Eric_L
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2002
- Messages
- 2,011
- Real Name
- Eric
I have finally begun building my MAN CAVE!!!! It is almost finished with framing at this stage. I was thinking about the man-cave and what I am going to put in it when it dawned on me that I have never shared any photos of my home theater, even though I have been a member here for several years. I have a home theater already, so the man-cave is bonus space. I'll discuss that more later. I figure it is about time I share about my home theater; but first a bit about it.
When we decided to create a home theater we considered a dedicated room with theater seating, but decided against it. I have a family of five, and when we watch a movie the kids like to snuggle with us. We also want to be comfortable and able to stretch out our legs when we want. It is also important to be close to the kitchen... and bathroom. We decided that we would make our living room convert into a theater.
We did so and haven't looked back. We love out theater! We love that it has several formats we can use. We love that it is the focus of our entire home. We can watch family movies, slide shows,box office hits, sports, Xbox or whatever.
Here is what we did. In the first two pictures you will see our 'standard' format. This is for typical daytime viewing. You may notice that I have closed the blinds on the deck in order to prevent glare (the windows face west and you will note the time is 5pm) This is what we call our small screen; a 52" Toshiba.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360479/width/1000/height/800http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360481/width/1000/height/800
-btw -sorry photos are sorta blurry - I was in a hurry to get these photos before our kids could mess up the room and I was using my iPhone.
Let me break for a moment to discuss sound. We have a center channel in the cabinet right below the Toshiba LCD TV and the front r/l channels are at the top corners of the wall case. They are Infinity Beta 20 speakers. We have a 700w 15" Velodyne Sub in the bottom right of the case. We really needed that power because the ceilings in the room are nearly 20' in some places. You'll also note that we put the rear di-pole speakers on stands right behind the sectional. (which does recline) We tried the rears on the walls but found that they overshot the sofa. (most people sit with their ears slightly LOWER than the sofa back) Placing them on the stands improved the sound 100%. In fact - I would recommend to someone that the importance of your theater components is as follows: 1) Proper placement and balance of your surround sound. 2) Picture size and quality. 3) Sound quality. They are all important, but sound balance is more important that picture size in delivering the theater experience in my humble opinion. I have listened to higher quality speakers, and I can note the difference - but proper balance is more important that ultra-high sound quality - and so too is picture quality; once you have that down THEN you can work on getting the rich warmth from your strings in the music track.
back to my theater;
In the second set of photos you can see what we watch when it is time for a 'real' movie... That is a 120" screen. It is slightly washed out because I have not fully darkened the room so that you can see the details. It never gets fully dark in there during daytime, but dark enough we don't have to wait until night time to watch a movie. And yes, every now and then I'll let the kids connect the games or even the PC to it. I am quite happy overall, though I think my next screen will be a darker gray and tensioned. This screen has a slight blemish in the bottom right from a household accident, but the picture never projects there so it is only a distraction, and one I can live with.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360483/width/1000/height/800http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360485/width/1000/height/800
The man-cave I am building will NOT have a theater. It will have a TV (in fact a few) and I plan on transplanting the game consoles to it. I may even go three-D - we'll see what is up with the Toshiba no-glasses 3D first. That part of my house will be for other pursuits, and when it is done I'll share some photos of what I've done with it.
So anyway - here it is. I may add more photos later. As my man cave gets completed I may post it here to, or maybe I'll do another thread.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360487/width/1000/height/800
When we decided to create a home theater we considered a dedicated room with theater seating, but decided against it. I have a family of five, and when we watch a movie the kids like to snuggle with us. We also want to be comfortable and able to stretch out our legs when we want. It is also important to be close to the kitchen... and bathroom. We decided that we would make our living room convert into a theater.
We did so and haven't looked back. We love out theater! We love that it has several formats we can use. We love that it is the focus of our entire home. We can watch family movies, slide shows,box office hits, sports, Xbox or whatever.
Here is what we did. In the first two pictures you will see our 'standard' format. This is for typical daytime viewing. You may notice that I have closed the blinds on the deck in order to prevent glare (the windows face west and you will note the time is 5pm) This is what we call our small screen; a 52" Toshiba.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360479/width/1000/height/800http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360481/width/1000/height/800
-btw -sorry photos are sorta blurry - I was in a hurry to get these photos before our kids could mess up the room and I was using my iPhone.
Let me break for a moment to discuss sound. We have a center channel in the cabinet right below the Toshiba LCD TV and the front r/l channels are at the top corners of the wall case. They are Infinity Beta 20 speakers. We have a 700w 15" Velodyne Sub in the bottom right of the case. We really needed that power because the ceilings in the room are nearly 20' in some places. You'll also note that we put the rear di-pole speakers on stands right behind the sectional. (which does recline) We tried the rears on the walls but found that they overshot the sofa. (most people sit with their ears slightly LOWER than the sofa back) Placing them on the stands improved the sound 100%. In fact - I would recommend to someone that the importance of your theater components is as follows: 1) Proper placement and balance of your surround sound. 2) Picture size and quality. 3) Sound quality. They are all important, but sound balance is more important that picture size in delivering the theater experience in my humble opinion. I have listened to higher quality speakers, and I can note the difference - but proper balance is more important that ultra-high sound quality - and so too is picture quality; once you have that down THEN you can work on getting the rich warmth from your strings in the music track.
back to my theater;
In the second set of photos you can see what we watch when it is time for a 'real' movie... That is a 120" screen. It is slightly washed out because I have not fully darkened the room so that you can see the details. It never gets fully dark in there during daytime, but dark enough we don't have to wait until night time to watch a movie. And yes, every now and then I'll let the kids connect the games or even the PC to it. I am quite happy overall, though I think my next screen will be a darker gray and tensioned. This screen has a slight blemish in the bottom right from a household accident, but the picture never projects there so it is only a distraction, and one I can live with.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360483/width/1000/height/800http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360485/width/1000/height/800
The man-cave I am building will NOT have a theater. It will have a TV (in fact a few) and I plan on transplanting the game consoles to it. I may even go three-D - we'll see what is up with the Toshiba no-glasses 3D first. That part of my house will be for other pursuits, and when it is done I'll share some photos of what I've done with it.
So anyway - here it is. I may add more photos later. As my man cave gets completed I may post it here to, or maybe I'll do another thread.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/360487/width/1000/height/800