Home theater website online (1 Viewer)

[gregstaten]

As construction is due to start tomorrow (yea!) I put up a website for the theater. Currently you'll find a floor plan, list of equipment (with links), and some pre-construction photographs of the space.
Take a look! I'll let you all know when I add more to it.
Link Removed
-greg

 

[Bill Lucas]

Greg,

Looks great. You're going to love the Triad speakers. I'm a bit surprised that you are using Silver Surrounds as the sides AND rears. I'd spec Silver Satellites for the rears. I prefer directs as rears in my designs. Good luck. What's the ETA for Opening Night?

 

[gregstaten]

Bill, Silver Surrounds all around was what Dennis recommended. I also prefer diffuse sound for the surrounds so the dipoles sounded right to me.

My opening day ETA is around May 1. Hopefully principal construction will be done by mid-April and I can bring the acoustic installers in.

-greg

 

[Scott-C]

Greg,
I'm looking forward to seeing your site but the link wouldn't work for me. Anyone else having the same problem?

 

[Wes]

Greg, I would strongly suggest putting another set of L/R surrounds in the rear side columns. Other wise the rear seating will have too much frontal imaging of the L/R surrounds. This will be very bad imaging for PL, PLII decoding as well as 5.1and EX. In this I am assuming the rear two speakers are EX/ES?
I have the same basic config so I talk from experience, see my site Link Removed.
Wire it while you can, you don't have to use it but it will be there if you choose to which I think you will!
Wes

 

[Shajan]

The plan looks good. What is the size of your theater room?

 

[Dennis Erskine]

Greg, I would strongly suggest putting another set of L/R surrounds in the rear side columns. Other wise the rear seating will have too much frontal imaging of the L/R surrounds. This will be very bad imaging for PL, PLII decoding as well as 5.1and EX.

There are several reasons why this is not a good idea ... comb filtering, spatial/timing errors, modulation distortion, and the list goes on. I'm not certain what "too much frontal imaging" means; but, if it's going where I think, additional rears is not the way to correct this kind of problem. In fact, anytime you run a mono signal through more than one speaker, you've got problems to deal with.

The rear speakers provide for EX/ES and 7.1 capabilities in processors including the Meridian and Lexicon units.

 

[Arthur E]

Greg,

Looks great! I'm curious about screen size, distance between front row and screen, and projector-to-screen distance.

 

[gregstaten]

I'm curious about screen size, distance between front row and screen, and projector-to-screen distance

The screen is 8' wide with a 16x9 aspect ratio. The distance from the screen to a head in the front row is about 11' and the projector throw is a little under 20'. Believe it or not, that's a short throw distance for this projector!

-greg

 

[Wes]

There are several reasons why this is not a good idea ... comb filtering, spatial/timing errors, modulation

If so why is there 15 left surround speakers on my local theater wall? They are all driven with the same mono L/surround channel. I tell you from experience as I have the same seating arrangement as Gregg is going with. If I use only the front set of direct radiating surround speakers my Left and or Right Surround Channel imaging is coming from in front of me as I sit on the back row and not off to the side surrounding me. This, my friend is wrong surround imagine. Di and Bi poles will simulate a wall of diffused sound but with direct radiating you would need multiple surrounds to create the Theatrical sound we are trying to obtain.

But we also come down to personal preference and that is why I suggest wiring it for speakers before all the sheet rock goes up because after its too late!

Wes

 

[RAF]

Greg,
Excellent site. I look forward to following your progress (and you'll be glad to know that your site is the first one I cruised with my new Earthlink DSL connection at 1.3 Meg download speed!).
Take care. Your fun ride is just beginning.

 

[Scott-C]

Great site Greg! Can't wait to watch your HT unfold. Looks to be another great design by Dennis. Best of luck with construction and keep us posted!

 

[Chip_Slattery]

Greg,
Glad to see you're finally underway! Site looks great. As you know our DE designed theaters are very similar so I'll be following your progress closely as well. I'm especially interested in how the dual SVS 16-46CS subs work out as I'm planning the same setup.
Good luck and keep us posted. (pun intended )

 

[Dennis Erskine]

Wes, I will be the last to interfere with your personal preferences. However, you must also realise your commercial theater is not your home. You don't have 150' depth and 50' of width, you are running a 5.1 mix -- your theater is not, you do not have an array processor (or similar) managing or decorrelating, time, timbre, amplitude and phase aligning multiple side speakers, and your speaker to head distance is much different in the commercial theater than in your home.

By the way, the surround speakers in Greg's design are dipolars, not mono-polars. By the way, if you're using monopolar surrounds, they must be about 20 degrees behind your head or the surround image will indeed be perceived to be in front of you. (It's a function of how we hear and perceive the sound.) More exactly, they'd need to be at 110 degrees where 0 degrees is directly in front of you. Speakers placed in front of that mark will appear to 'image' in front of you.

The theatrical sound we're trying to obtain, cannot be obtained with mono polar surround speakers in small venues. There are a lot of reasons for this ... including the way 5.1 is mixed, HRTF, speaker localization, loss of timbre matching (timbre changes off axis from mono poles), etc. In fact, the perception of the surround effects will, with mono poles, change as the seating position changes.

 

[gregstaten]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I hope to update the site every weekend (if my currently very flaky cable modem allows).

-greg

 

[Bryan Michael]

that is the same setup i have but with different equipment my room is 25 x 14 i have bi/di polar speakers on all teh walls i have a 65 inch ws tv and raised seating very cool i bult and designed mine all my self

 

[Wes]

Dennis I thought that Greg's inwall surrounds were direct radiating monopoles, my mistake! I did look at some of the theaters you have designed and must say they do look good.

I'm sorry for questioning your speaker configuration!

Wes

 

[Dennis Erskine]

Wes ... well, since I'm a native Utahn and raised in SLC, I'll let you get away with it.