Projector cradle

Here are some pics of the cradle I have used for my projector to invert it on a shelf.

an old pic from my previous house where I could not ceiling mount the projector.

I fitted a velcro strap for extra security as well (visible if you click and enlarge the pic).

Some upgrades to my HT

Prior to construction of the room interior you can see the large window area I needed to manage. I have blocked these with MDF and filled the window cavity with insulation. I used white blockout material against the glass so it looks fine from outside. The blocked out windows and rear bass traps are visible in the below pics of the hushbox. I'm actually planning on replacing the MDF with heavy full length drapes to reclaim use of the windows.

I did not upload pics of my upholstered acoustic panels initially but here is a picture of the uncovered timber frame with insulation in place.

I have material to construct a set for the ceiling first reflection points but have yet to make them (deciding how long I'll be staying in this home).

In my interest to remove unwated noise I have constructed a hush-box for my projector. The flexy rack I built formed the base and I mounted it to the rack using the 4 vertical rods.

For airflow I am using 2x noctua 120mm DC fans which are operated by a relay; one at the projector intake and one at the exhaust point. The relay is powered by a 1.5A plug-pack (from jaycar) and switched by the 12v trigger on the projector.

I use the same setup in my equipment rack to run 2 fans when the AVR is powered on.

The relay I use is: http://www.ultrasmart.org/ they have a selection of self contained relays with back EMF protection etc. All you need to do is screw in the wires...

Pictures of the hush box:

I have added a small Nettop and an LCD panel to my Rack for playing music.

Some extra Pics...

I have been enjoying watching films and listening to music in my room. It's great being at the point where I can take a break from some of the construction and use the room again.

I'm hoping to have some in-room response graphs soon but for now I'll just post a pic or two of a few areas folks have asked to see.

The construction and finish of the front wall:

This pic shows some of the panels and how I have fitted the faissure and kick

plate at the base.

Another of the panels being built:

Almost Finished.... Some updates and new pics

The basic room layout is complete and I have installed my gear.


Remaining tasks are:

• ceiling absorbers
• window plugs
• projector mount

The false wall I built has turned out amazingly well. The panels fit flush with one-another and I only had one or two places where very slight gaps occured. The screen covers these so I am very pleased overall. With the kick plate and faissure in place the effect is one of the wall being a part of the room. Visitors haven't even realised it is a false wall until noise starts coming out of it.

In the right lighting the AT panels are slightly transluscent and an outline of the speaker behind can be seen. Not a big enough issue to be a concern.

I have removed all speaker grills on the front stage so only one layer of material is passed through. Testing with a panel loose I cannot detect any losss of detail in the sound.

Sub-placement was an issue to start with. The downfiring woofer of the SVS PB-12 Plus created an issue due to the placement of the sub between the AT wall and the rooms front wall. The double layer of 4x2 and 90mm kick plate at the base of the AT wall blocked the space around the sub. In consultation with Ed Mullins from SVS I tipped the sub on its front end. I have some light material draped over the 3 ports to prevent dust or other objects dropping inside by accident.

This pic shows the sub and the other speakers behind the false wall. Below is another showing the front speaker placement with the AT panel removed (this is also my access-way behind the wall).

Initially I was not happy with the level of bass in the room - even after audyssey calibration. I did some measurements and realised I had the sub in a bad position on the front wall. Shifting it about 10" toward the corner corrected the issue. The bass is now quite even around the listening area. I can still hear further bass reinforcement as I move toward the opposite room corner (near the rack) and boundaries which is to be expected.

Watching Batman begins last night I found the bass to have real punch and a nice strong presence without being over-powering. This was at comfortable listening levels and not at reference. So I am very pleased :).

My Rack is almost finished. I have the IR re-transmitter in now and it makes life far easier. The natural convection and flow of air inside is better than I had predicted so I will need less fans than I allocated for as well (none in winter I would say in fact). Some tidying of cables will be required and I have gone to HDMI on more of my sources so less clutter is present.

For SACD listening I made a cable from a 12 core A/V lead. I simply cut off most of the unnecessary leads and used a few layers of heat-shrink on each to allow for adequate cable relief. It works well and is a far neater solution than the 6 individual cables I had previously.

The screen went up easily and once I was settled in and finished with the audio calibration I used DVE to check where my projector was at. According to the test patterns and filters everything was still spot on. Unfortunately my small camera doesn't capture good screen images so I can't get anything worthy of posting :P.

Here are some random pcs of the room in general.... I think the rack appears to stand out a bit (it will be pushed back more once I stop fiddling) and I may use some fabric to cover the side and blend it in a bit more.

AT Wall

I'm just about finished my false wall to hide all of my gear behind the screen.

Materials used:

• 4x2 for the wall frame (horizontal base, vertical studs and top plate);



• 90mm x 19mm lengths for the kick plate and faisure;



• 40mm x 19mm lengths for the individual fabric covered panels;



• Black drill cotton;



• foam door seal strip (the cheap$3 per roll stuff);



• AT material (I bought panels 150cm x 100cm); and



• Velcro.

I bolted the top plate to the roof, securing it into the trusses. The bottom plate is of double thickness and compressed into the carpet by the studs (though not too much as I don't want to lift my roof :P). It actually sits very securely and with the weight mounted on the outside I have found a few timber spaces all that is required to prevent it swinging inward. I used screws to assemble the frame as nails are too much of a hassle if any modifications are required.

The kick-plate and faisure were cut to length, shaped to fit the cornice and skirting board, painted and then nailed on with with nail-gun. Due to an uneven ceiling contour I ran a strip of the foam door sealer along the top edge and compressed it as I nailed the faisure. It matches the ceiling colour well and makes for a cleaner finish. A thin wooden bead may have worked well also.

The size of the material (width of the cotton and the panel sizes for the AT material) determined my critical path for the front panels. I arranged a design based on these limitations and the placement of the L-C-R speakers.

A drop-saw, nail gun and staple gun were my main tools. I measured up and produced the frames in stages to check the fit. This allowed me to compensate for the thickness of material. I would not recommend making all of your frames in one hit as I have had to compensate for slight variations along the way.

This pic here shows the false wall which is about 50cm from the room boundary wall. The centre panel which will be covered with AT material is sitting in amongst the completed panels (The AT material is slightly transparent so I had to paint the frame and any surrounding timber matt black).

Tensioning fabric can lead to bowing of the frames. A cross brace will solve this, but for the AT panels where this was not suitable I have produced some spring clips from flat timber joiners (bent 90 degrees and shaped with a spring entry) to clip the panel into and force the bow out of it. A small pic of one of the clips is below. The flat piece screws to the face of the stud and the bent part pushes the bowed panel up against the adjacent panel.

The net result is a wall of tight fitting panels. I have also used velcro to fasten all of the panels to the wall. I opted to use velcro over cupboard clips or magnets to avoid any rattles.

I now realise the screen will cover the panels I had chosen for access so I'll have to remove the screen to get in behind and adjust speakers or play around. Thankfully it hangs on 2 mounts like a picture and can be easily removed.

Cabling

Thankfully my roof is easilly navigated and insulation is simple to move around.

First comment... I hate noggins.

I am running 5.1 currently but decided to wire for 7.1. The cable I am using is nice heavy duty stuff of the type used in large commerical installations. I got a good deal on some off-cuts.

In the corner where my rack will sit I have a LAN point, Fox/FTA, single gang power (to run power up to my projector from my power conditioner), and a 2 gang power socket to be wired in later. Below that is the HDMI wall-plate and a speaker plate fitted for 7.1.

I did run into a hick-up with the HDMI wall-plate. A tip for anyone installing one of these... make sure you have a flexible HDMI cable and be cautious of how 'low profile' the female connector in the wall is. I have a thick 10m Kordz cable and I found that there was insufficient space to insert the cable. The cable mounts vertically into the plate... absolute genius when you consider that a screw penetrates through the wall into the c-mount.

I modified the cable connector and strain relief to allow it to connect and then cut the screw short so it didn't foul the cable. No pic sorry and I don't want to undo it again! It's in nice and tight...

Here is the finished setup at the source end.

And another pic of the wall-plates at the speakers. You can also see the surround brackets I am using. These are actually TV stands. I opted to use them because of the size of the surrounds and not wanting to drill them for other styles of speaker mount. The added benefit of this mount is that when I place speakers for 7.1 I can swivel the mount forward, thus moving the surrounds from behind the listening position to 90 degrees (the suggested location for side surrounds).

Acoustic baffles

I planned to use a mixture of foam and semi-rigid fiberglass for my absorbers and bass traps. Once the basic room is in place I will evaluate the need for any diffusers.

My corner bass traps are of two types:

1. Foam. 35kg/m^3 if I recall correctly. cut into a triangle column 2.4m high (I have 2 of these).

2. Behind my front wall I have 2 BT's made from materials I had been using in my last HT. Aesthetics is not a concern for these so I did not spend extra on more foam.

• 2.4m trap made from semi-rigid fiberlgass, and



• another of similar dimensions made from rockwool (had to wrap this in chicken wire as it is not rigid enough to be free standing).

Both are wraped in dacron.

This is a pic of my absorbers for first reflections. I used an upholstry fabric. I don't think the pic does it justice. It looks very nice in the room. The ceiling panels will have a plain dark colour.

Painting and carpeting

I chose a puple based colour called 'Fable' (Taubmans) for the walls. Roof, skirting and cornice are painted 'Mojo' which is a very dark bluish colour as opposed to a grey/black. It's dark like I wanted but doesn't make the room feel like a bat cave.

Carpet is a purple in keeping with my theme...

I had no light installed at this point so working in the room was a pain at night, even with some stand lights (I have a bright halogen that just about burnt out my retina each time I looked at

it).

How it started.

My room is 5m x 5.28m. Double door entry and 2 large floor to ceiling windows on one wall (the longer wall).

My concept for the room was to place carpet, repaint in darker colours, produce a false wall (with acoustically transparent panels) upon which the screen would mount. Speakers, bass traps and other acoustic baffles would be behind the false wall. Both windows are to be plugged.

Further down the track I may replace my Evo3D fabric with an AT screen so I can mount the centre channel behind it and remove the screen as a reflector in the room. I'll see how the rest pans out first :)

All of my gear will go into a large 41RU rack I acquired with fan ventilation into the ceiling.

Cables are to be fitted into the walls and ceiling where possible.

This image shows the bare concrete. I forgot to take a pic of the floor after I busted up all of the tiles. That was a Pr#%& of a job and created a huge mess. Fortunately I kept it out of the rest of the house.

The concrete you can see here is self leveling cement we placed down to ensure the carpet could be well laid. I wanted to avoid raising the floor level too much (else I may as well have left the tiles) so I thinned this out quite a bit.

The beginning....

I initially had all of my gear packed away but not owning a tv, I felt the need to have something to watch of an evening. Here is my temporary setup.

Before I get into any detail I want tog et a few acknowledgements out of the way....

My dad for his time and practical advice.

Mark Techer of CAVX. A good mate who has been a sounding board for ideas.

Dean for the cabling he provided as well as instruction from an installers perspective.

Andrew Steel of Ultrafonic. Very passionate about his work; Andrew provided a lot of guidance and time. Great bunch of guys there although I don't think they normally do small stuff like my room :).

Some of the gear I have:

BenQ PE8720 Projector;

Aussiemorphic lens;

2.37:1 screen (1m x 2.37m) from OzHT.

Integra DTR-7.8 & Elektra Theatron power amp;

Toshiba HD DVD player, PS3 for Blu-Ray, Marantz DV9500 (I use this for music) and an LG HDTV receiver.

Dynaudio Focus series speakers - 220 floor-standers, 220C Centre, 110's in surround;

SVS PB12 plus sub-woofer

My Home Theatre Project

Hi,

this blog is something I'm putting together to share some of my hobbies with people. Being an avid home theatre fan I have decided to produce a diary of my project to create a dedicate HT room from an existing rumpus room area.

I'm new to blogging so bear with me :)