Small theater help (1 Viewer)

[Mike Holland]

The room is 13x16 and 10' high. Was thinking about using a Hitachi PJ-100 or Panisonic 700 projector. I have a NAD T773 receiver. Speakers? Thinking about Paradigm studio series.
1. I would like to have two rows of seating. Is that realistic?
2. Should I keep the screen size smaller, around 92" or less?
3. If I dont build closets into the rear of the room, It will be 13x19. Will that be better or will it hurt the sound being long and narrow?

 

[Andrew Stoakley]

Hi Mike,

Check out the pics of my theatre with the below link. My room is approximately 10x17 and I have two rows of seats with no problems. First row starts at 8ft from my 57" 16:9 telly. Second row starts at about 13 feet from the screen. Great distances with no viewing problems. When I decide to upgrade, I'll gain roughly 2 1/2 feet from the television so I'll be able to go with a 110" screen with projector.

Hope that helps with similar dimensions.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Mike Holland]

Do you guys think I will be overdoing it, trying to get that big of screen in the room? If I use the 1.5 veiwing distance formula for a 92" screen, I would need to sit at least 11.5 feet. Keeping in mind that I would like two rows of seats. The second row would be right on the back wall. That would sound bad? Do I need to be thinking about a 60" tv? Help......

 

[Andrew Stoakley]

Hi Mike,

My second row is 6" from the back wall and I use a pair of Energy RVSS dipole/bipolar for my surrounds without any problems with sound. It might be different is you're using the DD setup of direct radiating speakers, but I prefer listening to enveloping surround rather than hard hitting. I think it comes down to personal preference. Some peoeple might have other opinions and I'm sure they will share them here.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Mike D.]

woops, just asked Andrew in a different thread what his room dimensions are, see he posted them here!


I'm going through pretty much the exact same set of deliberations as you, Mike, although with a slightly SMALLER room... I'd really like to do a projector from the get-go, for one reason it gives me a couple of extra feet of space that the TV would take up...


Speaker decisions are also DRIVING ME NUTS!!! haha.. Reading all about the Axioms, I thought they looked great and lots of positive reviews, until I hear about the harsh "sssssss" sound in the centers.. Then reading about the Rockets, again lots of good reviews, Mike Knapp seems to love them, but then again they sponser his forum. I'd REALLY put a lot of weight in his opinion though.. I'll probably end up doing an in-home demo and sending back if unhappy with the results..

 

[Andrew Stoakley]

LOL... it's all good

Speaker decisions should drive you nuts... I think I listened to over 10 different types before I settled on the Energy's I have. I love my speakers and I swear they've gotten sweeter with age (almost 9 years old). My only advice is to go to a 'reputable' place to listen to them, bring source material you are familiar with and listen, listen, listen!!

Enjoy

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[drobbins]

I am just finishing my HT. My room is around 12.5’ wide x 14’ deep with an 8’ ceiling. I only have enough room for one row of seats. I started sizing the screen for my 4805 today. It is mounted about a foot from the ceiling and the front of the projector is about 18” from the back wall. I do not have a screen installed yet, so it was showing on a wall painted a dark brick color.
The biggest screen I could get was 104” and the smallest was 88”. I did not see the SDE at my seating distance at the 104” size. The contrast looked better at the 88” size. I think I will settle on 100”. This will leave some room for adjustments if needed. At this size, I noticed the SDE at around 7 – 8’ from the screen. This should be ok if I have kids sitting on the floor.
As far as sound goes, the room dimensions play a big factor in the sound quality. I was very surprised to find out how much 2” made a difference in the rooms acoustics. Do research on this. There is a “Frequency Response Calculator” in Excel format that you can use to find the best dimensions. You enter the room’s dimensions and it will show you if there are any issues in 20 different frequencies. The best time to worry about acoustics is before you build.
Dave

 

[Brad E]

1. Very realistic. I sit 11' back from a 8' wide (110") screen using a Panny 700. That's about 1.4x the screen width back. PQ is fantastic. Occasional motion artifacts on some movies, but nothing that would warrant a smaller screen.

2. NO. Standard TV looks like crap so you might want to shrink that down a bit, but otherwise, NO.

3. Are the closets for your HT gear? The Panny 700 exhausts out of the front so it's perfect for shelf mounting. If you built a space for it in your cabinets at the back of the room it would be perfect. Unlike most pj's, the 700 has no offset, it shoots the image straight, so you may not even need to use lens shift.
I would also add a couple spots in that cabinet for rear surrounds.

 

[Mike Holland]

Brad, The closets were going to be bedroom closets. It is new construction so I would just leave them out.
For the price the Panny 700 looks like my choice. Whats your room like Brad?

 

[Brad E]

My room is 13'x 30'. I have quite a bit of unused space in the back, not sure what I'm going to do with that yet.

I would leave the closets out, especially if you want 2 rows of seating.
You will be very happy with the 700. Only drawback is vertical banding. This can be eliminated or reduced with tweaking though. If you do buy it, head over to the avs forums, there are a couple of HUGE threads on tweaking and setup for it.