'Secondhand Cinema' - House Extension with a Dedicated MK Home Cinema Room

Many thanks Rich @Seriously Ltd

Based in the Midlands, about 45 minutes South of Birmingham. Believe Gordon travels all over doesn't he? You're down South aren't you @Rickyj at Kalibrate ?
 
Many thanks Rich @Seriously Ltd

Based in the Midlands, about 45 minutes South of Birmingham. Believe Gordon travels all over doesn't he? You're down South aren't you @Rickyj at Kalibrate ?

Yes. We are further south, and would normally refer for Birmingham (on a pure calibration) as not economical for us or the client. Gordon travels around the UK, or @Canary_Jules is based in Leicester, so much better located. You may want to take a look at the AVF podcast later, as I believe there is going to be some discussion on projector calibration. ;)
 
Has anyone extended an ir repeater cable? Is it just two cables inside?

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I've got one of these going from the TV in the open plan area, through the wall and to the cab - but it's too short to reach the Virgin TV box.

Can I cut the wires and extend it with something like speaker cable? Only other option I can think of is to buy another one and repeat the repeated signal!?
 
Ah, sorry, I missed that it was an all in one repeater cable with USB power rather than a 3.5mm jack IR emitter like you plug into a harmony hub or similar.

I think the cable is just like a headphone cable. Depending on how far you need to extend could you get a long headphone extension cable and cut the ends off and then splice it into your cable?
 
Mine isn't usb but I'm running a 20m headphone extension cable from my harmony back to my rack which works fine.

You could also use USB over ethernet which I'm also using to get USB from the PC in the rack into my room.

The cheap-y ones worked ok and proved the concept, but this one has been rock solid:

Amazon product ASIN B07L6WLR51
 
A lot of the soundproofing threads talk about doing it once and doing it right the first time. I‘m satisfied with the level I chose and wouldn’t change much unless someone gave me a much bigger budget, with a couple of exceptions.

One of those is the in room noise from the projector and the inline fans which bring air in and take air out. A year ago, it didn’t bother me, but you get used to the pitch black and the low noise floor and soon noises or reflections that you didn’t see before are really noticeable.

So, I’m after suggestions to reduce the fan noise.

There are two of these. Big 5’’, ultra quiet!!!, in-line fans. Both are housed in the soffits.

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I added lots of sound proofing around the fans originally. The fan attaches to the wall via a rubber mount to reduce vibrations.
The soffits are 12mm MDF on all sides. The vertical parts also have 12mm or 18mm OSB, forget which. All soffits are filled with fibreglass insulation. I then made this panel to sit loose under the fan.

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2 x 12mm MDF and two layers of lead. They were really heavy!

If I remove that panel I’ll have about an inch around most of the fan. What can I do?
Ive not used TECHSOUND but seen others use it. @Triggaaar I know you’ve used it loads. What are your thoughts on sticking multiple layers over the fan. Is it self adhesive? Would lots of layers of this be better than the loose insulation?

Only other options are buy a different fan (big expense) or just not use them, waste of money. I’m also then worried that the projector would over heat without an air supply at the back, even if I use an AC Infinity USB fans to remove air at the front.

As a reminder, the first fan draws air from the adjacent room and then vents it behind the projector intake vents. Lefthand side, pipe not attached yet in this picture.
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What noise are you hearing?

Vibrations from the fan unit / the physical fan itself or the air inside the pipe itself or a combination of them all?
 
The blades of the fan I think. It's marketed as one of the quietest on the market, but in a soundproof room, anything is going to sound louder than it is.

There is no obvious vibration being transferred and I can't hear the noise of air at all.

My wife compared it, fairly accurately, to the high pitched whine that you can hear on an aircraft, I guess from the air con. Constant and fairly high pitched.

Tecsound do a product for lagging noisy soil pipes which might be worth looking at.
 
Noise from the fan can generally manifest in three areas; vibration into the building structure or the soffits, case radiated noise from the fan unit, or in-duct noise.

It looks like the fan you have is an axial in-line fan? Axial fans are generally more noisy than centrifugal fans but I’m not sure if you would be able to source a small enough centrif to fit in the soffit but it may be worth a look. Approximately what space do you have available for the fan?

To deal with vibration a spring hanger will give the best reduction.

Reducing the case radiated noise is about providing mass around the fan and sealing any gaps for the noise to escape.

If you think the issue is in-duct noise ( i.e. you can hear it coming out of the end of the duct at the projector enclosure) then some form of in-line duct attenuator can address this issue by installing one either side of the fan. They will increase the pressure drop of the system so the fan control point will move along the fan curve and you will get slightly less flow rate but this may not be an issue for you. The attenuator would be selected to provide a sufficient insertion loss that would deliver the required dB reduction at each frequency. From your description you will need to look for one that has a larger reduction at the high frequencies, but this is generally easier to achieve than low frequencies. A company like Allaway Acoustics can supply these.
 
@Datalus

Thank you for your thoughts.

I'd considered hanging it on bungee cords, but avoided that so it had no contact at all to the soffit. It's fixed through it's own rubber mount straight to the block wall. My gut is that this isn't vibration I can hear.

There is also no obvious duct noise or air flow noise from the vents. I oversized the one vent, added 90 degree turns and the exhaust one is behind the projector.

I think I need to add more mass which, more importantly is sealed around the fan. If I made some 5" cut outs I can box in each end of the fan and then roll layers of tecsound around the thing.
 
That sounds like a good plan. If you could also put say 500mm long sections of the tecsound pipe lagging around your duct connections as well either side of the fan then I think this would help further reduce any breakout from the fan casing coming along and through the duct walls.
 
That sounds like a good idea. The bit I'm least looking forward to is removing the soffit panels. They are all covered in the black flock and I covered each screw head with a small flock circle.
 
I feel your pain! Just had to do the same disassembly of my flock covered soffit two weeks ago to pull two more sub cables through ….. kicking my self for not installing them in the first place when I first built it and it would have been so much easier to do.
 
I added lots of sound proofing around the fans originally. The fan attaches to the wall via a rubber mount to reduce vibrations.
The soffits are 12mm MDF on all sides. The vertical parts also have 12mm or 18mm OSB, forget which. All soffits are filled with fibreglass insulation. I then made this panel to sit loose under the fan.

View attachment 1695809

2 x 12mm MDF and two layers of lead. They were really heavy!

Damn!

So you've got some weighty boards, and it's not working?


If I remove that panel I’ll have about an inch around most of the fan. What can I do?
Ive not used TECHSOUND but seen others use it. @Triggaaar I know you’ve used it loads. What are your thoughts on sticking multiple layers over the fan. Is it self adhesive? Would lots of layers of this be better than the loose insulation?

It comes in both self adhesive form and non. The SY is the self adhesive.
The loose insulation won't really stop sound going from the fans to the room, but it will stop the sound bouncing around inside the box (causing more noise), so you do want it.
The usual method would be to have a box (as you have) and then tecsound or green glue (or both) between that box and a 2nd layer (I have some of your gg left if you need any).

Re multiple layers: Do you mean sticking tecsound to the actual fans?


As a reminder, the first fan draws air from the adjacent room and then vents it behind the projector intake vents.
And then another fan extracts right?
 
Yes, there is a second fan, in the soffit above the screen. It draws the air from the back of the room, above the cab, and vents above the screen wall and then outside.

Yes, I’m thinking of sticking the tecsound directly to the fan. Just making sure I can get to that circular connection section but then wrapping in a couple of layers of the stuff. could possibly even wrap some around the ducts.
I think the issue is, that I’ve added mass, but there are gaps. That lead section is a decent fit but it’s not sealed around the edges, so there are places where its just 12mm MDF.
 
I'm not convinced wrapping it will work. Why can't you seal the gaps?

I can go back and seal gaps but I didn’t at the time. For example, I slid that led panel underneath the fan, but didn’t seal where the panel met joists of the soffit.

Why don’t you think wrapping the fan will make a difference? Surely it’ll muffle the sound somewhat?

Tecsound also do a pipe wrap product that I looked at.
 
I can go back and seal gaps but I didn’t at the time. For example, I slid that led panel underneath the fan, but didn’t seal where the panel met joists of the soffit.
Well you already know enough about soundproofing - gaps are an issue, so sealing them would be good.


Why don’t you think wrapping the fan will make a difference? Surely it’ll muffle the sound somewhat?
Just know that if you put the sticky tecsound on, you won't be getting it off without leaving the fans in a state. As for how well it would work, I guess it depends where the noise is coming from. They will add mass, and probably stop rattling (not that I imagine there is any), but if there's a whine coming from the motor they'll only stop it a bit - less than if they were installed between two sheets of boards. Honestly I imagine your guess is better than mine since you can see and hear what's happening and I'm guessing. But to clarify, they're designed to go between 2 sheets, such that they dampen the movement, and also add mass. They would no doubt have some soundproofing qualities if applied directly to a fan, and long as the sound isn't getting out elsewhere (like through the pipe).

I assume there's a reason you can't simply add tecsound and then another layer of sheet to the boxing you have, so whatever you can do should help.
 
Thanks for your thoughts @Triggaaar

I built the soffits to the dimensions of the fans, so there is very little additional room to now add extra layers. Until I take it apart I don't know exactly how tight, so maybe an extra layer is possible. I definitely think there are things I can do that will help a little. The benefit of the tecsound is that it's so thin despite having so much mass.

My wife can't really hear it at all and my son said he can't believe I'm thinking of taking stuff apart as he can't hear it once a film s on. They may have a point... I think if an offcut comes up locally I might be willing to have a mess and see what's viable though.

My dad came over the other day and adjusted the door latch by a few mm. It now closes much tighter and the difference that 2mm has made is quite shocking. Again, maybe I could add tecsound or something to it in the future, but it's really quite effective for what I need and I've still not fitted the drop down seal. Amazing how much sound was escaping through that tiny gap though.
 
My wife can't really hear it at all and my son said he can't believe I'm thinking of taking stuff apart as he can't hear it once a film s on. They may have a point... I think if an offcut comes up locally I might be willing to have a mess and see what's viable though.
Sounds like a plan.

My dad came over the other day and adjusted the door latch by a few mm. It now closes much tighter and the difference that 2mm has made is quite shocking.

I'm surprised you're surprised - it's like if you had a bucket with a small hole in, and how much improvement fixing the tiny hole makes. If there's a gap, sound gets out. Maybe 2 layers with tecsound in-between is overkill, and all you really need is to sort the weakest parts.
 
How much do you need to spend to split an HDMI signal (2 outputs) reliably?

I tried a simple splitter adaptor thing once before but it was pretty flaky.

I want to split the HDMI output from the Virgin V6 box and send one to my Denon 4400 for the Cinema room and one for the Denon 2400 (next to it), which goes to the TV on the adjoining wall.

Currently I've got the HDMI going like this:

Virgin box > Denon 4400 HDMI Input > Denon 4400 HDMI 2 Out > Denon 2400 > TV

This allows me to turn both amps and watch in either room or both. But I'm getting some audio drop outs, I think the cables are too long/too many changes. What's the cheapest way to reliably get HDMI from the Virgin box to both amps?
 
Like a big kid on Xmas Eve.

Awaiting delivery of two parcels. Does anyone else keep going back and refreshing the tracking info, in the hope that it's a little closer? :D

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The good news is the first parcel has arrived and is now sat in my office.

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The bad news is that there is no way it will fit in my car, so it’ll have to sit here until tomorrow when I can borrow my wife’s car.

I’ve had to explain to the lady in the front office what a subwoofer was. 😂
 

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