Home cinema mk2: living room edition

I'd be a little bit wary about heat coming from the log burner...

Can you not suggest a log burner move to something like this: Home Cinema Choice - SeriouslyCinema featured dream theatre - Seriously Cinema
Good point regarding the heat. I'll be careful to move the speaker (and TV) away from it when it's on!

Relocating the log burner isn't possible unfortunately. It would involve much more work (on the room, the room above and the outside of the house) than I'm up for, and would position it in front of a window, which I don't want.
 
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The homemade acoustic panel is back up!

Note to self: avoid hot days for messing around with Rockwool. Rockwool + sweat is not a fun combination.

I'd love to say it's made a big difference to the sound in the room. But seeing as I've yet to install any speakers I can't easily tell. That said, it made a massive difference in the last room and this room is noticeably less echoey with it up, so it'll do the trick to tame reverberations a bit.

I like rooms to retain a bit of life, so this'll be about all for acoustic treatment (I may have some behind the L/R speakers - we'll see) :)
 

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New L/R speakers in place and sounding mighty tasty ... might have to start a new thread soon...

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New L/R speakers in place and sounding mighty tasty ... might have to start a new thread soon...

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Speakers look good in the room. I don't know if I have OCD but the TV being off centre would drive me nuts. My TV is on a cabinet and it has to be mm perfect...…..which drives my wife nuts.:)
 
Speakers look good in the room. I don't know if I have OCD but the TV being off centre would drive me nuts. My TV is on a cabinet and it has to be mm perfect...…..which drives my wife nuts.:)
I know what you mean. I can't pull out the fire, but if I could I definitely would.

That said, the TV is about mm perfectly in front of where I sit on the sofa, so it's not all bad :)
 
That said, it does bother me a bit. I'm going to move that cabinet elsewhere and mount the TV on the wall, which will make the off centre-ness less obvious.
 
No, the fire is fine. It's the TV's position on the cabinet. It would have to be smack in the middle. I'll have a sleepless night tonight.:(:)
 
Can't wait to see how it progresses, sucks that the other one was short lived though. It'll be a year or 2 before I get round to doing one myself and these threads help with ideas :D
 
Can't wait to see how it progresses, sucks that the other one was short lived though. It'll be a year or 2 before I get round to doing one myself and these threads help with ideas :D
Glad it's helpful!

The new room's progressing slowly. Currently focusing on the 2-channel side of things, but it won't be long before the room's a cinema again...

In a wave of obvious-in-hindsight inspiration, I switched the orientation of the room. It's now much better in every respect.

These ATC speakers really are rather blummin impressive too.
 

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It's been a while since I updated this, but figured I would now I've finally installed heights in this room. This thread should probably be Mk3 now!

You can see the front heights here - KEF T101s on brackets I fashioned out of MDF. You may also notice I'm not using a centre. I don't need one. I've A/B tested it and the phantom image at the MLP is as good as - if not better than - using a centre. It won't be as good off-axis, but I'm not bothered about that.

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And here are the rear heights and rears (and the Hue lit bookshelf I built). Despite not having surround backs, I get an utterly convincing rear image. The scene in Oblivion where he lands on a baseball pitch sounds like the ship is right behind my head (the MLP is where the yellow throw is). Seriously - it sounded so convincing I laughed when I first heard it.

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Did you notice the huge Arendal Sub 3? It's next to the front left speaker, hidden in this:

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I think I'll keep my layout like this for a while. It sounds incredible. :D

The most recent addition to my system was a Denon AVC-X4700 which is surprisingly good and measures better than most £4-5k AVPs. It also works flawlessly and has HDMI 2.1. The latter matters a lot to me as an avid gamer, as it gives VRR pass through (CoD Warzone sounds insanely good in here). However, I'm currently using the Denon as an integrated and think I need power amps again, so that will be the next addition.
 
Looks really nice mate, nice clean look, very incognito.

Great job hiding the Sub3, they’re not easy to camouflage!
 
Room looks great, bet those ATC’s sound fantastic, think I must of missed that part you switched from MK on walls?
I switched when I moved into this house as they weren't easy to accommodate given the curtains. I also wanted some toe in for music, which is tricky with on walls.

The ATCs do sound very nice indeed👍
 
I think I'll keep my layout like this for a while. It sounds incredible.

Not quite famous last words, but...

I nabbed a pair of white JBL Arena 120s from the classifieds which I may use instead of the SCM7 surrounds. I paid £180, which is actually more expensive then they used to sell for new in the US, but still ludicrously cheap, and they're hard to find.

Why would I buy a £180 pair of speakers as surrounds, given the cost of the rest of the system? Well, partly aesthetic - the black SCM7s don't blend with my decor and the JBLs would. Partly because they're wall mountable, which I may do as I tend to like base level surrounds slightly above ear height (although wall mounting will cause a dip with these). And partly penny pinching. Most importantly though: because they're outstanding and one of the biggest bargains in loudspeakers.

Floyd Toole cites them in his book, and has said that, with a sub, they're hard to distinguish from some of the best speakers in the world. He says something similar here: "add a subwoofer to this inexpensive speaker, preferably using bass management (to get a high-pass filter) crossing over higher than 80 Hz, and be prepared for some remarkably neutral sound."

Here's how they measure:

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Not bad for £180!!
 
The new side surrounds have also arrived - Revel S16s.

I won't get to listen to them for a couple of weeks, which is a shame. But I've got to say, these are stunning. The pictures don't do them justice - the finish is gorgeous. They're also huge, which I hadn't expected.

I also like the fact they include a really sturdy looking wall bracket.

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Very nice
 
Decided to start a new thread - this one's getting on a bit given the various iterations :D

 

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