bigpants_ku

Mike, I read with interest that research on soundproofing gypsum walls. I noticed all tests were done with gypboard on both sides of the wall, with bunches of variation (2 layers, alternating studs, etc etc). In my situation, (picture at base of this post) I've got a closet back there behind the media wall with a cement wall on 2 sides of it, and I want to prevent all that concrete from bouncing sound that leaks into that room back out of it (all without messing with the concrete walls if possible). Since this is a "hidden" room, that means I don't have to put sheetrock on the back of that wall if I don't want to. Since sheetrock on both sides transmits sound through and negates the insulation for the most part as was proved in that project, I wonder if (since this is not alternating studs, etc) leaving the gypboard off of the back side and covering the heck out of it with thick fiberglass (and plastic?) would work better than insulating the gap and sheetrocking (even double thickness) on each side...?) Thanks! Here's the pic:

rmlowz, Sorry we hijacked your post. The christmas lights are LED and are hidden up behind trim, and on faders. You never see them, only a neon-like glow that emminates from behind the trim. In a couple months when I get this done, there will be pictures on the arcitectural forum. It's going to be sweet, and no disco balls or fuzzy dice will be present. (I DO have a disco ball though...)

I am wiring for all of my HT lights today, so I can sheetrock tomorrow. I've got faders galore (a total of nine - I am known to overdo things). I bought a couple of lutron faders for one area and I noticed on the instruction paper that came with it that their minimum recommended wattage per fader is 40W. The LED christmas lights seem to range from 4 to 10W, depending on number of lights in strand, and I certainly won't have 40W worth of lights per fader. How many strands of LED lights do you have on your fader and have you had any problems? I think the "minimum" is referring to incandescent bulbs, so that the fading is actually noticable, but hopefully isn't an issue for our LED christmas lights faders. Thanks -Vance

What about 2 inch sheets of styrofoam insulation? Does that work any better than the pink stuff?

I thought that was your place- I never thought to click on the banner...duh! I actually saved a picture of your HT a week or two ago, so I could show my wife the colors you chose. You have done the lighting exactly the way I would have for the space you have. I suck at interior decorating, but I know that I like to "decorate with light." 26 MONTHS!?? You must have the patience of a saint! Patience has never been my strong suit, and comparing my 2 month goal to 26 months does make this seem like a marathon (and I'm getting sore, and cramped and that makes it *feel* like one.) OK, back to business. I have all the walls in front of the media wall insulated and drywalled. Behind the media wall, the half-wall (Foundation) is insulated from 4 feet up, but the wainscoat (foundation wall) and the big one behind and to the left are 9 foot concrete leviathans. I hadn't thought about firring out those 3 walls back there with studs and insulating them for sound, because they're isolated from the main listening area and I figured I'd insulate the media wall. The only speaker that will be in that wall is the center channel, which I'll build in its own insulated box up there above the TV. I can still stud out and insulate those walls, but it will be a royal pain, because I'll be working in a 6 foot space- it would have been SOOO easy to do it first, but i never thought about it! Not to mention it will cost me a few hundred bucks in materials. Here's the picture again, to remind you of the situation: If I insulate the heck out of the media wall, do you think that would make it less of an issue back there? I really REALLY appreciate your knowlegable assistance! -Vance

I'm definately getting the ones you did. I'm afraid those "ice" ones will put out a pattern that isn't the glow we're after.

Thanks, Mike. I'll listen to some subs from time to time when I'm visting family in KC. I might even be able to audition a Danley there, I have to talk to a guy about that tomorrow. Ultimately, it will be a couple of months before I have to make this decision (or can afford to) anyway. The only thing that would hurry this decision and purchase, is if I wanted to ceiling mount a sub, because I would rather install it before I put in the drop ceiling, but I have several reasons for not wanting to mount a SW in the ceiling (most are obvious ones). I'll keep looking around and lurking on the forums to see what people like me are doing. Other recommendations are welcome (thanks for the eD find, Hurd!) If you want to keep up with my progress on my basement and HT, just check over at the architectural forum where I've got a thread going now. I'll also be putting a progress pictorial together on my website, but right now my wife has just got nothing but baby pictures on it (we have a 3 month old) so I'll post the address when I've got it all updated- I will keep major progress pics up to date on the Architectural forum, though. -V

Glenn, Thanks for the compliments on my design. I'm so rushed, that I'm afraid I'm going to finish it up and then realize dozens of things I should have done differently, but I'm in such a hurry to finish this basement before I go to work, that I'm ok with a bit fewer novelties, as long as everything is done well. I couldn't imagine having someone else do all this work, I wouldn't trust them to do it right and I'd be breathing down their neck constantly. YES, the bookshelf door swings in and to the left, out of the way. I won't have to move my mains. I haven't made any decisions on SW yet, and probably won't anytime soon. Regarding that Danley, I could potentially hide it in the drop ceiling anywhere in the listening area, and I'm tempted to, but I'm afraid it would rattle all the ceiling panels like crazy. I'm not sure my wife would let me buy one anyway. I'll probably end up with a RT-12d if I get a Klipsch, becuse I don't know where I could put the pair of THX subs, other than right in front of the bookshelves, which just would seriously detract from the WAF of this project. I'll be both researching this SW issue and looking for a bargain for months, I'm sure. You brought up the issue of ventilation for the room behind the media wall. I've thought about that some, and that room is roughly 920 cubic feet. I can open up the electronics to the air back there without making it visible from the front, I'm sure, if you think that would be enough (the room does have upstairs ducting passing through the ceiling, so I could put an AC vent in there for the summer). Also, I can get through the external wall on the side of the house above the 1st floor base plate. If I were to ventilate the room outside, I have some questions: 1) Do I just make a vent like you do with your dryer, and let the laws of thermodynamics do the rest, or do you add a fan in the vent? 2) If you make a fan in your vent, do you bring air out to in, or in to out? (or do you reverse it depending on season, and vent AC air from elsewhere in the house into the room in the summer.) What about the fact that I live in Kansas, and sometimes it's 10 below zero outside, and sometimes it's 110? 3) If I vent into the room, do I just vent somewhere in the room, or should I carry the air to/from the electronics cabinet directly? While we're talking about this room, let me ask questions on another topic: Insulation. 4) I'm not worried about the room from a temperature perspective, but should I insulate the walls of the Media Wall from a sound perspective? More than half of the wall surface behind it is bare concrete. Should I fir these out and insulate them? (Please say no, this is a big and costly enough project as it is!) Should I drywall them? (Again, please say no.) Last question: I can't find the page in the thread now, but I recognize the picture on your sig. As I've been planning this HT for the last couple weeks and have joined the forum, I've been doing a lot of research, reading old threads and lurking on new ones. Are you the guy with the HT that is decorated in primary colors with low voltage lighting, a bar behind some red chairs, and a framed hockey jersey? If you are, I have some compliments for you! If you're not, I'm sure your HT is great too! -V

Thanks! These are what I'll be buying. I'm going to run 5 strands in 3 places, on 5 separate faders. One strand will be blue only. Two will be red overlying blue, on separate faders. Why, you ask? Well, I like blue the best (just seems natural, as you mentioned earlier). My alma mater is KU, and we'll be watching a lot of Jayhawk basketball in HD down here, so I will put on Red on one strand and Blue on another for such occasions. Also, there are a lot of K-State wildcat fans around here, and we'll probably watch some wildcat football from time to time, and although it pains me to do so, it will be cool to turn on the red and blue strands that are run together at the same time, and get a purple glow. (At least I hope that's what happens- at $17 per strand, I can afford to find out.) Do you have the lights postitioned closer together in your ceiling than they are on the strand, to eliminate hot spots?

Indyklipschfan, Are these the lights you got? These have kind of this "ice" texture. They're for sale on christmaslightsetc.com for $20 for a 8.8 foot strand, spaced every 4". That's 25 lights per strand. I found dozens of websites selling LED christmas lights, and many were cheaper than these- I just wondered if this bulb texture is like what you got, or if you got the smooth philips ones.

Glenn, Thanks for your interest! First off, you're right- that left hand bookshelf is less deep than the right one, and will have a few big wheels under it and heavy duty hinges, and is a "secret" door. It will be a media shelf (CD's, DVD's). THe reason you see some tall wood fascia at the bases of both bookshelves is that the left one needs the space to hide the wheels and support structure, so we made it look the same on both sides. It will have a hidden hex-key latch. The room behind the media wall is 6 feet deep, and is used for 1) media wall access 2) storage 3)it's a hidden room,so it's a good place for the safe, etc. The TV will be flush with the wall which will be trimmed out to just show the screen. The AV rack will be split into two, and will be under the TV, also flush with the wall, with smoked glass doors. So techinally, all of the electronics are in that room. You can see where the center channel goes, and the mains will be floorstanders toed in in the corners under the sconces. The surrounds will be mounted a little higher than usual (around 7 feet) to the L and R of the sectional. The subwoofer is another problem. I've got 950 square feet and nowhere good to put a SW if you can imagine such a predicament. I've got a thread going on that issue over in the Powered Subwoofers forum. I'm considering getting a Danley DTS-20 and putting it in the furnace room. Any experience with something like that? What is your experience with using big/loud subwoofers for a big room like this but not placing them in the general central listening area anywhere? -Vance

Man that looks solid. The company SHIPS ALL 435 POUNDS OF IT FOR FREE to the US 48! (Sorry, Canada!) I read the reviews on the eD website. Looks like the huge pros of this sub are quality (big, low, quality output) and value ($2K). The cons are pretty obvious, it's huge (26x26x49) and ugly (covered in a skin not unlike a spray-on pickup bedliner), and can't be stashed. If it weren't for the price difference, I'd say these cons are too big to disuade me from a Danley DTS-20, but the price is crazy. I just don't know where I'd put this beast...Maybe I could turn it into a sofa table...

Yes, the room is assymetrical as all getout. I don't have an "official" floorplan, but here is a sketch with rough dimensions (in feet). Most of the ceilings will be acoustic drop ceiling at 8.5 feet (except for where I've got vents boxed in). I know, I know, that might rattle- I'll weigh 'em down or whatever I have to do, but I don't want to drywall the whole thing, and I want ceiling access. I demo'd some subs and speakers last week, and the place I was at had acoustic drop ceilings, and I never heard a rattle. To start with, I don't think I am going to have time to learn how to make a DIY SW or learn IB and build something appropriate for this room. I would love to, but I'm starting a new job on September 1st and I'm going to be working a LOT. With the time-intensity of my job, finishing my basement, and our new 12 week old baby, I just don't see picking up a new hobby the likes of DIY subs and doing it right. The upside of all that work, is that I'm going to make some money, so I could afford a Danley DTS-20. That said, my saying we can afford it, and my wife saying I can buy it are two different things. What do people charge to build DIY for someone else? Is such an option cost-effective? So anyway, let's assume that we decide a DTS-20 is the tool for the job, and I get WAF for it sometime this fall. Now we have to decide where to put it. Look at that floorplan- I could possibly put it vertically with the output on the floor behind one of the wall sconces, but if I do, it will be behind a main speaker. But what about the furnace and water heater room? I could put it in there, right in the corner between 2 studs, spewing bass out of a hole in the top or the bottom or the wall, whichever the experts recommend. Would that be too far from the listening area or anything? (See the layout of the listening area on a previous post in this thread). Thanks again for your ongoing advice! -Vance

Welcome to the forum from one new member to another! Someone mentioned that you look into used Klipsch- I've seen some really good prices on ebay on slightly used reference speakers- RF-5, RF-7, etc. I myself will be selling a pair of RF-5's probably sometime this fall. Find yourself a good deal on quality used speakers, and then you can invest the money you save into a better reciever and/or subwoofer. For a big open area, you're going to need more subwoofer than if your listening area had walls around it. (I'm dealing with this very problem in trying to find affordable yet sufficient bass for my new HT I'm building right now!)

Dear "Klipsch Buddies," FYI "Klipsch Buddies" is a term that my wife recently coined since I've joined the Klipsch forum. I'm in the middle of finishing my basement and building a new HT, and I've recieved some much needed advice about speaker upgrades and so forth for this bigger room. I just now realized that there's an architectural forum, and I saw the awesome feedback you're giving dkp, and in my jealousy, I thought I'd start a thread here, just in case anyone was interested in chiming in on my project. I've posted a thread HERE in the Powered Subwoofers regarding my subwoofer worries (this is an 8,000 cubic foot room), as well as HERE on the "Let's see YOUR home theater" thread on the HT forum. Both threads have pictures, floorplans, etc. Instead of re-posting it all, I'll just mention and link to the other threads here. Please feel free to look at the plans and pictures I've got up so far.For the record, I'm doing this all myself (with help from my Dad and myFather-in-Law occasionally) and I have never attempted such a massive project on my own and on such a hurried pace. This project includes a 2,000 square feet basement with a big office, 3 closets, 2 storage rooms, a full bathroom, a wet bar, the Home Theater, and more. I started it in late June, and hope to be done by September 1 when I start my new job. I'm working furiously, but slow enough to keep quality better than I think most sub-contractors would manage. Thanks for any input you may have, and I'll post pictures here as I make progress!

Here you see my last HT. I tore it down and moved on June 1. My new HT is under construction. I'll start with the same RF-5's but I think I'll upgrade them to Heritage or RF-83's eventually. I've upgraded the center to an RC-64 for this big room (approx 8,000 cubic feet, and 941 square feet) and I'm still trying to figure out what in the heck I'm going to do for a subwoofer(s). Here's the floorplan with some color lines indicating plans for the room. This is the half of the basement with the HT- it's a big multi-purpose room. Not ideal for HT,but it will work for now. The green circle is the poker table. Here are the plans for the video wall: And here is my progress so far. We're going to make that beam into an arch with boxes on the ends, which will be cool, and allow for some lighting hidden behind some trim. And yes, that left bookshelf is also a door. SHHH! [:#]

DrWho, Again, thanks for your insight. Looks like the Danley DTS-20 would be perfect, but WAF on that is nil. I can do something like that in my next house when we have a dedicated HT room and can hide stuff like the Danley. This new house is a spec house and I'm making the best out of the unfinished basement before I go to work September 1. That's the other problem- no income until then, unless we sell our last house, which is not looking good, because the real estate market in the town we moved from is dead. Anyway, that doesn't mean I can't figure something out. I'm not sure I can put the sub in the back wall/room for reasons you'll see below (although I'd love to if possible), so I'm likely going to have to go to a freestanding in-the-room unit, I can spend some time on the forums trying to figure out what would be optimal for my scenario, while I continue construction. (The center channel had to be upgraded ahead of time, since it's built in. I bought an RC-64 for that- got a killer deal on a floor model ($299). Ok, so on to the HT: The room behind the media wall is indeed a storage closet, but to me, it's more than that. First, it's a walk-behind media wall access. Second, it's a bit of a hidden room (the access is through a bookshelf/door with a well-hidden latch.) I guess now it's not such a secret...Oh well. Lets hope our local robbers aren't Klipsch forum readers. Third, it's a storage room. The room is 6 feet deep. Yes, it technically could hold some major woofage, but probably not with the way I'm laying out the wall (which is half bookshelves) as you can see by looking at the following plans and progress pictures (just framed that wall yesterday). The bookshelf on the left is also a door, obviously. The distance from the outside walls to the outside of the bookcases is roughly 18 or 19 inches (behind the sconces). This is the only place in that room where I can see easily putting subs, as the space below the TV is for electronics.. The mains will be setting free in front of those wall segments under the sconces. But I don't know what kind of woofage I could put in that space, and if I could, where it would go (behind the speakers? Above them on a shelf?) and would I need to open the walls and put in some kind of screen? To help you help me (which again, is GREATLY appreciated), I've done some math. The entire room is close to 941 square feet, and 8,000 cubic feet. I know that to get some good bass in there for movies, I'm going to need to go big, but the budget is at least temporarily tight and WAF low. I can see dropping maybe 4-6k on subs by this fall. Unless you can see a way to do something else, I can only imagine getting one or two floorstanding units that are not monoliths like the Danley. For instance, would the Velodyne DD 1812 SE work for this room? Would two of something else be more appropriate? To answer your volume question, this setup will mainly be used to watch movies. We watch movies pretty loud- at least theater loud. I'll run some wire upstairs and run an old set of KSB 2.1s on the B speakers. I do listen to music quite often on the main system too, but in general the quality is more important to me than the volume for music. Here is another picture of the room's progress from the end of the stairs to give you a visual picture of the room's size: What do you think?

Oops! Here's the floorplan.

Dr. Who- Thanks for this good advice. You've got a good point about the room playing a big role, and the punchiness of the sealed high end subs (velo and Martin Logan) I was listening to certainly would sound different in my HT I'm sure. To answer your questions, my current mains are RF-5, but I'm building a new HT now and after it's done (hopefully will be done with the basement and HT by September) I may upgrade those to RF-83 or heritage stuff, just will depend on how it sounds. The room (when it's done) will be roughly 17 x 40 but it's an odd shape and has other stuff going on (a bar, a fireplace, poker table, pinball machine, etc.) See the floorplan. I gave you one measurement to go by- I dont' have a digital version of the plan with measurements on it at the moment. I did listen to a RT-12d, but the dude at the store was having issues with it on his switcher or something, and it seemed to be in and out, so I'm not sure it was a good audition. I could probably do dual KW-120THX's in this room, but I can't find a store that has any to listen to. Take a look at the floor plan and tell me what you think I should do. You'll notice that the HT opens up one one side and the room goes forever (and that's why I'm concerned- I'm afraid the room will eat up all my bass!

I bet the kids love it. My wife was talking about this old school jukebox that played 45's that her parents had-she and her sister played it and sang along all the time.

Are you serious or just yanking my chain? There must be a lot of karaoke fans out there, because I've seen lots of those stages! I'm glad to hear about the LED Xmas lights- the ones I'm looking at that I mentioned in my post are awesome lights, and last forever, but they are pricey. I also wanted to get blue, but the blue ones are $32 per foot, and so I was thinking of going amber for $14 or so. Now, I'm going to try to find what you got and save a BUTTLOAD of money! (Which I will promptly use to buy a set of RF-83s.)

Thanks for your help guys! I'm definately a novice when it comes to setting up subwoofers. But then again, I was once a novice at tying my shoes (forgive the unfair comparison). My point is that I can learn what needs to be done to optimize the sub, if it's worth taking the time to learn (substantial noticable sound difference). If I can figure that out with this thread, then I'll take whichever route you experts recommend. I agree with you both that just getting a bigger sub is the *easier* route. But if I can get the quick punch of the sealed subs I demo'd last week and the boom of the ported ones, then I'd be willing to get whatever equipment, $150 crossovers, etc that I need to setup and run them both effectively. Or if there's a bigger/better option in a single sub that would give me both benefits, I'd try to find room (ie THX120s and amp, RT12d, etc). So I guess this is the essential question: "Does buying a smaller sealed sub AND a larger ported sub PLUS taking the time to learn the proper calibration of the two (and buying the equipment/crosovers) produce a sound worthy the time, money and effort OR Should I just get a new big sub/subs (and if so, any recommendations?) " Thanks again!

Indyklipschfan, I'm sorry to take a tangent here, but I've been lurking on this post and drooling over you guys' heritage HT's. (Hope they don't short out.) I noticed that stage looking thing in your HT, and I've seen similar ones in trade mags. Does that give some acoustic benefit, or is it just a decorative "Look how big my room is" kind of thing for karaoke night? By the way, your ceiling lights are sweet- what do you have lighting-wise up there? I'm building my new HT now, and I've been looking at NeoFlex, which is a flexible neon-like LED tubing. (They sell it at rosebrand.com for 12-40 bucks a foot depending on color.) Thanks!

Sorry, Buckeye, finder's keepers! [H] I knew this was a good deal from a $$ perspective, I just wanted to see what the group thought of buying a floor model that's been in demo use for an unknown period of time. Now if I can just get their floor model RF-83's for, oh, lets shoot for around...$350?

That's what I figured, I just wanted to be sure. Is that what everybody else does?