and center behind my screen with two others at the rear on wall mounts. Has anyone went this route using the sound "transparent" screens? Any issues with this? The receiver has an automated set up which is supposed to set audio levels and the like. Was hoping someone else here may have a similar setup. Any thoughts or suggestions?