What would you change if you were to rebuild your Home Theater?

[Bombertodd]

zero difference fyi.....just in your pocketbook

I keep reading this but haven't seen any data on it either. Do you have any links or info? I know Roxul claims it is superior than pink fluffy at sound isolation.

[Measured]

What would I change for theater 2.0? Pretty much everything.

The Room - My biggest mistake was blindly converting a tv room into the theater. The layout and dimensions are wrong; forcing a single row of seating against the back wall and limiting projector choice due to a short throw distance.

Sound Proof - Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but things that didn't bother me before, like the perpetual family racket, drive me insane. Also, having to keep the volume at a whisper when I watch movies early in the morning is annoying.

Move Equipment Outside of the Room - Again, maybe I'm just getting cranky, but the drone of the PS3, computer, Inuke and projector tends to mask subtleties in the sound track.

I suppose when I made the leap to a dedicated theater I didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. Now I understand, but I don't know that the advice of a professional at the time would have convinced me not to make so many compromises. One of those live and learn experiences. Now I'm just waiting for a couple kids to move out, and the torrent of tuition fees to subside before starting Theater 2.0. As a hobbyist, buggering it up the first time just gives you an excuse to do it over again, properly. After all, that's half the fun.

[AVSCraig]

What would I change for theater 2.0? Pretty much everything.

The Room - My biggest mistake was blindly converting a tv room into the theater. The layout and dimensions are wrong; forcing a single row of seating against the back wall and limiting projector choice due to a short throw distance.

Sound Proof - Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but things that didn't bother me before, like the perpetual family racket, drive me insane. Also, having to keep the volume at a whisper when I watch movies early in the morning is annoying.

Move Equipment Outside of the Room - Again, maybe I'm just getting cranky, but the drone of the PS3, computer, Inuke and projector tends to mask subtleties in the sound track.

I suppose when I made the leap to a dedicated theater I didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. Now I understand, but I don't know that the advice of a professional at the time would have convinced me not to make so many compromises. One of those live and learn experiences. Now I'm just waiting for a couple kids to move out, and the torrent of tuition fees to subside before starting Theater 2.0. As a hobbyist, buggering it up the first time just gives you an excuse to do it over again, properly. After all, that's half the fun.

That is the best thing I did in my theater. It's the third one I've built, so I already had tried various methods of eliminating projector noise !

[NBPk402]

It looks like I will be able to implement my changes in our new HT soon.

A few additional changes will also be made.
1: The room will be bigger...a little wider and around 10' longer to allow diffusion,  2 rows of 3,  and the ceiling will be higher.
2:  No AC, since the room will be constructed of 1' thick solid clay walls, with a brick ceiling, and the electronics will be in a different room too.
3: We are also making this  a healthy home so we will have the equipment in a 6' high glass room that has a wooden divider to hide the equipment, and that is open to the high ceilings. The glass room will have plants in it to release negative ions to counter the positive ions of the electricity fields. In addition we will have some skylights to provide light for plants in the HT...these will be to provide a cleaner air in the room.
4: By going to a larger room, I hope to be able to get an even better Soundstage by spacing the speakers out into the room. I am doing this strictly on theory, as my new speakers have never been  heard by me or anyone else for that matter, and we are just hoping they sound as good as others have said this style of speaker sounds.
5: This room will not have a hallway with a door on each end... unless I decide to  split the atrium in half, and have a short hallway between the atrium, with the first door being a glass door. It will negate the sealed hallway, but might make for a real nice entry to the HT.

[bmoney]

It looks like I will be able to implement my changes in our new HT soon.

A few additional changes will also be made.
1: The room will be bigger...a little wider and around 10' longer to allow diffusion,  2 rows of 3,  and the ceiling will be higher.
2:  No AC, since the room will be constructed of 1' thick solid clay walls, with a brick ceiling, and the electronics will be in a different room too.
3: We are also making this  a healthy home so we will have the equipment in a 6' high glass room that has a wooden divider to hide the equipment, and that is open to the high ceilings. The glass room will have plants in it to release negative ions to counter the positive ions of the electricity fields. In addition we will have some skylights to provide light for plants in the HT...these will be to provide a cleaner air in the room.
4: By going to a larger room, I hope to be able to get an even better Soundstage by spacing the speakers out into the room. I am doing this strictly on theory, as my new speakers have never been  heard by me or anyone else for that matter, and we are just hoping they sound as good as others have said this style of speaker sounds.
5: This room will not have a hallway with a door on each end... unless I decide to  split the atrium in half, and have a short hallway between the atrium, with the first door being a glass door. It will negate the sealed hallway, but might make for a real nice entry to the HT.

sounds....interesting...

seems like you arent going for optimum performance with this one...but more of what you are looking for "healthy"

good luck...looking forward to see pics of this thing

[NBPk402]

How is it not for optimum performance? The room will be made with the golden rule dimentions. It is being  adequate larger to enable moving the speaker out into the room. The walls and ceiling are being made with thick clay walls which should also be better than sheet rock for keeping the sound inside the HT. All the electronics will be outside of the theater which means no fan noise inside the HT except for the projector. We will be tuning the room with first reflection panels else, and bass traps too. The atrium for a healthy home have no negatives on the performance of the HT...only on the negatives of the air in the house, and reducing the positive IONs.

[NBPk402]

I keep reading this but haven't seen any data on it either. Do you have any links or info? I know Roxul claims it is superior than pink fluffy at sound isolation.

One advantage over pink fluffy is r60 with 2" vs pink fluffy. If you stuff pink fluffy in a normal wall you will get maybe r30, and in the same area you could have over r200.

[AVSCraig]

How is it not for optimum performance? The room will be made with the golden rule dimentions. It is being  adequate larger to enable moving the speaker out into the room. The walls and ceiling are being made with thick clay walls which should also be better than sheet rock for keeping the sound inside the HT. All the electronics will be outside of the theater which means no fan noise inside the HT except for the projector. We will be tuning the room with first reflection panels else, and bass traps too. The atrium for a healthy home have no negatives on the performance of the HT...only on the negatives of the air in the house, and reducing the positive IONs.

You should move the projector out of the room too, if possible. Or build a closet like I did.

[NBPk402]

You should move the projector out of the room too, if possible. Or build a closet like I did.

I had thought about that, but then I am locked in to over a 30' throw, and will lose my sealed room performance...with the sound leaking throughout the house.I could get a hush box though.

[Bombertodd]

One advantage over pink fluffy is r60 with 2" vs pink fluffy. If you stuff pink fluffy in a normal wall you will get maybe r30, and in the same area you could have over r200.

To get r200 you would need about 4 feet of Roxul Comfortbatt. It has about 4.25 r's per inch of thickness.

[NBPk402]

To get r200 you would need about 4 feet of Roxul Comfortbatt. It has about 4.25 r's per inch of thickness.

Wouldn't 3 layers of Roxul r80 do It? We have 9" of r80 for our back wall bass trap.

[Bombertodd]

Wouldn't 3 layers of Roxul r80 do It? We have 9" of r80 for our back wall bass trap.

I don't see a product named r80, but I'm assuming you're refering to Roxul Rockboard 80 which has an r-value of 4 per inch.

http://www.roxul.com/products/rockboard/

[NBPk402]

I don't see a product named r80, but I'm assuming you're refering to Roxul Rockboard 80 which has an r-value of 4 per inch.

http://www.roxul.com/products/rockboard/

I believe when it arrives it say r80 on the plastic... I will have to look at one of the packages to double check. I do know we have a 2", & 3", and one is r80.

[DonH58]

I built the room (OK, had it built per my direction) using 6" walls filled with Roxul and floated the inner walls and ceiling on Kinetics IsoMax clips. The walls and ceiling are all double-layer drywall and the door is a heavy, large exterior door with full weather seals. The floor is concrete (basement). I sealed off the ducts to the house and added a minisplit HVAC unit so no sound transmission through the ducts. It works pretty well but of course there are things I would like to change:

1. I gave up about 1/3 of the floor area to give my son a room. Probably better for resale, and he liked it, but trashed my original nice primed dimensions so gave me some doubled-up room modes. Blah.

2. I suspended the ceiling from the joists above instead of building a subframe so it was floating on the walls. It still works pretty durn well, but heavy footfalls do transmit down, and sometimes heavy bass up. Much attenuated, but could be better.

3. I could not do anything about the large window wells so they provide a couple of "interesting" response ripples. I put absorbers in front of the front window; the back don't impact the sound much. I would rather have had none though it is nice to look out sometimes.

4. I would have added more power outlets and breakers. I ran three 20 A outlets along the front wall, plus some standard 15 A outlets (some switched) on the side walls and rear. When I added rear subs I want XLR to avoid hum but wish I had put another 20 A run back there. I also wish I had added some ceiling outlets for additional lights and a projector.

5. I really, really wish I had run Ethernet into the room. We don't have it elsewhere, depending upon wireless, but the media room is in the basement and the router is two floor up and across the house. The major ducts run across the upper edge of the room right between the router and my media server so the signal is lousy. And thanks to my dedicated outlets and basement sub-service a power line adapter didn't help. A wireless range extender helped a little but I don't have a good place for it in the kitchen where it needs to be.

On the plus side, I can watch movies or play music (or my trumpet) full-blast and nobody complains, not even my son in the room next door.

[AVSCraig]

I wish my theater was a bit deeper ( maybe by 10' or so ). Then I'd have more throw distance for an even wider scope screen. Although I'm not sure my wife would like that !