Moved to a House, Home Theater in Livingroom (1 Viewer)

[Daniel_SV]

Hi! I'm new here..
And pretty recently I moved into a new house, well not NEW... It's built in the 80's. But it's new for us.
The livingroom is doubling as Home theater, and I'll try to make the best out of it while still keeping the wife happy.
A lot of renovation was done before we moved in so no big things are going to be done... Furniture is from our old place and we have not decided if we should keep everything or not. The room is not that large (4.8 x 5.2 meters / ~16 x 17.5 feet) and it using an open plan solution as you can see in the sketch.

At the moment the project is going forward slowly due to funds and school. So far I've mounted cornertraps in the front corners and leviated a lot of my bass issues I had. Also put my acoustic panels up behind the sofa to take care of some more reflections that bothered me. Next on the list if heavier curtains to help with the windows.

Front channels are a pair of newly built Statement II's.
Center is temporary and is one of my own constructions with Vifa PL18 and XT25 tweeter.
Side channels are HiVi B4N and ND20FA, more or less a pair of overnight sensations with lower tune and adjusted baffle step correction.
For subs, I've got two sealed subs (~85 liters) housing an Dayton RS390HO each.

As far as hardware go: I have a Yamaha RX-V771 that's driving my center and surrounds, main fronts pre-out to a Yamaha P3500S Amplifier via Balanced Linedrivers. Sub signal is outputted to a miniDSP that's splitting the signal into 4 channels, two of them with roomcorrection curve and LT-filter plus a highpass for LF protection fed to balanced linedrivers into an stereo Power amp (Ody Pro M720, 2x800W+ into 4 ohms RMS) that drives my two subs. The two remaining channels are feeding a DIY chipamp driving my buttrumblers under the sofa.

Everything is hooked up with speakons except on the back of the yamaha, linedrivers and amps are XLR only, except for the yamaha.

Projector is an Epson TW6700, which I got cheap on sale. (~$500). There's a 48" TV behind the drop down screen.
Screen is a motorized grey with 3M fabric, can't remember the maker right now. It was traded for, to replace our worn pulldown. Got an Chromecast, HTPC and Steamlink connected to the V771.

I've got a 3D sketch of the rooms current state to plan ahead, I've got blackout curtains for all windows already.

Not sure where to go next to get the best out of the room. As it's out livingroom primarily, and Home Theather secondary, it has to be more or less inconspicuous... Still have some issues with slight harschness since we moved in, but it got better with a test of the new heavier curtains.

Suggestions and ideas how to improve and make the experience better our livingroom would be most appreciated. I'm still torn on how to best integrate the back channels, or if I'm even need back channels? Curtain materials? Thinking about a better rack for the gear, or playing with sub placement... Or sound treatment.

I'm not an native english speaker so I'll do my best to be understood.
/ Daniel

 

[JohnRice]

I'm not sure there's a lot more you can do. It's a hard wood floor? You could try a floor covering at the direct reflecting point between the mains and the listening position. I know a lot of people try to set up rear surrounds when you're sitting against the back wall, I'm just not sure it ever works very well.

 

[Daniel_SV]

It's good quality laminate flooring, unusually large "planks". Under it I put extra thick noise dampening underlayment.

I got carpets laid out where I can... Not sure how wife would feel about more of them. I still got dampening panels left.. Just not sure where to put them.. Or if I need them.

I'm also unsure about back surrounds.. We'll see if any good ideas comes up. A new center with dual rs225s and vifa ne123w's are coming when money allows. I don't blast at super high volumes so I think the setup should be up to snuff.

Been considering a smaller third sub, or fourth.. Overkill?

 

[JohnRice]

You've dampened the room, but your biggest source of brightness is the first reflection off the floor from the mains. Sit at the listening position and have someone hold a flashlight next to the L&R speakers. Where you see the light reflecting on the floor is your primary reflection point. If you can put a rug to cover that, it'll probably make a big difference. It doesn't matter what's under it, that's for isolation from other rooms. The sound is reflecting off the top.

Honestly, in a room that size, one really good, well placed sub is probably your best solution. You start throwing subs into a room and they'll just cancel each other out. Keep them away from the center of a wall, nowhere near the center of a wall, away from the wall if you can. Make sure it's not the same distance from any two surfaces.

 

[Daniel_SV]

Yes, I figured as much.. I'll bring out a flashlight and mirrors for checking reflections. The dampening underlayment does nothing for reflections but it did a lot for walking noise and sub rumble noise. Side reflections are handled, but floor ones are the hardest since carpets placement is a sensitive topic.. I'll check it out and get back.

Regarding the subs, I started out with one but never got the output nor the feel I wanted. After adding a second one, checking room nodes, measuring and crawling like a spider all over the living room I ended up with my current placement and eq.

I guess it's more than enough for my small room...

 

[Mike Frezon]

Daniel:

Welcome to the HTF!

That is an extremely well composed and thought out original post. Good luck in your new home (and HT)!

And as for not being a native speaker of English...if you hadn't mentioned it, I never would have known.

 

[JohnRice]

Remember, you could always have a couple runner rugs that you only roll out when you really want to get into a movie. Just a thought.

 

[Bobofbone]

Regarding sound, there are some other objects that can dampen sound in the room-you. The quality of the sound in a room will change as put objects in the room-like furniture large dogs, people, etc. Surfaces can also have an effect. My wife wanted book shelves in the room I had a large TV and sound system in. She also wanted to put books on them (even in the digital age, we still have a lot of them). THe irregular surface and absorption had a noticeable effect.

I noticed you also had your projector boxed in. Find out where the ventilation for your projector is. If you don't have enough ventilation, your projector may overheat and either shut down, or decrease the bulb life. Check the manual. You may want to have an open shelf or hang the projector from a ceiling bracket instead.

 

[Daniel_SV]

Daniel:

Welcome to the HTF!

That is an extremely well composed and thought out original post. Good luck in your new home (and HT)!

And as for not being a native speaker of English...if you hadn't mentioned it, I never would have known.

Thank you for the welcome! I try my best to conver the information needed.
I hope I'll enjoy my stay!

Remember, you could always have a couple runner rugs that you only roll out when you really want to get into a movie. Just a thought.

That might be worth a consideration, will take some extra time this weekend to experiment!

Regarding sound, there are some other objects that can dampen sound in the room-you. The quality of the sound in a room will change as put objects in the room-like furniture large dogs, people, etc. Surfaces can also have an effect. My wife wanted book shelves in the room I had a large TV and sound system in. She also wanted to put books on them (even in the digital age, we still have a lot of them). THe irregular surface and absorption had a noticeable effect.

I noticed you also had your projector boxed in. Find out where the ventilation for your projector is. If you don't have enough ventilation, your projector may overheat and either shut down, or decrease the bulb life. Check the manual. You may want to have an open shelf or hang the projector from a ceiling bracket instead.

That's always the case and I'm trying my best to add more absorbtion and scattering. We do have a full bookshelf on the side. It helped!

Yes, the projector is boxed in. It takes air from the left and spews it forward into the room. It doesn't show from the angle in the pictures. But there's a 140mm hole where the intake is and a 140mm fan fitted in it supporting ventilation in the box. There's no worry about it.

Also just dabbed some paint on the surrounds, no real perfection work on them since they'll be pretty hidden anways. Nobody will notice the fine brush strokes on them unless they get a stol and a flashlight. They're build from leftover MDF and painted with leftover paint, So they were pretty much for free. The statements ate my budget...

 

[Daniel_SV]

Update! Some time has passed and the surround speakers are up! Also applied some additional Bass Trapping and planning on some more absorbers for early reflections in a month or two.

During the time I also got my umik back and I've been running some sweeps of my livingroom. I got some issues and not entirely sure how to combat them, except the impossible, which would be to alter the dimensions of the room... Not happening. I got two ugly humps I just cant' get rid of except by moving the sweetspot to a position which would be unacceptable. I've tried moving my two spare absorbers around but they're not cuttning it. I need some help with thoose...

Measurements are taken at "sweetspot" at ear level, ~40 cm from rear wall.
1/12 smoothing. I suppose I could try to fix some issues in the bass response with time alignement for the subs.

Not sure if I set it up as you guys want to to interpret the graphs... I'm not a pro at this!

Measurements without subs, no EQ or correction applied. Mains are running full range!

Measurements with both subs runing, crossover at 60Hz to mains. Subs are mildly EQed and running LT filters. HP filters on subs at 36dB around ~15Hz for some extra insurance. Added more absorbtion behind sweetspot and on early reflection points as well.

If you guys have any suggestions on how to improve from here I would be delighted and very grateful! Planning on running another DSP to the fronts later on when I can afford to expand this project... Funds for a student are hard to come by!

EDIT: I know I have two fat room Nulls at ~65 and ~130hz from my sims...
Also noticed one is 1/12 and one is 1/24 smoothing by mistake, you'll have to live with that. Sorry :p

Best regards,
Daniel

 

[theJman]

Are those FR measurements mislabeled by chance? The one without subwoofers has much better extension than the one with subs.

 

[Daniel_SV]

Are those FR measurements mislabeled by chance? The one without subwoofers has much better extension than the one with subs.

No, they're quite correct. But my mains did not have an high pass filter for protection and are pushing it hard during the LF sweep... They just can't push it harder than the sweeps meager volumes and distortion is through the roof.

The subs have HP filters to keep them safe during movie passages. They dig a lot deeper, but 15Hz is plenty low for me. I can adjust the HP filter in the Dsp.

EDIT: And the 40hz bump from the mains is something I plan to adjust with some bass traps later on if money allows. The subs DSP is correcting most quirks for them as the repsonse is a lot smoother.