In for the long Haul ! complete AV redesign of Lounge et al

[ozthecoz]

Hi,

Im just in the planning process of a complete redesign of our lounge and dining room and being a complete numpty at anything DIY or indeed AV i thought id start a thread as im gonna have plenty of questions throughout the following couple of months.

Ive had loads of inspiration from the threads in the gallery forum and it was Evil Donkeys excellent thread and room which sold my wife the idea so apologies to him for nicking a few of his ideas - though they say immitation is the sincerest form of flattery lol

Equipment wise at the moment i dont have the full caboodle - just got a Panasonic 37" plasma , PS3 and blue ray HTCP so still got an amp (thinking poss onkyo 606 or similar) and Speakers to get (of which i havent a clue lol) and a lot of wiring - still theres a hell of a lot of work to do before that lot will get anywhere near fitted and im gonna need plenty of advice on how to fit it

I do have a rough plan on what i want to achieve and what i want it to look like and ive been fettling with Sketchup so will post a few plans and ideas up shortly along with current pics of rooms.

[ozthecoz]

Reet then - Here are my initial ideas / plans

Not to scale but will give you an idea of the direction i am going in.

First two are rough ideas of room shape and size

This is the idea for the feature / tv wall.

The idea of the feature wall is to have a raised / boxed in section running along the entire length - under this will be power points and storage (im gonna try and build some kind of sliding top so i have extra storage space) on top of this i will have a couple of floating shelves to house the Av equipment etc - all this coupled with a floating fireplace wall to house the TV in - Id love to get rid of the fireplace completely and have a flat wall but alas its attached to the neighbours house and i dont think they would appreciate me possibly destroying both houses lol.

Gonna be a good old project - especially as the last time i did woodwork was 25 years ago at school lol

[Marky P]

It all comes down to patience rather than just skill. If you have the patience to do it properly, you will be rewarded by your efforts. Unfortunately for me, I have very little patience and end up bodging things.

[ozthecoz]

Originally Posted by Marky P

It all comes down to patience rather than just skill. If you have the patience to do it properly, you will be rewarded by your efforts. Unfortunately for me, I have very little patience and end up bodging things.

lol - unfortunatly that sounds very much like me though i do have the intention to see this through to the end all done the best i can and if i dont .......well divorce probably lol.


On another note - does anyone have any experiance of the Onkyo 506 amp ? i realise its not as good as the 606 but is it sufficent ? esentially its around £100 cheaper than the 606 which gives a bit more to spend on the speakers.

Any advice ?

[Grangey.]

cor youl have a sore neck always watching the tv at 90 degrees to your side! Otherwise it looks like it could look really good, good luck with it

[ozthecoz]

Cheers grangey

the furniture at the moment is purely for look and wont be sorted until the roomo is almost finshed. Unfortunatly as you can see ffrom the pic the only way through to the lounge and kitchen is through the arch so there has to be a walkway throuogh the room

[albriscoe]

Hi Oz

reet then, thas gorrit all rong

sorry mate just aving a laff, I know its not to scale as you said earlier but I really do think you`ve got the front speakers placed far too high. I would if poss put the centre below the panel and the L/R at the sides, if not I feel you will get a sense of everything going above your heads audio wise.

As to the Onkyo, I`ve just got the 576, 3 in 1 out HDMI for £195 Superfi and its a little cracker of an AV reciever and very well worth it IMHO. I`ve got the daddy 905 as well so I know that Onkyo were good.

I`ve also just done a flush mount panel in our conservatory which you can see in my thread if you want any pointers or ideas.

Anyway hope it didn`t sound like criticism mate, as it wasn`t meant, just my thoughts

cheers and good luck with the project

Al

[ozthecoz]

Hi Albriscoe,

Thats exactly what i need lol - im no expert by any stretch of the imagination so ointers like that will help no end. Th peakers in the mock up where based on the original idea of wharfedale diamond 9.1s ( i think lol) but im uming and arring about maybe uing Kef eggs now as they are slighly more discreet.

the thing that worries me about placing the mid speaker at the bottom of the screen is heat from the fire (though it doesnt kick out much heat) though i can effo see where you are oming from.

cheers for the hads up on the onkyo though im sure someone somewhere (who isnt having a toffe crisp) mentioned lack of HDMI sound - though not sure what this is as i thought hdmi was the picture lol

[albriscoe]

I can promise you mate the 576 does carry audio via HDMI as I`m listening to it now .

If your going for something as small as the kefs have you thought about flushing those as well, people will frown and say "what if you want to change them and the new ones are bigger.

Well if they are bigger they`ll just cover the boxes you made anyway and if you buy the right ones in the first place you shouldn`t need to change them

And flushing them will automatically remove the heat from the fire issue as well

Anyway mate only here to help

cheers Al

PS. and if you flush the speakers you can have some sexy lighting behind them like I have

[ozthecoz]

Not much of an update and not started any work yet ( other than filling the walls with paint testers lol) but i have been buying some kit

Kit list at the mo:

• Panasonic Viera 37" plasma
• HTPC with blue ray player, hdmi etc running vista and MediaPortal / MyTVseries ( excellent opensource media centre with loads of add ons - better than wmc imo)
• Sky+
• PS3
• Onkyo 576 amp
• Kef 2005.1 5.1 eggs

gonna start in earnest on the build and redecoration in the next two weeks (once homebase has had its 10% day lol)

Some questions in the meantime:

regarding the kef eggs - whats the best kind of positioning for them ? and in particular, the centre speaker - would that be ok boxed and flush underneath the TV ?

Thinking ahead, what options are available to me to be able to watch films / tv that are on my htpc (located downstairs) upstairs ?

dave

[ozthecoz]

well the redecoration is starting, Plasterer sorted etc so hopefully gonna be updating this thread more frquently

Anyway - as the front room etc stand at the moment :

We are now in the dismantling and preperation stage

[ozthecoz]

had a busy day today - gutted teh front room, taken the shelving down, removed the nasty coving etc - o at last i feel like work ha started

Question for you re speaker placement on the following wall:

two front sattelites will be Kef 2005 eggs and centre speaker will be Kef 5005 ( the long thin one).

Where do you think speakers should be ?

[ab1385]

Can I vote position 4? That would be as close to ear height as possible, and level with the center speaker, below position 3. Would give you the best sonic stage. Otherwise, I'd vote for as close as possible to this, position 3 would be best.

How are you planning on boxing in/supporting the fireplace? I'm very keen to have something similar to what you are going for - if you can, then when you install the fireplace, step by step photos of what you've done would be really appreciated!

[nonumb]

I would not have the sofas at 90 degrees to the screen (as already said) this gets really annoying. Where I am we used to have an arrangement similar and bugged us all. Perhaps a corner sofa on the side of the front door and an armchair/small sofa on the other side.

[ozthecoz]

Originally Posted by ab1385

Can I vote position 4? That would be as close to ear height as possible, and level with the center speaker, below position 3. Would give you the best sonic stage. Otherwise, I'd vote for as close as possible to this, position 3 would be best.

How are you planning on boxing in/supporting the fireplace? I'm very keen to have something similar to what you are going for - if you can, then when you install the fireplace, step by step photos of what you've done would be really appreciated!

Cheers for the feedback position 4 would be more than possible - uppos as well as the sound im also thinking of esthetics of what the speakers look like as well

as for your oher questons - im not ure yet lol thogh will be puttng pics up and write up as i go along