First home theater plans

[ErikVB]

Im new to the forum so cut me some slack if my plans seem out of whack but I just wanted to get some advice before I go making any mistakes! The thing is I recently took out a home equity mortgage to update our house and one of my priorities is to finish the basement and build a theater. A lifelong aspiration of mine. I’ll attach a rough sketch of the layout (and I do mean rough) but keep in mind I only have 7.5 foot ceilings to work with and a concrete floor. The construction starts next month so I’m going to be ordering the stuff soon and have a local carpet place doing the pad and theater style carpeting. I’ll gladly post pics as progress is made if anyone is interested but for now all I have is this drawing. Equipment wise right now I’m debating between the new JVC NX7 or NX5 and for audio the Denon x6500 with Klipsch reference premier speakers in a 7.2.4 atmos setup. Trying to stay under 15,000$ total for the equipment though so this will be tough. Thoughts? Suggestions? I’ve been browsing these forums for years but still have a lot to learn! Oh and the screen I’m looking at an AT screen roughly 150” 2.4:1 on the faux wall. No idea where to buy a decent screen yet but these are the plans. Thanks ahead to anyone with suggestions or criticisms. Other than my drawing, I warned you it was rough.

 

[Cherrywood]

Design looks decent - i wouldnt make any amendments?
What colour scheme you going for? Fabric walls etc? To get most out of the JVC, i would look at using black velet or similar around screen.

One thing to consider at this early stage would be room treatments? - its be proven many times that the room is most important element in home cinema but treatments are over looked. - GIK panels would be a good starting point with a ceiling cloud also.

 

[ErikVB]

I do plan on using black velvet near the screen and a flat black paint everywhere else probably. But I’m not sure what a ceiling cloud is. I’ll have to use tiles for the ceiling so I can still access parts of the basement, I know that at least. Acoustic panels of some sort I figure I’ll add as I go to fine tune the sound. I just hope 7 foot ceilings aren’t too short for the atmos speakers and the projector itself for that matter!

 

[ErikVB]

Progress. Got the projector and the room is coming along.

 

[Bacus]

@ErikVB

Looking good so far and a decent sized room to start with

Looking forward to plenty of progress pictures.

 

[ErikVB]

Roughed in the approximate size of the screen I ordered to see how it’ll fit. I think it’s going to look good. Decided to do the back wall red for no real reason. Carpet goes in in two weeks so I have a lot of work to do.

 

[ErikVB]

Most recent pic. Carpet is in. Seats coming next weekend and then the equipment will start getting set up soon after. This is fun, and stressful. And expensive. But mostly fun.

 

[citywalker]

Nice room! Waiting for new pictures and on the end final look!

 

[ErikVB]

Nice room! Waiting for new pictures and on the end final look!

Thanks! Made a couple of necessary changes from the original sketch. The biggest change is the screen. I ended up getting a SI series 3 133” 2.35:1 solar white instead of the larger accoustic one I was planning. Mainly for budget reasons, not only was the screen over 2,000 more than this one but I’d need a DCR a lens or something to even come close to producing bright enough image for HDR content on such a big screen. But like I said this is a learning experience and I’m picking up a lot of knowledge as I go. Definitely found a new hobby for life, which is hard to do when you’re middle aged or older.

 

[ErikVB]

Progress! Will be installing the projector and equipment soon. Need to decide on mounting the projector at around 15 feet with a ceiling mount or building a shelf on the back wall which will give it a 24 foot throw roughly. I’d prefer the shelf solution due to the low ceiling issue but was wondering if it’s better to zoom and have short throw versus long throw and little to no zoom. The calculator i checked online says both will be in the low 30s FL on screen but would zooming affect the image quality?

 

[ErikVB]

Almost finished. Just a few touches left.

 

[ErikVB]