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Formica's Audio / HT room... the construction


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It's coming along nicely. That manifold is very interesting. I'm anxious to hear how much energy is going to come from that monstrous thing! I think The Ear lives in your area. You'll have to invite him over when it's done to give the rest of us the lowdown on his opionion of your lows! [;)]

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So how much bigger than a lacala is that middle section? The reason I ask is because that crossbrace you have going horizontally across the two IB vents is going to cause that big side panel to vibrate...so if possible, I would try to put a layer of that damping stuff on both sides (something heavy like truck bedliner). And then if you have room, I'd put 4" of foam on the inside and then at least 1" on the vent side. Perhaps even double up that vertical piece of plywood. I'd do the same for the rear of the center cubby too because that will probably get vibrated quite a bit too. The cool thing though is that this will also be beneficial for reducing cabinet vibrations from the center channel as well.

I'm fairly certain you're not going to notice anything wrong at the start, but later on down the road you'll probably start noticing it more and more...

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I'm anxious to hear how much energy is going to come from that monstrous thing!

So am I... [:D] It's been on my short list for quite some time, but

impossible to audition till it's done. I'm not jumping in

entirely blind though, as the physics behind it is very logical.

So how much bigger than a lacala is that middle section?

It's actually shorter... with a mouth of about 28"x28".

The reason I ask is because that crossbrace you

have going horizontally across the two IB vents is going to cause that

big side panel to vibrate...so if possible, I would try to put a layer

of that damping stuff on both sides (something heavy like truck

bedliner).

The entire inside of that center section will also be laminated with

MDF... so that wall will have a total thickness of 2"... and a maximum

unbraced length of 18" in all directions. The back and top are

braced with 2x3" and 2x6" and will get filled with Roxul before being

laminated with MDF as well.

Even without the extra MDF mass... is already resonates at a much higher frequency.

I remember you posting a link about lining cavities around flush

mounted studio monitors with foam... what's the conclusion on

that? I'd like to avoid the centre channel vibrating the

gap between it and the manifold... and since I'll be eventually

building a custom centre along the lines of a cornscala, I can make it

as snug as I'd like.

No rush right now though...

ROb

PS: picture of the IB support...

post-11489-13819278827032_thumb.jpg

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And one last one... same as before but right after having moved over

the walkin door. Notice the new gap between the two

doors?...

Now I'm off to rewire the basement... it's slow and tedious, but worth

it in the long run. My brother is an electrician, and is helping

along with it...

ROb

post-11489-13819278828612_thumb.jpg

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I remember you posting a link about lining cavities around flush mounted studio monitors with foam... what's the conclusion on that? I'd like to avoid the centre channel vibrating the gap between it and the manifold... and since I'll be eventually building a custom centre along the lines of a cornscala, I can make it as snug as I'd like.

It gets rid of any tubby/boxy sound that one might encounter...the speaker cabinet itself is going to vibrate and the enclosed space around the speaker acts as a horn (well a rather crappy horn) that will amplify the effects.

To increase the effectiveness, you will want to construct a "picture frame" for the front of the opening that will just almost touch the sides of the speaker cabinet (the motorboard will need to be flush with this frame). The idea here is that you construct a physical barrier that reflects the sound back inside the tight air cavity (keeping it from getting out). When done correctly it also maximizes baffle gain and minimizes diffraction problems.

For optimal results I would recommend 4" foam, but you can prob get away with 1" - it all depends on the actual performance of the cabinet you build. If you wanted to be real fancy you could go measure the off-axis response outside and then calculate what you need to accomplish [;)]

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  • 4 weeks later...

Now I'm off to rewire the basement... it's slow and tedious, but worth it in the long run.

Although i haven't posted an update in a while... I have been very busy

both at work and at home moving this project forward.

Since my last post, I've completed my AV cabling, alarm wiring, IR

wiring, computer network wiring, electrical / lighting wiring,

insulating my ceiling, insulating my walls, building and installing my

projector hush box (with it's duct work)... etc...

Unfortunately all that work doesn't show much visually... but all I

have left to do before installing gypsum board is the resilient

channels on the ceiling. (that and cleaning up a lot)

With all this renovation work going into the basement, I'm now temped

to rebuild my staircase going down as well. I may tear out the

knee wall underneath as a starter because I never really like the way

it was framed in.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow... but it does look quite similar to before.

ROb

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Now I'm off to rewire the

basement... it's slow and tedious, but worth it in the long run.

Although i haven't posted an update in a while... I have been very busy

both at work and at home moving this project forward.

Since my last post, I've completed my AV cabling, alarm wiring, IR

wiring, computer network wiring, electrical / lighting wiring,

insulating my ceiling, insulating my walls, building and installing my

projector hush box (with it's duct work)... etc...

Unfortunately all that work doesn't show much visually... but all I

have left to do before installing gypsum board is the resilient

channels on the ceiling. (that and cleaning up a lot)

With all this renovation work going into the basement, I'm now temped

to rebuild my staircase going down as well. I may tear out the

knee wall underneath as a starter because I never really like the way

it was framed in.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow... but it does look quite similar to before.

ROb

LOL Been there...Done that....still doing it

Sure is fun though isn't it Rob

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Sure is fun though isn't it Rob

I actually remember you posting about how time consuming the wiring was in your reno so I kinda anticipated it.

I'm actually pretty happy with the rewire... as I had to eliminate all

the junction boxes in the ceiling given I was switching from acoustical

ceiling tile to gypsum board. It'll be easier to trace wires in

the future. Would you believe I've got 22 lights going into that

space?

Gypsum and resilient channels should arrive this weekend... and I'll

take my time in putting it up given some of the detailing I've designed

into it.

Did you do your own joints? I'm considering giving those out... faster with a lot less dust than what I'll do.

ROb

Picture of front of theatre

post-11489-13819281345988_thumb.jpg

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And one last one for a while... this is a view of my "mesh" light boxes for my pot lights.

Originally I had talked about buying insulation boxes for attic

installations. Those are designed to keep the insulation from

leaning directly on the light fixtures and overheating

them. I was going to use them to reduce air leaks around

the pots... but these are actually ventilated at the top (to allow the

lights to cool).

IMHO, this was no better than building protective mesh cages around my

pots, which is what I did finally. Joist space is tight in some

places, and this worked well in those situations.

Later...

ROb

post-11489-13819281348088_thumb.jpg

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Hey, Rob, really great job you're doing up there. Was trying to see what you wanted to do with that knee-wall near the stairs but couldn't quite visualize your problem with it.

Great room!

Loved your spelling of "Klipschorn". Hadn't quite seen that variation before [:P]

Reinforced front corner, for Kliscphorns. This was taken from the future front row seats...

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Loved your spelling of "Klipschorn". Hadn't quite seen that variation before [:P]

Neither had I... fat fingers i guess... [:P]

ROb

PS: the knee wall sticks into the room, past the stair stringer ...

with an angled shelf of sorts (it's hard to see in the pics given they

were all painted the same colour). It seems that it should end

under the stringer to look neater, IMHO... and now is the time to do it right.

Ironically I mentionned it to my girlfriend, and she had never noticed... so it might be a personal thing. [;)]

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Projector box is loosely based on yours, actually... tring to squeeze every last bit of headroom... [:)]

Have you decided on a projector yet? I picked up an AE900U to try today..... wow!

Yeah... it looks like either the AE900U or the Sanyo Z4... i

really wish i could get the 900U for 1500$ like you guys! Mail in

rebate is only valid in the US... [:@] A little

frustrating...

ROb

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Rob,

Both those are said to be very good options though I haven't seen the Z4.

When I'm in 2.35 mode with the constant height screen my seating

position is 1 screen width away. My old JVC DILA/LCOS had a very high

fill factor and more resolution (and was dimmer) so to see screen door

you literally needed to be within a foot or so of the screen.

I went with the Panasonic mainly based on the Smoothscreen as I

figured the Smoothscreen was my best chance of not seeing screen door

on a 720p projector at that distance. Contrary to some reports I can

see SDE at 1x with the Panasonic but really only on text like credits

and such and it isn't bad, just noticeable if you are looking for it. I

started right out with one of the filter tweaks (81EF) that is pretty

popular with the Panasonics and it did look to help a lot. Not that it

matters for me with the hush box but the unit is quite with the fan on

low. Since mine is in the hush box all the time I set mine to have the

fan run full speed all the time to keep it cooler.

The other thing I have read from a few posts is the iris in the Z4 has

a noticeable lag which sounds like it might be somewhat distracting.

Anyhow... after getting the Panny hung last night I spent about four

hours watching material and it really just shocked me how good it

looked. Even more so considering the price. I really thought it was

going to be a case of picking tradeoffs compared tot the JVC projector

but after what I saw last night it seems like a pretty big no brainer.

The lens shift is *so* much easier to line everything up then the fixed

offset JVC was.

One thing.. make sure you buy from a good source. I got mine from

Projector People. My first unit had a big green blob in the picture

(probably dust). They overnighted a replacement to me and also did a

Quality Check for the second unit in which they fire it up and look for

bad pixels, dust, VB, convergence and so on.

Shawn

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