June HT tour in Austin. (1 Viewer)

[Frederick_Falk]

I love railroads (former model railroader) and I love BBQ as well. My vote would also be for the Railroad BBQ.

Head Count: Melinda and I will both be attending.

I wish I could have found an emoiticon with a Railraod hat.

 

[Jacob Aaron]

I love BBQ. Bad BBQ is some of the worst there is. I vote for the best: Coopers in Llano! Seriously I'm up for checking out the railroad. Greg, if you can't get rid of your speakers by mid-July I'll happily try to sell them consignment for you.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Current Head Count

http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/happy/pint.gif (and others?)


(click here for a nice selection of heads)

 

[John Prator]

As much as I would love to eat at the Salt Lick(haven't eaten there in about 8yrs!)I cast my vote for Railroad as it will be quicker and easier than Salt lick. I think if we hit Greg's, then go eat,then hit my casa that would be good. One reason being is I have heard a nasty rumor that Scott will be making a few of his famous(or would they be infamous??) Scott-tinis!! This will sit well on a full stomach of BBQ. By the way, does Railroad serve "Camel Crotch"??

 

[Scott Oliver]

I have another RSVP from Chuck Wood who is currently hammering out some differences with the moderators, and therefor can't post. Don't let the "MAN" keep you down Chuck!


Greg post those Def-Techs in the Hardware For Sale forum on HTF, they will probably sell within a day or two as Def-Techs are well known by the masses here, assuming you can ship them.

For Krix you would probably have a better chance on Audiogon.

 

[Scott Oliver]

I'll be changing my vote if they do, John.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Scott... considering this is not one of our large meets and seating is very limited, are we not already well past maximum capacity?

So far I count over twenty RSVPs.

Maybe we can trim it down to only those who submit heads?

Seriously though, it would be great if everyone who is able and wants to participate can, but we also have to be fair to the hosts. Perhaps, we could break the group into two and have one group start the tour 30min to an hour before the next one?

Having one group would be best, but realistically having 20+ people converging all at once on a typical HT room won’t be a pretty site.

PS: If it helps, I am already quite familiar with both Chad's and Greg's HT rooms, so I could give up my spot at those theaters. Perhaps others can do the same should the number of attendees be too great.

 

[Jacob Aaron]

Ok my head:



Fiance:



Friend:

 

[Jacob Aaron]

or if my head is too big :



Don't know why the "I'm with stupid," head isn't working for my fiance, maybe someone can get it to work.

You guys can always say the list is closed now, and see how many people actually show up to car pool or whatnot.

 

[Frederick_Falk]

Hey Nils,

It is Chris Gomez and Lisa Nelson.

Also, my wife is expecting other ladies to be there so she will have someone to discuss things other than HT. If not, then she may make me leave early. So anyone else with a SO that isn't totally engrossed in HT, there will be at least one other person there that they will be able to hang out with.

 

[chris autosound]

Can't make it, I will be in Arlington for a trade show.

but lemme tell ya about last year.
Since the last tour I took out the fireplace. Then darkened the room by painting the walls a green/gray. I replaced the weak blue tube and ISF'd the projector. Then added 2 JBL 18" subs. turned out awesome, better than live!

So I moved across the street and started over with a Madrigal MP-9 and the old house is for rent including the PJ.

 

[Scott Oliver]

Ok sure let's not accept any more folks for the tour.

Tour is Full

But I imagine we can work out some type of ebb and flow in and out of the HT area for each home. Also we look to have 16 actual HT buffs (guys) that will be the main ones wanting to be in the HT at any one time. I am going to guess the spouses may chose to not hang out in a room with a bunch of guys tinkering with their toys for too long at each stop, like Frederick's wife.

 

[mike_frontier]

Hi all,

I know I have not been around much lately because of my son playing t-ball and other summer things are happening, but I wish I caught this one topic earlier.

WoW !!! 16 HT buffs. What a turn out!!!

If you guys would like to add my theater to the list, I will be gladly to welcome you all. My wife only warns to everyone take your shoes off, since we have new carpet. So please no stinky feet. (j/k) My theater room is approx size of 14x11 w/ a 120" image, unless I go 1080i then a little smaller.

As everyone or almost everyone knows I really consider my theater setup an entry level in the PJ world, but lets just say "MIKE's Low BUDGET-THEATER –> with a Bang!!" (love the closeing). With all the ideas that I got from Dr. J on what I should to do make my room darker by closing off the open loft area, speaker placements and then all the movie discussions I had w/ Nils, I just wanted to say thanks! (beer-chug 2 both of you). And the rest of you that I talked to. I would of never gotten a PJ or knew anything about them untill I meet all of you, really. So a big thanks to all of you that got me get into this.

Some others things to know: I made my home theater room strictly just for dvd movie watching, listening to music and playing my Playstation II (John Madden Football, baby!! ).

But as I said earlier, if you all would like to add my home to your HT list/mix, I would be honored if you guys come out.

I will check back here more often since my schedule is not so busy right now or for the rest of this month.
Next month I will be busy again since my son will start football.

A new toy I plan on getting this week is a ZENITH DVB318 dvd player which I hear a lot of thumbs up about. (comments are welcome boys)

So let me know if you all would like to add my theater to MIX of the Austin HT tour?

BTW, I live now out in Cedar Park off hwy1431 on Lakeline Blvd, if this works with your guy’s route/quest.

Also if you guys still can make room for one more person to tag along, I would love to come out also, I mean if that is ok.

Take care everyone.

Mike

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

I'm fairly certain that the upcoming HT tour is being limited to only those four theaters already mentioned, but your location is fairly close to several other members like Dave Elliot and Frederik Falk so perhaps a future HT Tour can be arranged to cover HT's in the North/North West region?

In fact maybe we can arrange that tour to end at Dave's for a late night outdoor poolside "Dive-In" movie experience - perhaps a screening of Jaws would be fun!

 

[Dave Elliott]

Mike (and all the other usual suspects),

How is your seating arranged with a 14x11' room and a 120" image? You must be sitting faily close. Where is your seating and how many?

The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of switching from a dual purpose great room/HT to a dedicated HT room that would be 14x11.

Currently, we have a very large great room with big windows looking out across the pool and wooded back yard. However, we've never actually looked out of them, as we've had blackout blinds there since we moved in and set up our first projector. But we still have light issues as there are open rooms attached. It works great once its dark out, and can handle 10-12 people if we drag out the futon. But its not ideal. I can't turn it into a true "theater" and its acoustically challenging with so many open walls. Anyways, we're thinking of changing the great room to include a smaller plasma or DLP RPTV and smaller speakers so that it would be a "normal" TV room again. We could then enjoy our view and still use it for normal TV viewing with a brighter display.

That means moving the Benq and the rest of the dedicated HT equipment into the 11x14' den and converting it to HT use. This has several advantages:

- Total light control (daytime movies again!)
- Can paint the walls/ceilings dark
- Can build a slightly raised floor and 2nd row riser
- "Movie" themed decorations/posters won't look odd
- Can build DIY acoustic treatments that would not look right in the great room
- Acoustically, it would be much better. The sub should REALLY see a gain.
- Can go with fixed screen instead of electric drop down
- We would still have a nice HDTV and 7.1 setup in the great room for entertaining


Disadvantages:
- Probably could only seat 5. But 99% of our viewing is for 2-4 people.
- 2nd row of 3 people would be at the very back of the room and would not have ideal surround positioning, but front row would be perfect
- The big 100" TV in the great room would drop to a 50" plasma or DLP RPTV
- Have to buy more equip for the great room
- Have to move the Den/Office into the other unused bedroom (no big deal)

So anyways, I'm really starting to plan this out as a project, but would love to hear from anyone as to issues/concerns they had with a similarly sized small HT room.

For reference here are some older pics of the HT. Still have the same basic layout but with a new projector and some other upgrades/finishing touches.

http://pages.prodigy.net/delliott00/_wsn/page6.html

Let me know what you guys think.

-Dave

PS-Nils... Dive In party will happen this summer for sure. Jaws would be good. I'll schedule something once our backyard projects are finished (hopefully soon).

 

[John Prator]

My theater is going to need a "little" tuning.......uh Hank? Nils? Dave? Any of you guys pretty good at calibrating a projector? Helping get my sub setup correctly? If so, bring them tools of yours.......please!:b

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Dave,

I hope you don't mind, but I posted my thoughts on your HT over here so we can try and keep this thread void of non meet related topics.

 

[Jacob Aaron]

John- I can help, but you shouldn't need any tools, do you have Avia or anything to help calibrate?

 

[Jonathan DA]

Jacob, I hope you meant Avia and not Avid.

John, an easy free way to tweak your sub is to heft it into your listening chair and play a repeating tone sweep while you crawl around your listening room. When you find the spot in the room where sound is the smoothest, put your sub there. Alternatively, if you can afford it and have a typical rectangular room, purchase a total of two or four subs and place them at the midpoints of each wall. This sounds counter-intuitive but it works. The logic behind it can be found at Harman's website. I don't always like the sound of Harman's various speaker brands, but they do good research. Another option (for a smaller fee than buying another sub) is that we (Mirus) could bring over an MLS and RTA system, plot your resonances and then suggest a sub placement or parametric eq settings to optimize the sound.

 

[Greg Risley]

Do you think I should give Railroad BBQ a heads up and maybe reserve the patio for our group. Let me know and I will try to set something up.

Greg

Hey Jacob I may take you up on the consignment offer. I just don't have time to box them up properly if I sell them online. Thats pretty sad seeing how I used to own and opperate a Mail Boxes Etc.