HT over garage in 'Bonus Room' (1 Viewer)

[AndrewW]

Hi. I'm starting construction in a month or so on our new dream house. It'll have a full unfinished (for now) basement (2200 sq ft) that I was going to have a HT in...but now we're considering a bonus room over the garage (3 car, approx 850 sq ft). If I did it over the garage, it would be dedicated HT room, where in the basemnet it would be part of the game/great room.
I'm looking for plans, pics, pros&cons of the bonus room route and any ifo you care to give. I'm guessing there will be a pitch on the walls on the bonus room. I'm not the huge audiophile that some of you are, so I doubt I'd notice some reflections off the walls etc.....

 

[Brian Corr]

The nice thing about having a room over the garage is it's usually a little more isolated than other rooms. It's nice to be able to listen to a movie that is cranked up, without being able to hear it in the next room!

 

[Aaron Smithski]

Hi Andrew,

As Brian said, the isolation factor is generally excellent with a room over the garage.

My wife and I built our first home 3 years ago and went with a bonus room over our 1100 sq. ft. 4-car garage. At the time, we weren't even sure exactly what we would use the room for. I really wish I would have been thinking home theater at the time, but "the disease" had not yet been contracted yet! I certainly would have changed a few things, but it should turn out pretty nice when finished.

Plusses:

Excellent isolation...many, many times better than if it were in either the main floor living room or the downstairs family room. All three floors have bedrooms adjacent to the living areas, and the theater would not be able to stop itself from sharing it's output with the bedrooms. In our house, the bonus room is on the opposite side of the sleeping areas and has multiple buffer areas before reaching people -- sound has to travel through an exterior-rated door in the bonus room--->stairway down to the main floor--->laundry area--->hall with another door--->before it reaches the kitchen.

Infinite baffle subwoofer...very easily done in a bonus room! I have attic areas on each side of the room to access, but I'm just going to use the garage below as the enclosure since it's heated and cooled as well.

Zoned heating and cooling...we don't have separate zones in our main heating system, but we have a dedicated furnace and air conditioner for the bonus room, which should allow us to throttle back the settings in the rest of the house while we are enjoying the bonus/media room; this should theoretically save a few bucks on energy expenses.

The only real negative I can think of is light control. We have (3) 7'H x 3'W arched windows in the room and a 6'W x 3'H window in the same dormer where the projector screen will be mounted; so we are going to have to come up with a solid light-blocking system to be able to use the theater during the day since my Panasonic projector isn't a "light cannon". I plan on starting off with double-cellular blackout shades and working from there...

Aaron

 

[AndrewW]

Excellent, thanks Aaron. Could you explain what a Infinite baffle subwoofer is?? I have an SVS 25-31 right now, but plan on upgrading to a larger SVS...while retaining this one probably. I can't wait. I'm going to do the whole movie poster thing w/ the recessed lighting etc. Should be a lot of fun. I need to research materials like carpet, wall coverings, furniture etc.

 

[Aaron Smithski]

This is taken from the FAQ on the Cult of the Infinitely Baffled website...

"For purposes of this forum, an Infinite Baffle is a alignment where the drivers are free-air mounted, in a space adjacent the listening room. The drivers fire into the listening area through a common opening between the two areas. This can be the attic, basement, crawl space, or a room that shares a common wall with the listening area. However the IB is created, there must be complete isolation between the front wave and rear waves."

The colorations found in a typical box sub are taken out of the sub-bass equation.

Basically, it is probably the best way to get massive amounts of cleanly articulated bass at a relative bargain!

There are links to a FAQ page (very important to read through!) and a 5-page photo gallery at the top of the discussion forum. My theater room install will be an "outie" with 4-15's facing the seating area...it will look alot like a sealed box sitting on the floor, but will be open to the garage at the bottom.

There is a recent post by a gentleman named David K on the first page of the discussion forum. The post was made after he sat down to listen to his newly-installed IB with 4 15" drivers, and really sums up the way most people feel after hearing an IB for the first time...you really owe it to yourself to read it!

Aaron

 

[Adam_R]

I am considering turning my FROG (Finished Room Over Garage) into the HT room.

It's 17x20


I'll post pics and let you know how it's going when I get to it.


My current setup:

Sony 57" WS RP HDTV
Denon 3802
Pinnacle speakers all around
SVS 20-39 pci

 

[AndrewW]

Look forward to thata , Adam.
THanks for the link, Aaron.

 

[AndrewW]

I now know the dimensions of the bonus room. It's 18' X 25'. With stairs coming up the back and one window in the front.

 

[RandyMcc]

One thing I like about having our HT over our garage is I have 2 decent crawl spaces on both the east and west walls. This gives me a lot of flexability if I ever want to change anything.