My own personal man cave

Dazmeister

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It's always been a passion of mine this AV malarkey from a very early age since the days of me creating a crude stereo setup with a SCART lead (yes that long ago!) and have had to compromise each time when moving house to accommodate my hobby whilst appeasing the other half. Well I finally got my dream after moving house last March and the Mrs literally gave me carte blanche to do what I want with the "back room" we acquired which was originally used as an office. I thought it was about time I shared this with you guys as I've been so busy until now with work, so apologies I haven't done so before now from the start of this project.

The layout of the room wasn't perfect, so again compromises as to how I was going to best achieve the best layout. The room has windows all along one side and to make matters worse, vaulted ceilings, AV worst nightmare but was determined to make the best of it. I initially got hold of Ritch @ Seriously but the costings was something I had to take into consideration, as we had only just moved in and had tons of other work to do in the house, my room wasn't exactly a priority. So I had to cut corners and utilise what skills I had myself and rope in friends etc and get hold of used kit at discounted prices. This all really kicked off having met another forum member @oaklandraiders who sold me the M&K IW300 x 3 at a great price in the classifieds. Then Rich was doing a refurb within one of his demo rooms at St Albans and was offering to forum members various kit including 2 x M&K X12's which again I snapped up before we moved house. So I had a head start with some kit as I already had a new Anthem MRX1140. At the old house I had the Epicon centre which I had no further use of so that had to go sadly. The rest of the kit I had to buy new which was the S300t for rears, M70 for the heights (screwed to the beams) and M40T for side surrounds. The reason behind the M40T's is because of the pillar on the wall where the windows were. If I had of used the same S300T here (or even S150) I would have had massive overhang each side and wouldn't have looked right.

Still very happy with my choice as they work very well and now the room has soft furnishings in (sofa, rug) it sounds very good to me and no reverb from the high ceilings. I dare say it can be improved upon but I am very happy with how it's turned out for now.

The projector was purchased via Richer Sounds and managed to get one of the last Sony VPL 290 that was replaced by the 4K version. Also upsized from my original plan to have 120" screen to 136" as there was potential after re-measuring and thought why not, as I am only going to do this once.

So...first part was to work out how best to incorporate the subwoofers. In hindsight I should have made the false "media wall" deeper but decided to place them mid centre each side of the main seating area, as thought the wall might be too deep at the time .


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Having spent hours on Pinterest looking for inspiration (like you do) I had the opportunity to make some personal changes to the room in readiness and decided to install some movie posters. So I ended up contacting Art Of Movies for some light boxes. I got my friendly electrician to install the wiring beforehand so it was all hidden. He made a great job of it by putting the transformers into back boxes with just the tails showing ready to connect to the poster frames.


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The wall has gone up, waiting for MDF boxes to be inserted and ready for plastering.
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Having to travel into London every day for work I couldn't keep a close eye on things and did hit one snag. Having never ever done anything like this before you do learn stuff trying to manage the whole thing but mistakes do happen from time to time and I dropped the ball on this occasion. It was all down to me as I decided to build a pelmet AFTER the wall went in, to hide the electric blinds which were on order. Disaster averted as I just got the blinds people to roll the fabric off the back instead.
In addition I had frosting put over all the glass for when the blinds were lifted to stop prying eyes. Used a local company near Windsor who normally fit reflective UV film for cars and houses but I didn't like the idea of the reflective / silver material and as the room is north facing, sun wasn't an issue. So I came up with a design and they implemented for me.

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Once the plastering had been done I got the room painted. I had 2-3 options of colour choice as I wanted it dark. So it was a choice of dark brown, burgundy or black. I wanted the room to have a lounge feel (wife friendly) as well as a home cinema and I didnt want the typical regimented cinema chairs so plumped for dark brown with a champagne and blue sofa / chairs to match. Saved some money by getting Farrow & Ball London Clay mixed in Johnstones paint for 3 of the walls. The main projection wall was done in F&B Charleston Gray (again mixed in Johnstones) and the skirting in Elephants Breath. The ceiling was change from white to F&B Skimming Stone.
Eventually I will have antique glass back to add depth into the boxed shelving but ran out of money at the moment.

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At the same time I had the flooring changed as the existing was too light so went for Antico's 'Haven Oak' which is a walnut colour but grey tones. A lot of the concept was the brains of Mackenzie from Mackenzie Paige Interiors who gave me the ideas after giving my thoughts on it. In addition I needed a solution for a media cabinet so had to get one custom built in MDF. I liked the idea of a wine cooler for beers etc so again I looked online and found a company in the midlands that specialised in Grade A stock and got hold of a Capel unit that although was marked and scratched up on the side panels, was perfect otherwise. The damage wouldn't be seen once installed so saved a massive amount on RRP. So left hand side of cabinet was purely for AV kit (Amp, Xbox, Apple TV, UHD player) and the right hand cabinet was the goodies stash with popcorn, chocolates, coffee capsules etc. with the wine cooler in the middle.

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I had to come up with a solution to keep all my kit cool as well so had a AC Infinity fan and controller kit that I had bought few years back for project that I never got to use...until now! It was in white (white grill surrounds etc) so I found a company who specialised in custom spray paints and they knocked me up a tin in London Clay and painted the MDF in the same colours so the cabinet blended in with the rest of the room.

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So the room is pretty much finished now with just some minor things outstanding (plinth for wine cooler and antique glass backs for media wall) and all in all it went okay but not without issues. The one thing I am still trying to get resolved is with the blinds company. Each section of the side wall is 3.0m approx and I was assured that they could provide a roller band for that width for each side of the pillar. Turns out they had never done this before and the blind roller tube needs to be of a certain diameter to take the weight of the fabric. So the blinds when fully down look to have drapes in the material - not taught. However the company have been in touch and we're trying to work something out.
Just need to get hold of Gordon now to calbrate the VPL 290!

Hope you like it...



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Last edited:
Very nice, Very Jealous !
 
@Dazmeister - is that three or four Subwoofers you have?

I saw your post enquiring about REW in the other Thread, either @Gasp3621 or @Mr Wolf might be able to assist you with this?

Lovely room, by the way!:)
 
M40T for side surrounds. The reason behind the M40T's is because of the pillar on the wall where the windows were. If I had of used the same S300T here (or even S150) I would have had massive overhang each side and wouldn't have looked right.

Doesn't the sound quality matter more than aesthetics?
Why does it matter if the speaker would be wider than the pillar?

Some decions made here I don't agree with but overall does look great!
 
Doesn't the sound quality matter more than aesthetics?
Why does it matter if the speaker would be wider than the pillar?

Some decions made here I don't agree with but overall does look great!
Agree, definitely for the front LCR which they are (IW 300) and sound superb...I'm not so obsessed with the sides. They perform well as it happens. I just didn't like the overhang, I have this obsession with attention to detail, which sometimes I wish I didn't.
 
@Dazmeister - is that three or four Subwoofers you have?

I saw your post enquiring about REW in the other Thread, either @Gasp3621 or @Mr Wolf might be able to assist you with this?

Lovely room, by the way!:)
Thank you @Derek S-H

There's 2 M&K X12's by the sidewalls and I have a JL Audio Fathom for the stereo setup on the back wall. I didn't want to get rid of the epicons and although the Mrs allowed me to do what I wanted in this room. Speakers weren't allowed to go anywhere else in the house so had to squeeze the stereo setup in.

I will contact jamesl01 who has offered assistance on REL when I get 5 mins.
 
@Dazmeister - please update the Thread with your thoughts about the performance of your system once it's all calibrated.

I presume you've already visited this site because you're using one of their recommended Sub locations:


I'd love to have a 20 x 15 foot room, but because I don't my two Subs are opposite diagonally. Unfortunately, my sofa is located in a Bass null, but it can't be moved neither forward nor back. But then it's a living room, not a dedicated HT.
 
Lovely room. Gotta ask where was sofa and footstool from
Hi - It was from the Sofa Club. The sofa is a 3 seater in their Sloane range and I ordered the love seats (extra wide). Really impressed with the company, would definitely recommend them.
 
Very nicely done, looks a cosy mancave. Did you consider any acoustic room treatment?

Obviously the side with the almost floor to ceiling windows you can't do anything with apart from blinds or curtains.

But space at the back wall between the rear surrounds, and also the vaulted ceiling for absorption panels. Wooden flooring isn't ideal for home cinema, even with a rug on top.

Acoustic room treatment would make a noticeable audible improvement. Especially in a room with a lot of glass windows plus wooden flooring.
 
Nice! How do you light up the pictures?
Hi @adonis - It's using Light Boxes which you can buy off the net. It comes with a transformer (see pic further up) and has LED backing to light cinema posters. Works best if the posters are double sided (Lightbox ready) to make the image pop out. I got mine including the posters at Art Of The Movies.
 
Very nicely done, looks a cosy mancave. Did you consider any acoustic room treatment?

Obviously the side with the almost floor to ceiling windows you can't do anything with apart from blinds or curtains.

But space at the back wall between the rear surrounds, and also the vaulted ceiling for absorption panels. Wooden flooring isn't ideal for home cinema, even with a rug on top.

Acoustic room treatment would make a noticeable audible improvement. Especially in a room with a lot of glass windows plus wooden flooring.
I agree entirely with all your comments @Kingchin .It was considered but budget didnt allow at this point. Maybe further down the line when the rest of the house is finished, but I had a strict budget.
 
What a lovely room, it looks so inviting and open. Good choice of colours, too - we had Elephant's Breath in our old living room :D
 

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