Cinema Room with low ceiling

ok shopping list so far is:

3 x Behinger 215XL (LCR)
4 x Klipsch CS-16C II In-Ceiling Speaker (Atmos)
2 x JBL Control One (Rear)

Not sure what Subwoofers yet (x2?)
Receiver maybe Denon X3700

Hopefully very punchy setup for my small room, my only concern is sound treatment on ceiling since its so low already.. wanted a star ceiling but that's going to be difficult too....
 
You should be pleasantly surprised with the 215s - if you crank the volume up you get some real 'crackle' out of some sounds like lightening strikes or Tie Fighters, but not everyone likes them at reference. In a baffle wall they can cross as low as 40hz so do deliver some nice bass too.

If you want to treat the ceiling and not lose too much height, you can make some frames up that hold 30mm Rockwool, and stretch/staple MVEL or black Spandex over it, then screw it to the ceiling. Keep the frames small to make them lighter and easier to handle. If you screw directly into the plasterboard, make sure you stop screwing when the frame is flush to the ceiling so you don't strip the 'thread' you've created in the plasterboard. If you know where the joists are then even better.

Thicker is better, but 30mm is better than nothing. I did the same to my walls with just the treatment up to ear height all round (floor to ceiling by the speakers at the screen) and it makes a difference. If my room was wider I would have used something thicker, but compromised at 30mm.

If you wanted to use the same speakers as the ceiling (Klipsch) as surrounds too, and you're OK with DIY, you could make up some triangular columns to go in the rear corners, and fit the speakers into those. Or fit the Control Ones into cavities in the ceiling. That might be harder work though. Making frames with some CLS and MDF is probably a lot easier. Fixing the C1s to the wall or on stands is easier still though.

Room Equalisation Wizard (REW) has a room simulator for sub placement, You just put in the room dimensions, seating location and subwoofer info, and it will show you the bass response, dips/nulls at the seat or seats (you can add more than one seat). You can easily move the subs around the room and see where the best response for the seats will be in real time. 2 subs usually works better than one, and as you can add 4 subs you can find how many you need for best results. Sometimes two positions is good enough. It makes it a lot easier than guesswork or trial and error.

 
I’m looking forward to testing a pair of those 215s.

I’m also figuring out whether theres anyway of DIYing a sound treatment panel/star ceiling, then using a thinner 6mm ceiling plasterboard (vs 12mm on the outer )in the middle of the room, making a little recess for the star ceiling tile to screw into to save a wee amount of ceiling height …

chair wise I might try one these, looks quite stylish, comfy and suits my low ceiling room (plus if not, it’s only £110 …

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Also I just recently bagged another projector on Amazon lightening deal for £65 …1080p for that money it’s pretty amazing (long as it’s dark, and the projector is square onto the projected wall… this will be used as a test projector once I finish basics of the room (if I can find a builder, buts thats another story !)

i promise actual build pictures at some point !


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So pictures of the garage office .. as you can see the low ceilings and the fact wife needs to keep the windows.. presents a challenge
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I’m needing to block out light but not having enough height to add curtain rail … so looking into idea of magnetically attached acoustic panel that block out light and can be removed when room is for causal use (in conjunction with a recessed blackout blind), plus i would LOVE the back window to be covered with something like this 😍

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Also this would look great as installed on entrance door to the room (and full size Han Solo Carbonite mold !)
 

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@Peter Parker Hi, sorry to bother, you woulnt have some more pics of your lovely theatre room? I'm thinking about 2 row seating arrangment again, and notice you have smaller cinema style seats.. thanks!
 
What do you want to see exactly? I'll see if I have any pics that show what you would like to see/know.
 
This is the inside view of the door - a cheaper and simpler way of adding Han to a normal door. It's a lot darker than the camera shows and more effective.

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Top and bottom masking removed for IMAX movies, and before I covered the seats in black marbled spandex:

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They use compression drivers with a waveguide that helps focus the audio to the audience, with less going to the walls, floor and ceiling, so less reflections to deal with. They use an 'exponential' type waveguide with a 70 x 40 dispersion which works nicely for my seating area - I have them toe'd in and I mapped out the 70 degree dispersion to see how it would encompass the seating area to make sure it was ok, otherwise I may have gone for the 12s with a wider 90 x 60 dispersion.

I'd rather they used a constant directivity waveguide, and a lower crossover (it's around 2khz, so likely some woofer breakup), but for the money they work well enough - the only speakers I'd heard that could add that kind of 'crunch' for things like lightening strikes or Tie fighters were some huge ATC SCM300 ASLT speakers, but they do cost a bit more and are a much better speaker. Being in a baffle wall, Audyssey wants to cross them to the subs at 40hz.

Having a sensitivity of around 96 dB makes them very easy to drive, so work fine with ordinary amps.
 
Most if not all commercial cinemas use compression drivers with waveguides - like JBLs for example:

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JBL and others (like Procella) make similar speakers for the home as well.
 
Procella:


JBL:




 
What do you want to see exactly? I'll see if I have any pics that show what you would like to see/know.

Ah thank you! Maybe side view of your 2 rows if its ok, I have been doing a bit of mock up with 2 dining chairs and a projected image on the wall, and it seems 2 rows with the front 7ft from screen and the back row 8.5 ft from screen might just work for immersion on Scope or 16:9 ... here's a revised layout using folding compact cinema chairs...
avs plan.png
 
This is the test in the lounge I'm doing, my wife thinks i'm mad, but it actually lets me tweak seating distance and screen angles for real...

I ordered a Full size fibre glass Han Solo last week form an antiques store too !
 

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I don't have any side view images as such because it's tricky to get any from the side - the aisles aren't that wide either side of the seats. This is the closest I could get - it's an old sketchup I made when I had two rows of four and only one set of steps in mind. I've deleted a seat from each row and extended the steps but it's only vaguely like what I finally built. You get the idea though

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If you want two rows and are going to use commercial style cinema seats, that is the best choice as they are smaller and give you a lot more room, so you can fit more seats and/or have more aisle space. With the second row being on a riser (and only two seats), that gives you more room to walk as the front seats are lower.

You usually find for most people, ordinary seats have a lot of wasted space within the seat when you are sat in them because most people don't have 22" wide bottoms. A friend of mine is 6ft 7ins and fits in the commercial seats I have no problem. He prefers a bit more leg room, so although he has sat in both rows, prefers the leg room offered by the front row. I don't know many people his size though so he's more likely an exception.

Commercial eats have a minimum recommendation of around 36 inches from the back of one seat to the back of the next, but I chose 38". Plenty of room between rows (even for my tall friend). I can supply generic documentation if you go that route. My seats are older ex Odeon seats that I recovered. I bought them used from a company based in Essex. They do lots of renovations and have many seats, both new and old. I found them on eBay. The seats were £25 each. Newer seats will cost more of course. They're around 20" wide. I originally wanted two rows of 4, but for practicality settled for three in the front and two for the back. That lets people to see through the heads of those in front and allowed for a reduced riser - ideally it would have been a 14 inch riser, but went for 11ins (with a mid step like in the pic). Hopefully you won't have friends as tall as mine. Riser is wall to wall (safer that way), and only in the middle of the room for the seated area - that way I didn't have to make steps from the door after you enter the room, and allows more headroom. It looks and works better than the image suggests.

I haven't shown any speaker locations, but I have a speaker at each side of each row at ear height (so 4 side surrounds total), and my Atmos are placed similarly to yours. I have two rear surrounds for the 7.1 base layout (even though there are 9 speakers and not 7 for the base in actuality), and 4 for Atmos. I'm using identical coax speakers for surrounds and Atmos.

Hope that helps.

Is there any commercial type that use this?

holy moley ATC SCM300ASL Pro (Pair)
Actually, these are the ones I heard:


Amazing speakers, but for the price they should be!
 
I think these ATCs all share a 3" midrange driver which is what gives a really outstanding midrange, so I was wondering how good the much smaller, 'cheaper' models with the same midrange would also sound as good in that respect. You can make clones of the smaller speakers using the same drivers from Wilmslow Audio as I recall. I'd like to hear some just to see. It's the 'crackle' you get from the Behringers that is reminiscent of the ATCs and one element of them that makes them seem such great value. I have a spare B215 in white that I may experiment with one day - redo the crossover for a lower crossover point, and even try the drivers in a cabinet with a constant directivity waveguide just to see what that gives, but I need to be in the mood for that as it can be quite a time consuming project, albeit a lot of fun and rewarding.
 
I think these are the same people I got my seats from. It might be worth asking them what else they have that might be suitable.

 
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