The Frey Theater - DIY, but better every month

"The Frey Theater" website:  www.freytheater.com

I have been slowly working on my home theater project over the last 3 years. The small ranch house I currently live in has a large, L-shaped, finished room in the basement, and although it isn't professionally finished and has a low, 6 1/2 foot high drop ceiling, it does have a nice 14 x 25 foot space I have convert into a fairly nice theater room area.  I have constructed the entire theater myself, a good DIY project which I'm sure will keep me busy for many more years to come. Gotta love those eternal upgrades...!

To help make all the time and effort I put into the therater more worthwhile,  I host regular Monthly Movie Nights for friends and relatives, and usually have a good size crowd of 7 or 8 guests at my showings. Everyone brings a snack or a beverage, while I provide free beer on tap, microwave popcorn, and the movie.  I update my Frey Theater website on a monthly basis with the upcoming movies for my Monthly Movie Nights, so everyone knows what movie is showing and which nights it is playing. There are about 10 pages of photos and information about the theater room and lobby area, the A/V equipment, and construction projects on the website, which I continually need to update with the latest new photos I'm always taking!

I have added quite a few major upgrades to my theater over the past year - I purchased a new Optoma HD20 1080p projector and an Oppo BDP-83 BD player, which finally gives me full 1080p HD projection capabilities with Blu Ray disks.   I also installed 3 new Clark transducers under the seats of the recliner sofa in my front row seating - some very powerful "butt shakers" that enable the viewer to really FEEL the movies they are watching.  Everyone is totally loving the awesome sensory experience they provide!  In addition to the transducers, I also added a Dual-18" Peavey pro audio subwoofer and a QSC Powerlight2 amplifier to drive it to my audio mix, so I have some really kicking bass response now!  I constructed a 3-seat bar/counter for the second row seating to hold snack plates and drinks for my guests, and added an attractive kitchen cart to my snack bar area. Electrical wiring and lighting upgrades are planned for 2010; I have six art deco style wall sconces to install on the side walls, and I will most likely add a popcorn cart and hot dog roller to the snack bar area, which currently has no electric supply on that wall.   

With that, here are some photos of my theater as it is setup currently:



The front stage and 120" screen in the Frey Theater, along with my Vintage
Cerwin Vega 380 SE front mains and a Premier Acoustic PA-8 center channel.



The 120" screen is motorized and controlled by an RF remote; when it is retracted, three framed movie posters are visible on the flat black wall:  Star Wars 3, Spiderman 3, and Pirates 3...



An additional movie poster frame is mounted on the side wall...



My front seating includes a recliner sofa with a foot stool and some tray tables.I bought the sofa used for only $75, and the wooden stool and tray tables I found at a yard sale for free!



The Sofa is shown here with the end seats reclined. The center seat is fixed and does not recline, thus the need for a foot stool...



These Clark transducers, a.k.a. "Butt Shakers" are mounted under all three of the sofa seats. 



A close-up view of one of the Clark transducers, each of which can produce up to 218 pounds of force.





The rear of the theater room, with a back-lighted movie poster box with marquee race lights, my rear speakers and subwoofer, one of my DVD racks, and my Audio/Video Cabinet.


A close-up of my marquee poster lightbox...



My new Optoma HD20 1080p DLP projector, mounted through the drop ceiling.



My A/V rack cabinet which I constructed myself, with wider and deeper shelves than most retail cabinets to accomodate the larger rack mount pieces I have, and to allow for better cooling.



From top: Pioneer Elite DV-46AV all-region DVD player with hardware PAL converter, Oppo BDP-83 Blu Ray player, Rane SM-26 mixer configured as a 6-channel line attenuator, and Parasound 7100 surround processor.



A Carver AV705 5 channel amp powers the Center channel speaker, the two Rear speakers, and the 3 Clark transducers in the sofa; the two Carver M-500t Amps are both wired in bridged-mono mode, one amp driving each of the two Front Main speakers. I have since lost one of the Carver M-500t's to a flame out, and so have now added a couple of QSC pro audio amps into the mix.




Rear speakers feature a pair of Infinity SM-152 speakers with 15" drivers, and
a custom-built Nuonic ATAK Class 15" 1000 watt powered subwoofer.



This Nuonic Subwoofer is a prototype the company custom- built specifically for my theater - a one-of-a-kind subwoofer they never put into production because it would have been too costly for them to construct by hand.  Gotta love that serial plate on this sub!




I thought this was a humorous but appropriate theater addition to hang on my wall, to perhaps warn movie-goers of their impending confrontation with a nearly 4000 watt sound system and the suprise "seat shakers" hidden in the sofa...! 

Below, this was originally a photo of the State Theater marquee in Ann Arbor Michigan, but I photoshopped it quite a bit, changing the letters STATE to FREY to reflect my own movie theater - note that this is NOT a photo of the front of my house, LOL!

Edited by FreyTheater - 3/31/10 at 8:53am

Ah, very good eye with the sub driver and amp - yes, it IS the Dayton 800/1400w 4 ohm reference driver and the  Dayton 1000w amp... they are an awesome pair together.  The amp has a huge toroidal transformer in it, and the cabinet is tremendously constructed as well - 2" thick walls,  two completely isolated chambers for the driver and the amp, veneer hand-picked by the product designer for an optimum grain pattern, and piano-finished top and bottom panels with 32 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer... this sub weighs a whopping 130 pounds.  The production models they finally released are still very excellent subs, but use only a 12" driver and have a lighter, thinner-walled cabinet with no lacquer top or bottom panels, and weigh only 75 pounds - they said they would have needed to sell the sub as they built it for me for about $2500, just to break even... 
Edited by FreyTheater - 9/11/09 at 4:15am

Wow, I really NEED one of those... but make it under $2000, please...!    

A friend just gave me a Crown Powerbase 1 Pro-Audio amp to use to drive the 3 Clark transducers mounted in my theater sofa...  If I hook the three 4-ohm transducers up in series, and set the amp to bridged-mono mode, it will output about 425 watts into a 12 ohm load, and I can use just one run of speaker wire to the sofa, instead of 3... each transducer is rated at 100w rms 350w max, so I'll have to be a little careful with the output power level on the amp, maybe put a fuse in the line to protect them, but they should really make the sofa rock now -  650 total pounds of force shaking the sofa should be somewhat noticable... 

I'm hosting my first regularly scheduled Monthly Movie Night of the 2009-2010 theater season tomorrow night, so I've got to get the amp installed and tested out tonight yet... this will put my total power output for the sound system at about 3800 watts - so much for our hearing!  

Yes, the Crown Amp does have attenuators on the rear panel for each channel, adjusting them was the plan, along with perhaps an in-line fuse to protect against any unexpected major spikes of power...

I know wattage is an indiscriminate value, and doesn't mean much for any accurate measurements, I just use it relatively in my posts.  I did brag about wattage in the caption of the Vibration Warning sign, but that was on purpose because its a humorous sign and bragging about it is the whole point of having the sign in the theater... 
Edited by FreyTheater - 4/2/10 at 7:54pm

OK, well in this case then, I guess the real information about my audio system is that I have big speakers, and they are real loud! 

But then, they also would probably sound like crap to a stuffy audiophile perfectionist...  

Anyway, the main reason I'm using such large speakers and amplifiers is that my movie theater often doubles as a mini concert hall - some of my friends and I watch quite a lot of concert DVDs in the theater, and when we do, it is usually at near-concert audio levels (or as close as the sound system can come to it!)... lol, we really put a strain on the audio system then!
Edited by FreyTheater - 4/2/10 at 8:16pm

Yes, I would like to do some speaker building or modification myself - I was even thinking about playing around with modding those CVs on my front mains... they are old speakers, but they are efficient.. I was thinking about possibly bi-amping the speakers (remotely from amps in the AV cabinet), separating the main 15" drivers from the mids and tweeter on the crossover,  maybe even changing out the driver to something that would work even better in the lower frequencies as additional subs, and reworking the crossovers to compensate in the midrange... if it sounds good, ok, and if it doesn't, I can always put everything back the way it was. These are ported cabinets, so cabinet volume is not quite as critical matching up a sub driver as it would be if it was a sealed cabinet...  I'd just like some additional sub frequencies coming from the front of the theater.  I can definitely use more low end in the room than I'm getting from just the one sub in the rear - since the room is L-shaped and a large volume, it does take away some of the existing sub's "oomph"...

I have thought about walling off the theater area for a smaller room volume, but then it would really isolate the lobby snack area and restroom, and I 'd have to rearrange all my computer network racks and tables... 

UPDATE: February, 2010 - Here are a few new photos I took of some recent upgrades to The Frey Theater:

I finally completed building a bar/counter for the second row of seating in my theater. The bar is home made, and was made using a scrap piece of white formica kitchen countertop, some 2x4's, oak plywood, and oak trim.  I cut about 6" off the front edge of the countertop, beveled the corners, and sprayed the counter surface with some textured paint used for outdoor furniture. It turned out fairly nice for only using handheld power tools to make it... I'm currently using some extra kitchen chairs as the seating at the counter, but I will try to find some padded swivel barstools to use, if I can find ones comfortable enough to sit on through a long movie... 



I still have some trim pieces to add to finish off the back part of the riser on the countertop, but that will have to wait until warmer weather for me to finish it, as I don't have an indoor workshop to use during the winter.



I also picked up a nice kitchen cart to replace the ugly card table I was using previously at the snackbar area. This cart is quite a visual improvement, and is constructed of solid wood with a stainless steel countertop.  All the open bags of snacks, plates, bag clips, and other supplies can now be stored out of sight in the cabinets and drawers, rather than out in plain view, piled up on the card table.  

So, now I'm temporarily testing out adding an extra sub to my sound system... I picked up a QSC Powerlite 2 Amp to add to my audio mix, and am currently using it in bridged mode to drive an 18" JBL pro audio sub a friend of mine loaned me, just to test out what the added mid-bass frequencies with some power behind them will sound like.  My 15" HT sub is great for low bass frequencies down to about 12Hz, but it is not quite strong enough to fill the entire basement area with bass that can really be felt, which is what I'm trying to strive for.  Yes, this totally looks ridiculous the way I have the subs stacked right now, but as I said, it is just a test... 

After just a few very brief setup tests, the extra sub does appear it will add some much needed feel to the bass, but I have yet to really exercise it during a full movie yet, probably not until later this week when the house is empty, so I don't bother any family members upstairs, lol!   If this performs well, I'll be looking to purchase a permanent, but hopefully more attractive sub to include in the theater room somewhere... 




Below is my current stack of pro Amps, excluding my Carver 705a multichannel THX amp, which is sitting just above the top picture edge... For anyone interested, I will be selling off the Carver M500t amp with the large analog VU meters, as I am not using it any more...

Haha, well yes, there is already some good low-end sound in my system, but I'm just trying to get a little more "feel" out of the bass as well... I don't want that super-thumping-bass you get from a car audio system, but I'd like enough that you can actually feel it in your chest when a good explosion hits the screen... with the room area being L-shaped and about 700 square feet,  a single 15" sub isn't quite enough.  I AM a little suprised I'm not getting more bass from the CV Mains and Infinity Rears - I even have my surround processor set-up so all the bass frequencies go to them as well as the LFE channel. "Enhanced Bass" I believe Parasound calls that setting...

I  think the issue with the CV's bass is related to the room volume being large but the seating area for the theater is still very compact - my front row seating is only 8 feet from the 120" screen, so sitting that close to the front speakers, I can't crank up the system loud enough for the bass to pressurize the entire room without causing my viewers to implode... I certainly don't skimp on my sound levels in my theater, the audio is still very loud for the viewers, it's just not enough oomph to fill the entire room volume.  When you go around the corner and back towards the other end of the L-shaped room, the sound level drops off very rapidly, even though everything hanging on the walls in the bathroom (the farthest point from the theater area) is still vibrating wildly from the sub frequencies!

I'm sure I would get better vibes if I walled the theater area off from the rest of the room, but I prefer the openness and accessibility to the snack area, bathroom, and the keg fridge...  So, we'll just add more subs, lol!

Well, the 18" JBL sub loaned to me by my friend had some issues; I believe the driver in it was partially blown... but it gave me a good idea of what I needed to fill the room with low end sound.  So, I found a good deal posted locally on Craigslist for a "small" Peavey pro audio sub instead.  Now THIS sub sounds awesome, dual 18" Black Widow drivers driven by the QSC Powerlight amp - just the sound and feel I was looking for!  Moving the 15" Nuonic Sub off the floor and on top of the Peavey near the corner of the room really improved it's overall sound as well... The Nuonic sub carries the really low frequencies down to 12 Hz or so, but the Peavey adds a lot of volume and "feel" to the audio in the higher 40 - 120 Hz range. The two subs seem to work very well together... I'm finally satisfied with the bass response I'm getting in my theater now!



I also constructed a new, solid wood DVD shelf unit to store my overflow of DVDs and Blurays... the location where this shelf is mounted is only temporary, until I can relocate some of my existing computer furniture in the back part of the room.  I plan to construct a second, identical shelf unit, put a finish on both shelves, and then mount the two side-by-side on the back wall, just to the right of the AV cabinet. The grey wire shelf unit on the right side of the poster lightbox will then go away...


Edited by FreyTheater - 3/30/10 at 5:41pm

I just added a very important component to my home theater last night - I wired a doorbell from the basement-level overhead garage door to my theater room, lol!  Yeah, not much of an addition, but it is a big deal for my setup - I host a lot of movie nights for crowds of people to attend, but once the movie starts, the sound system drowns out anyone arriving late who rings the front doorbell upstairs, or pounds on the front door or the garage door to get in... they are just left out in the cold!  My previous solution was to give my "regular customers" the code to my garage door keypad, and they just let themselves in, but I don't want to give that out to just everyone... so I finally installed the door bell.  I mounted the dinger on the wall right next to the seating area, so no matter how loud the audio is, I can still hear the doorbell... uh, faintly!

Yep, already working on it...  I was planning to connect a small strobe light via a 24v relay to the doorbell circuit, that would certainly get our attention!  Only problem, my guests would probably think it was a fire alarm and start running for the exits!

Hello, welcome to HTF, Justin!

Wall treatments are in the plans for this summer, during the down time in my theater - I don't schedule my regular Monthly Movie Nights over the summer because everyone is so busy with outside things then...

I have a quantity of Art Deco style wall sconces that I will be mounting on the side walls, but I will need to add colums to the walls first (about 4" deep by 16" wide)  to give clearance behind the lights for electrical boxes - the current walls are just paneling tacked to thin furring strips on the cinder block walls, so there's no space behind the paneling even for shallow boxes... The columns will break up the smooth wall surfaces, and then I plan on putting some padded panels on the wall spaces between the columns... 

Thanks Adam!  Haha, that page is quite a sight right now, with all those attendees listed for the 5 Avatar showings I've scheduled so far - Showing #4 is tomorrow night and #5 is Saturday night. who knows how many more Avatar Nights I'll have to setup.  I'll probably be sick of seeing Avatar after all my trips to the IMAX plus these showings in my theater...lol.
Edited by FreyTheater - 5/5/10 at 9:35pm

Update:  This new addition to the Frey Theater may be a little late getting installed, now that the hype has subsided somewhat from the BD/DVD release date now a month past, and after my 5-Movie-Nights marathon is over, but...

 

 

 

I purchased this 6-sheet poster from an eBay seller in India about a week before the BD release date. Amazingly, it cost me only ONE dollar (plus $23 for shipping). It took 3 weeks to arrive, so that's the main reason for the delay in getting it installed. And, after looking at the pieces laid out together on the floor, I thought it was such an awesomely colorful image that it warranted something better than just taping the 6 poster sheets together and pinning it on a wall.  So I bit the bullet and ordered six 24x36" narrow-profile aluminum frames with plexiglass overlays to mount the individual sheets in, and hung the fully-assembled 48"x108" poster by mounting the frames tightly together on the wall behind the motorized movie screen.  The screen itself is only 105" wide, so just under 2" of the poster sticks out on either side when the screen is lowered; fortunately, that visible portion is just black frame and black poster border, so it is not noticeable in the darkened theater and does not interfere with movie watching at all.  

 

Total cost to hang my $1 poster: slightly under $200... ouch. 

But, I'm very pleased with the result...

 

Sorry, but I really loved this movie! 

Edited by FreyTheater - 5/20/10 at 4:57pm

After completing the installation of the huge Avatar poster on the front wall on Thursday, I spent a good amount of the following weekend adding a few new components to my AV cabinet; I also installed a slew of new 1/4" TS patch cables, so I basically ended up re-wiring and re-organizing the entire rear area of the cabinet. New to the AV stack since my last photos is an updated Directv HD23 receiver, a second Rane SM26 mixer/splitter, and a Behrenger compressor/limiter to regulate the power to the seat shakers in the sofa, so I don't accidentally overdrive them. Here is my equipment rack as it stands now:

 

Above, starting from the top of the rack:

 - An RF remote for the motorized movie screen is permanently mounted in the upper right corner of the cabinet - no need to point an RF remote;

 - Digiview HM-501 5-port HDMI switch;

 - Directv H23 HD receiver, which now has 5.1 digital audio outputs my previous H20 receiver did not have;

 - Furman PL-8  power conditioner with pull-out rack lights;

 - Pioneer Elite DV-46AV DVD player with 16MB PAL Converter and all-region upgrade.

 - Oppo BDP-83 bluray player;

 - Two Rane SM-26 splitter/mixers - the top Rane setup as a splitter for the LFE channel to direct the signal to the two subs and the seat shakers, and the bottom Rane is configured as a 5-in/5-out buffer to control line level gain of the remaining surround channels between the processor and the power amps;

 - Parasound 7100 7.1 Preamp-Processor. Currently, I am only using 5.1 surround in my system - I really don't see a huge need for the extra two channels, considering the size of the speakers and the amount of power I'm running in my theater!

 

Below,  under my Parasound pre-pro are my amps:

 - Carver Premier 705AV 5-channel THX amplifier, which drives my center and rear channels, with 2 unused channels, available if I ever decide to go to 7.1;

 - QSC Powerlight2 PL218 in bridge-mono to drive the Peavey dual-18" sub (my other sub, the 15" Nuonic, has it's own internal 1000w amp);

 - QSC MX-2000a, also THX rated, in two-channel mode to drive my two front mains;

 - Behrenger compressor/limiter to limit the peak power going to my seat shakers - since you can't really hear the shakers, you can't easily tell how much power is going through them!;

 - Crown Powerbase 1 amp in bridged mode which drives the three seat shakers in series. 

Not seen in these photos is my HTPC with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which currently sits on top of the cabinet due to lack of space inside.  Guess I either got too much stuff - or, not a big enough cabinet, lol!

Edited by FreyTheater - 5/25/10 at 9:28am

Well, that AV Cabinet didn't last long... Lol!  

 

I've been busy this summer, so I've also been absent from the HTF for awhile... I just installed a new metal 36U rackmount cabinet in the rear of my theater room, in place of the nice oak cabinet I scratch-built. Much of my equipment is rackmount now, so it made sense to do it up right.  For the few pieces that aren't mountable I installed rack shelves for them to sit on. Here are some updated pics:

 

 

My "new" 36U Rack cabinet gets a few coats of satin black paint in my garage, to cover its original blue color. Wow, what a pain - don't ever try this at home, Kids - Took forever!

 

 

 

 

The Rack is finished and is partially populated.

 

 

 

 

I added a new Furman PL Plus C power conditioner near the top of the rack, which replaces the older PL-8 unit that was on loan from a friend, and a Tripp Lite LCR2400 Voltage regulator/conditioner in the middle of the rack, for the power amps. I also installed my daughter's Dell PC and a Tripp Lite slide-out Keyboard/Mouse/LCD display in the remaining open rack space. The PC was moved from the computer table next to the rack - I need the space where the table is sitting, for another DVD/BD shelf for my growing collection!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a side view of the new AV rack, with the panels and doors removed, showing all the hardware and cabling now populating the rack. The removable doors and side panels make it SO much easier getting to the cabling behind the units, whenever I need to check or change anything around.

 

Robert - that particular 6-sheet poster was going for between $50 and $99 in the seller's other auctions at the time, I just happened to get mine for a buck because the seller decided to take a risk and start one of his auctions at $1 instead of $50 like all his others, and no one bid against me.   So it wasn't a cheap poster with a jacked-up shipping fee, I just got lucky on the auction price.  I'm fairly certain these were official release posters in India, and not some cheap aftermarket copy; but even if it isn't an original, it really doesn't matter, since I only paid $24 shipped for a big attactive poster.  If it IS an original, I most likely destroyed any collector's value it would have, because I had to trim off all the borders along with the manufacturer info, and even parts of the image between the sheets, so the sheets would fit and line up inside those 24x36" frames... But for me, all that counts is that it looks good hanging on my wall!