Need Help Designing a Theater

Vin_G · 03-27-2008, 04:31 PM

I just bought a new house an plan on developing the basement right away. I attached a rough sketch of my basement that has no dimensions on it (if you must know the nook at the bottom is ~12 feet).

In my basement I want a home theater room, small bedroom and bathroom, and a storage room. The basement has 9.5 ceilings, similar to a bi-level home. I notice golden room dimensions require low ceilings, narrow width, and long in length.......which does not fit very well. Is there a way I can take advantage of my high ceilings and maybe have the room somewhat open so that the basement is not so enclosed?

Anyway here is what I had in mind so far. Correct me if anything looks wrong:

- Wooden floor placed on the basement concrete floor. Made from 2X4's and plywood to get some floor shaking bass
- Drywall on ceilings and walls (maybe even doubled-up)
- 6" walls so that I can stagger 2X4's in the walls and weave insulation
- Carpet
- Projector and screen
- Acoustic foam on walls between viewer and front speakers
- No idea for seating
- small bar at back of room
- Not sure where to place two 15" powered subs
- Wall lighting to look like a theater
- Outdoor door so that it is more sound proof and doesn't rattle so much

Suggestions?

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Vin_G · 03-27-2008, 04:37 PM

Oops, here is my sketch:

gartronics · 03-28-2008, 06:59 AM

hey Vin_G, please excuse my crude photoshop drawing but It was free hand. anyway this is what I would do with the space providing there is enough room.
Equipment, projector placement will be up to you. This should help give you some idea of how to layout the room, I am definitely not an expert. Hope this helps.

Vin_G · 03-28-2008, 05:29 PM

Thanks Garry, I like your ideas. Do you recommend the additional, wood floor or not?

gartronics · 03-29-2008, 12:19 AM

I have heard that subs don't sound good on concrete floor but I have heard it at my parents house and my sisters house and I think it sounds fine. Also since you are using 2 subs I don't think there will be a lack of earth shaking bass. If it were me I would just invest in thicker padding and then lay carpet. I think it will sound fine. it will Save money too.

Robert_J · 03-29-2008, 09:32 AM

I'm running a pair of 15" TC-3000's powered by a Behringer amp and my theater room has carpet over concrete. I have more than enough "floor shaking" bass. In fact, I can feel the vibrations through the contrete all over my house when I get close to reference levels.

I chose carpet over tile/hardwood which is in the rest of the house to keep the sound reflections to a minimum. As for staggered studs, I did that mostly to keep out sound. It keeps the highs in but not the bass. To attenuate bass, you need a room in a room construction, double drywall, preferably QuietRock, Green Glue, etc. That can get expensive. And it is only good to a point. If your subs go really deep, there's very little you can do to contain that sound.

-Robert

Vin_G · 04-01-2008, 11:25 PM

I like your recommendation for the new layout. My only concern is that the acoustic "golden room" dimensions suggest long, narrow rooms with low ceilings. This would make my basement very impractical and unusable.

How essential is it to follow the acoustic sizing as I would like to keep it as open as possible?

chuckg · 04-02-2008, 01:05 PM

I'm puzzled by your statement that the golden rooms are long and narrow. this site Home Theater Room Dimension Formulas & Calculator has a chart showing the three Sepmeyer ratios. The longest room is 2.33 times the ceiling height. If your ceiling is the usual 8 feet or so, that means the room is only 19 feet long.

The least-squarish room in the list is only 1.4 times as long as it is wide. I wouldn't describe that as long and narrow.

And, unless you are buying some uber-expensive system for ultra-critical listening, I wouldn't get too worked up about it. Go to the site in my link and put in your ceiling height, and try out several different room widths. Look at the three room length results and see what best matches what you've got, and go for it!

--hope that helps.

gartronics · 04-03-2008, 05:51 AM

For Me I have always used budget audio systems ($300.00 or so) in whatever location I happened to be living at. I never did any distance calculations or anything like that. I just made sure I had a well defined sound field which was basicly making sure the front and rear L and R speakers were all in line with each other and at the same hight and the center speaker lower. I always was happy with my results using that technique. Like mentioned before by chuckg , unless you are using really high end gear then the room doesn't have to be perfect. As long as you can establish a "Rectangle" sound field in the viewing area. You May get some bounce of other walls but drywall is very good at reflecting and absorbing sound nicely. That has been my experience anyway , hope this helps you.

chuckg · 04-03-2008, 09:03 AM

I was trying to guess the dimensions of your area from the drawing, but had no luck. I think, though, that the plan gartronics scribbled out is pretty good. Dimensions in the plan would help.

Two things I would change: you don't really want your front speakers up against the walls and in the corners. They usually do better if they are away from the walls a couple feet or so- depending on whether you've got the space, of course! Secondly, the subs should be together rather than spread apart. Having more than one bass source usually leads to cancellations, muddiness, and overall reduced quality. One reason for separating the sub from the speakers is to eliminate this multi-source confusion. the subs can go between the couches, or in the bottom-left corner of your plan. Putting a sub in the corner can increase the level of bass. (that is why you don't want your speakers there; it leads to boominess)

Let us know how it works out!

Vin_G · 04-08-2008, 02:02 PM

Here is an AutoCAD drawing of my basement with dimensions and some furniture inserted as a reference. I also built a fictitious wall for the bedroom and put it doors. The bathroom has to stay where it is due to plumbing, but nothing else has actually been built. The speakers (in red) are actual dimensions of what I have. As you can see I have not purchased my surrounds yet. You will also notice that I will have an acoustically transparent, projection screen with my speakers behind it of course...and yes my center channel is that big (39") !!!

Questions:

1) What do you think of this layout?
2) Should I add a full wall or half wall somewhere to help with acoustics?
3) Would putting a wood floor only under the seating help feel more bass similar to when you put your subs on a normal, non-concrete floor?

Suggestions?

gartronics · 04-11-2008, 05:20 AM

Hey Vin_G, Looks pretty nice, and I am glad to see you are using some of my suggestions. So long as that line coming down behind the couch is not a solid wall it should be good. If I recall correctly that is just a low beam right? If it were a wall you would be in a square sound field, but you already knew that. anyway looks good, happy building. would love to see pictures as it comes together.