[X3ELS]

And so it begins!

After 5 years at my old house and the cinema which i loved i have now been at the new house 3 weeks. Original idea was maybe not to bother doing a second cinema! shock horror, but then i quickly binned that one when i realised the room was a bit bigger and a space that would work so well!

Its going to be a long road, work has just begun and like many will only take place evening and weekend, although i am on hold for a hort while till i finish moving stuff about. I was lucky in that as it was a new build i got to specify my cabling all round the house, and also got the garage put in with a warm floor and all walls plastered except the door end which i needed for the moving process!

The first thing required was to get the main aircon unit in the loft space above the garage, thats now in and i need to then finish boarding the loft for general storage down one end. The rest of the loft is being closed off and airconditioned as a comms room (all needs insulating first) to house the 2 racks i will need for the cinema and multiroom system thats going in.

so a few pics:

The rear of the room:

Front:

So there we go, it will be a long road but thought you might like to see some early pics before things get going!

[SG-22]

Looks like you've got enough cables to start with (and paint)

look forward to watching the room take shape

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by SG-22

Looks like you've got enough cables to start with (and paint)

look forward to watching the room take shape

LOL, yes thats about half of the main house cables, rest still in loft, original plan was a rack inside the room like my last one but there was going to be way to much kit, so now there will be no kit in the room, all in the loft instead.

Paint was leftovers from all the rooms in the house, handy for touching up!!

[Owen824]

Will be keeping a close eye on this as i feel this will be similar to what i am doing with my own place later this year.

[Kenny Glasgow]

Good luck with the project Elliot

[hornydragon]

I recon you'll at least a stone working in that small loft over the summer evenings mate......

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by hornydragon

I recon you'll at least a stone working in that small loft over the summer evenings mate......

LOL, hence why its being airconned, i refuse to sweat off all that money i thoughtfully spent in the local pub!

[Zag]

Elliot,

Best wishes for a speedy and trouble free build as possible.

I will be keeping a close eye on how you go about this, as I may convert my garage in the near future.

Zag

[albriscoe]

Hi Elliot

It nice to see someone in the "trade" doing something like this so all us newbies can see what to really do.

looks like it gonna be a very interesting project this one so good luck with it .

Cheers Al

[ReTrO]

How's progress?

[Gary Lightfoot]

Hi Elliot,

What are the room dimensions, and what kind of set up will you be doing? Going 'Scope?

Gary

[ReTrO]

Any new photos of your slow but steady progress?

[X3ELS]

No photos yet, patience young staff member

And yes Gary it will be scope, i will be doing an update soon with all the dims, my time has been spent on the multiroom part at present....

[Smurfin]

So where's the new chapter then elliot, the posts say 2008

[X3ELS]

Ok, so i have been working the proverbials off on this every night after work and every weekend for approx 7 weeks now, i have a deadline to hit on the arrival of another baby so theres motivation there!!

Its really well on the way now and i am really really pleased with the results, the quality is way beyond the build of the last room and a complete acoustic design had been done prior to anything being started. In fact the design took on and off 6 months to make sure it was going to be just right.

I have spent a lot of time consulting with a collague who has built several THX cinemas as well as having his name to loads of Music and film mastering suites so i could get the target response i wanted.

Here is the recommended decay time. This is for a studio control room which is pretty close to where you want a multi-channel environment.

RT60 (ITU/EBU Control Room Recommended): 174 ms
- ±50ms from 200Hz to 4kHz = 124 to 224ms
- <+200ms at 63hz = 374ms
- 200<RT60<400ms

Based on my calculations and with my treatment placements and type this is my calculated outcome.

Frequency 125 250 500 1k 2k 4k
Sabins 209 267 342 350 352 352
% of Average 67% 86% 110% 112% 113% 113%
RT60 0.28 0.22 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.16

As you can see, we're pretty much right where we want to be across the spectrum. This room will be very dynamic and clean with good dialog intelligibility and solid deep tight bass. Extrapolated RT at 63Hz will be somewhere around 350ms.

Rather than spend the next 3 weeks posting images and comments i have put brief remarks on some images and uploaded them to photobucket, any queries then please feel free to drop an image into this thread and ask away

Images here:

Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

[Smurfin]

Looks awesome so far What's the material you've used for the coverings? And in terms of acoustic panels, have you made them yourself or are you buying them?

[X3ELS]

Wall coverings will be alcantara, no pics of that up yet.

Ceiling is GOM, (Guildford of Maine) and then of course speaker fabric where necessary, the treatment is varying depths of 60kg density mineral wool in the correct locations with an fsk facing applied accordingly, fabric will then be applied over this to hide it, so yes all made in house

[lfletcher]

Originally Posted by X3ELS

Images here:

Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

Put the images in the thread you lazy so and so

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by lfletcher

Put the images in the thread you lazy so and so

didnt really want to whack 80 photos in here!

i will add all new ones into the thread just to keep you happy mr F

[lfletcher]

Originally Posted by X3ELS

i will add all new ones into the thread just to keep you happy mr F

Good lad, now show us the twinkly lights!

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by lfletcher

Good lad, now show us the twinkly lights!

Ok quick pic for you, its a Numinus star ceiling, first in the Uk and is just stunning in the way it twinkles, v difficult to photograph and the big black area is the loft hatch location...

[ReTrO]

Looking good/dark!

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

That looks great. What is fsk?

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by Da_Rude_Baboon

That looks great. What is fsk?

Thanks its been a lot of hard work!

FSK stands for foil skrim kraft, its the material that is applied to the areas of the room where i want to reflect the upper frequencies so it does not become to dead in the room. Almost all 'treated' rooms i here are just wall to ceiling sound treatment and they sound like anachoic chambers, thats the difference between a havily damped room and a properly 'treated' room.

[Isco 3]

Hi Elliot,

why didn't you use the recommended RT times provided by the ITU standards for a multi channel listening room? Also, the audience will be a very large absorbing area. Have you considered that in your calculations?

Great work, by the way.

[X3ELS]

Originally Posted by Isco 3

Hi Elliot,

why didn't you use the recommended RT times provided by the ITU standards for a multi channel listening room? Also, the audience will be a very large absorbing area. Have you considered that in your calculations?

Great work, by the way.

Actually, I consider both. I know what I like and don't think either really hits that mark IMO. They're both relatively close but still different, and yes the room has designed for 2 people viewing primarily, and 4 microfibre seats.

Aiming to complete now within the next 3 weeks or so....

[Pulsar]

Hi Elliot,

How's it coming along? I think Richard may have mentioned that I'm planning on acoustically treating my new room, albeit nowhere near as scientifically as you. I've been reading various articles on the web and just planned to treat the 1st and 2nd reflection points, front wall (probably back) and add some corner fill for bass. Beyond this I don't know what else I should do, such as where to use diffusion etc. That FSK material you've used looks interesting too.

Anyway, do you have a few pearls of wisdom you can share about room treatments and their placements? I'm definitely looking for the DIY option more than off the shelf products.

Finally, are you going for 5.1 or 7.1?

Cheers

Rob

[X3ELS]

Ok Chaps, its been really pants that i havent kept this updated, however the good news is that the room is now complete and running

Obviously these photos were not designed to show the picture quality, just the room.

Let me know what you think!

[alz2605]

Holy cow that is amazing! Nice one mate

[JOHN11]

The room looks fantastic

What pj are you using and how is it being driven?