Moving into dedicated HT room. Help needed. (1 Viewer)

[Clinton McClure]

Tomorrow, I am moving all my HT equipment from my living room/HT into a spare bedroom which will be a dedicated HT room. I have posted a schematic with the projected placement of all the equipment and furniture. Here is the http://www.geocities.com/mport_drivr/hometheater.html
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My DVD Collection Casa del Clint
[Edited last by Clinton on November 05, 2001 at 08:29 PM]

 

[Guy Kuo]

I've done some quicky modeling of your room in RPG Room Optimizer and have some general observations. If you go with your currently planned room orientation you will be battling some problems. One is a propensity for a very large bass response hole from 40 to 100 Hz if your listening position is moved much further back than 100" from the front wall. As you pull the position back, the hole will get really deep. Going forward it gets better but you very quick get too close to the TV and the change in peaks/troughs are very severe with just a few inches shift fore/aft. Stereo separation of the mains is also marginal due to the small angular constraint placed by the small width. Pulling the mains forward will help but it is extremely position critical. The program predicts best and worst speaker positions which are only about 1 foot apart from each other. In other words, this is going to take some careful listening or measurement to get the speakers to work well. The best error coefficient (lower is better) I could achieve was about 2.8 (fair to middling) if I keep the viewing distance reasonable.
I also tried it with the room turned 90 degrees, placing the TV in front of the window (SAF out the door, but it IS a dedicated room). Doing that made a drastic improvement in the frequency response error coefficient to 2.09 which is quite a good result. This also opens up the stereo imaging considerably and should give you better imaging. The program suggests for the 90 rotated layout...
Listener 8'10.4" from front wall
Main speakers 3'10.4" from front, 2'9.2" from sides
Center speaker 2'6" from front wall
This opens up a new problem for positioning the surrounds since you'd be up against the back wall. It's going to a choice between better sound from the front three vs better spaciousness of surround channels.
At any rate, I think it would be a good idea to listen to both configurations. The program predicts a nice improvement for the rotated config, but in-room response is always best checked live.
Speaker toe-in you'll have to determine in the room. Straight at the listener will increase treble and reduce side wall reflection yielding a more focused image but reduced width of perceived sound stage. You'll have to listen in the room and see how much toe-in sounds best.
Expect to mount the surrounds about a foot below the ceiling to keep them well above ear level. In the rotated configuration I don't know how to place the surrounds. At any rate, get the listening position and mains speakers tuned in perfectly first. Then do the surrounds. Otherwise you'll lock in your listening distance prematuredly due to the surrounds needing their nulls pointed at you.
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Guy Kuo
Link Removed
Ovation Software, the Home of AVIA DVD
[Edited last by Guy Kuo on November 06, 2001 at 05:58 AM]

 

[Ron-P]

Nice work Guy.
Clinton, I have basically the same set up. My room is 10x12x8. Click on my Green Room link to my website.
My only suggestion would be to move the sub and component rack next to the TV and put the mains on the outside. Then toe in your mains a bit.
I also covered the walls with heavy-duty felt to help with sound reflections.
Peace Out~

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http://home.earthlink.net/~peregrinefalcon

 

[Clinton McClure]

Thanks for the quick responses, fellas. I'm off to take a shower and go pick up ST: TMP and some new cable. I'll post back after I have everyting situated and let you know which worked best and what I've done.
Thanks again!
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My DVD Collection Casa del Clint

 

[Clinton McClure]

I tried the equipment both ways but ended up sticking with the original design. It sounded way better that way.
Note that I did end up putting the component rack and sub next to the monitor and the mains are on the outsides parallel to the walls. I tried mounting the surrounds, but they were so heavy and my sheetrock is so old that the anchors pulled right out of the wall after I hung the first one. Luckily I caught it as it was pulling away from the wall so it never fell. I didn't want to screw with trying to overcome that problem so I put the surrounds on the stands they were originally on in the living room. They are flat against the outside walls at just above ear level when I am sitting down. Although they are not 5' from the floor like I originally intended, I am still very impressed with the results I am getting. Later on, I may build risers to boost them an additional 1.5 - 2' in height.
After about 16 hours of work, everything is installed and in place, all the wiring is done, and I'm gonna be putting in movie posters, blackout drapes, and a tapestry on the back wall to cut out some of the echo (thankfully most of it was absorbed by the loveseat). I'm also gonna hook up my PS2 in the HT as soon as I take a nap (been up about 26 hours now).
All I can say is wow. This completely kills the set-up I had in my living room (although it sounded pretty good).
I expected the LFE to be overpowering, but it really isn't. I adjusted it down 4dB on the receiver, and all is well. I had planned on getting a Servo 15 next year...I don't think the room could handle it.

I will try to get to Wally-World to pick up some film today and take pictures. As soon as they are developed, I will post them on my website.
Thanks again for all the useful information.
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My DVD Collection Casa del Clint

 

[Ron-P]

Right on Clinton, glad to hear everything worked out. I know exactly where you are coming from. My HT also started in the livingroom, a dedicated room kicks-a**.
Get some pics up so we can see it
Peace Out~

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http://home.earthlink.net/~peregrinefalcon

 

[Tom Boucher]

Room Optimizer? Is that something available on the web or something pros use?
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My DVD Collection

 

[Guy Kuo]

Congratulations on the move! I'm happy you tried out both configurations. The modeling software gives you an idea of how things will behave, but nothing beats actual in room testing (except in-room measurement.)
The Room Optimizer program is available from Link Removed
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Guy Kuo
Link Removed
Ovation Software, the Home of AVIA DVD
[Edited last by Guy Kuo on November 07, 2001 at 08:50 PM]