New Theater from Scratch!

[PhilMays]

In a unseen turn of events, it looks as if our house will finially sell. My current theater resides in a 1800 sq ft basement area shared with a downstairs kitchen, dining room, kids play area, exercise (virgin) area. The acoustics are just plain BAD!

In the house we are buying, we have an unfinished basement. I am taking an area and making a true theater with new projector, seating etc. The back of the theater will have a bar and my 2 channel rig.

The theater will be roughly 20 feet wide by 35 feet deep. Several questions I have.

1. What type of ceiling - Drop or sheet rock. Will accoustics suffer with a drop. Obviously trhis will be the cheaper route, but I would install very nice panels as apposed to typical panels.

2. On the risers seating, has anyone placed subs under this before? I will most likely have two subs up front and considering a third under the riser.

3. I will install in wall wiring with equipment in the back in a room/rack. Obviously I need to ventthis. Would a bathroom ceiling fan vented into the drop work if I could find a quiet one?

4. I am going to paint and frame a screen wall. No mechanical screen. However I may do curtains.

Obviously I am in the planning stages...what am I forgetting or any comments !?!

Thanks

Phil

[BadDad]

When I converted my living room to a home theater I used ceiling planks from Armstrong. My theater is about 14x20 My daughter and I put this up in a couple of weekends before her open house graduation party. They are not cheap but look like real wood although they are a laminate. Not cheap though. I would try to keep a fan out if at all possible. You will have the fan from the projector maybe a computer, the fans all drive me nuts. Here is a link for the ceiling planks,

www.armstrong.com/resclgam/na/ceilings/en/us/planks.asp

[DrWho]

Are you building for aesthetics or purely acoustics?

If you're going to be doing a lot of refinishing, one thing you might look into are splayed walls and flushmounted speakers. And what do you mean by the 2 channel rig being in the back? Is this a separate room or you planning on turning your listening position around?

Be careful with a drop ceiling because they are prone to vibrate, which is extremely annoying. Also be wary of any arbitrary "acoustic tiles" because they are usually designed for absorbing midband energy at business locations (to soak up the sound of all the fans and equipment chugging away as well as people talking).

In-wall wiring is always a good thing. One thing you might consider would be to run conduit, like 1" PVC that way you can change the cables out later, not to mention make your speaker wire runs that much easier to do. I mention 1" only because it's smaller and easier to work with. For something like a projector where you might be pulling big plugs through, you might consider 2" or even 3" just to make life easier.

Is your equipment rack going to have rear access? (as in, will you be physically able to walk behind your gear). The nice thing about rear access is that it's terribly easier to work on everything and heat is much less of an issue too.

You could put a sub underneathe the riser - heck, depending on the size of your riser, that might even be a good application for a huge hornloaded sub. Just keep in mind that if you build a sub into the riser, that you will need to construct the entire riser as if it were a speaker cabinet - which means bracing and making sure things don't vibrate and color the sound coming from the sub. The visceral impact from the floor literally shaking is always a cool thing though (just make sure it's not audible). There are also some acoustical considerations concerning the summation of subs in the front of the room with a sub sitting just beneathe you. Trying to time-align the systems will be kinda important (though a long folded horn automatically fixes that for you).

[damonrpayne]

In a unseen turn of events, it looks as if our house will finially sell. My current theater resides in a 1800 sq ft basement area shared with a downstairs kitchen, dining room, kids play area, exercise (virgin) area. The acoustics are just plain BAD!

In the house we are buying, we have an unfinished basement. I am taking an area and making a true theater with new projector, seating etc. The back of the theater will have a bar and my 2 channel rig.

The theater will be roughly 20 feet wide by 35 feet deep. Several questions I have.

1. What type of ceiling - Drop or sheet rock. Will accoustics suffer with a drop. Obviously trhis will be the cheaper route, but I would install very nice panels as apposed to typical panels.

2. On the risers seating, has anyone placed subs under this before? I will most likely have two subs up front and considering a third under the riser.

3. I will install in wall wiring with equipment in the back in a room/rack. Obviously I need to ventthis. Would a bathroom ceiling fan vented into the drop work if I could find a quiet one?

4. I am going to paint and frame a screen wall. No mechanical screen. However I may do curtains.

Obviously I am in the planning stages...what am I forgetting or any comments !?!

Thanks

Phil

1) I'd go with a typical drywall ceiling. How deep is the basement? You'll really miss the ceiling height with a drop.

2) A forum member who's not around much, FlyingJ, has done this. To me it seems a bit gimmicky, but people reported really enjoying it. I think it's something you'd want to think about and if you think you'll get tired of it eventually.

3) Where are you going to vent to? Even with a vent make sure there's enough spacing around all the components for air flow. I might have taken this too far in mine:

4) Make sure to use conduit in the walls so you can re-pull cable if you want to. There is grey electrical PVC that fits with gently curved corner pieces that makes this pretty easy. If you live in a damp area, think about where you might put a dehumidifier. If you live in an area that gets cold, consider baseboard heating units on either side to encourage convection; I wish I had done this. Are you doing the work yourself?

[PhilMays]

All very good comments. I never considered a drop ceiling vibrating and I can see how it would. Sheetrock it is. I also never considered the floor vibrating if I place a sub under the riser. It will absolutely need to be solid.

What type of sound proofing can I do? I would like as little noise as possible to get through the floors and adjacent walls even though this may be impossible to some extent.

The back of the theater will house a bar and my two channel rig. This will be a kinda mancave if you will. I do want it to look nice and be as accoustically correct as possible.

[DrWho]

Just for clarification (since this often gets mixed up together) - there are two types of acoustical treatment: sound proofing and treating the internal characteristics of the room.

The best way to achieve sound proofing is to build an airtight room within a room. Having a trapped space of air between the inside room and the outside room is the absolute best method of preventing sound transmission.

Could you post some sketches of what you were thinking of doing? It sounds like you're gonna have one rockin cave.

[PhilMays]

I'm not really sure I can post sketches as I'm not that far along. I have some thoughts in my mind floating around but that's about it. Pretty much a theater on one side and a bar/social area on the other.

I've seen a buch of fantastic projects out there and I'm trying to determine what I really want. They all look very cool, but I would like something a bit different than what I've seen to put our touch on it so to speak.

You right about the sound proofing. I am in the hotel business and we typically double sheetrock stick built construction with 1/2" of airspace between the layers to help with sound proofing.

Phil