Home "theaters"

Re: Home "theaters"

Craig Hauber said:
-that's useful, no wires connected to those breakers! :-)

And totally unnecessary amount of power as I just helped our local theater upgrade to a new digital projector and the whole rig with new JBL mains and surrounds with a new Christie digital projector didn't even use up the single-phase 100A service the 1914 building has!
-and they can seat more than 125 people with it getting loud enough for people to get up and complain. (If the projection booth has more than 3 20A outlets I would be amazed)

And seriously, Eaton homeline panel? -can you go any cheaper? (Where's the Square-D QO bolt-on breakers if you really want to impress people with your money-spending skills!) -and what's with the double breakers when you have all those empty slots?
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The photos were before it was wired up-hence the reason the wires were just "hanging there".

And this guy run his theater waaayyyyy louder than a normal loud theater. I think he also has bass response down below 10Hz LOUD.

Yes this is not "normal", but there are a number of guys out there doing this sort of thing.

So it all depends on what you want/expect out of a home theater. Different strokes for different folks.

Personally I watch a movie in mine once a year or so. I just have other things to do.
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Ivan Beaver said:
The photos were before it was wired up-hence the reason the wires were just "hanging there".

And this guy run his theater waaayyyyy louder than a normal loud theater. I think he also has bass response down below 10Hz LOUD.

Yes this is not "normal", but there are a number of guys out there doing this sort of thing.

So it all depends on what you want/expect out of a home theater. Different strokes for different folks.

Personally I watch a movie in mine once a year or so. I just have other things to do.
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Well, his home theater better seat a few hundred, because I could run a TON off of that amount of current… so much to the point I'd be worrying about excess capacity…
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Max Warasila said:
Well, his home theater better seat a few hundred, because I could run a TON off of that amount of current… so much to the point I'd be worrying about excess capacity…
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I am not sure-but I think it maybe be 20 or so.

The levels some of these guys run is higher (and MUCH LOWER FREQ) than regular "PA rigs".

Part of the reason for all the power is the low sensitivity (in order to get the low freq response)
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Here is another "little home theater". There are 16x18" drivers (8 behind the couch) in this 13.5' x14' room. And it looks like it seats 4 or 5 people.

It would make a good drum monitor----------------
 

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Re: Home "theaters"

Thanks guys. To answer some questions-

-Budget is maybe a grand or so. Not looking to spend a ton.

-SPL is important(go figure): 100dB or so at couch position would be nice.

-If the system gets down to 30hz happily, I'll be happy.


Honestly, I'm probably going to voice this system like a concert rig and just crank the shit out of it all the time. :lol: So, I'm thinking building a L/R, buying 2 surrounds and saying fuck the center channel would be fine with me. Just need to figure out how to make it all work together, and not take over the living room...




Evan
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Evan Kirkendall said:
saying fuck the center channel would be fine with me. Just need to figure out how to make it all work together, and not take over the living room
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Well I would look into the DTS what ever decoder you end up getting before saying fuck the center channel and make sure it will rematrix the mix correctly.

As an aside. After reading this thread, I was testing out the two little LR speakers I made with a 5.1 movie, and have to agree the L/R/C should all be the same to preserve the panning effects in a lot of films. Or they should at least all be EQ'd equal when not watching TV.

Mark
 
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Re: Home "theaters"

Evan Kirkendall said:
So, I'm thinking building a L/R, buying 2 surrounds and saying fuck the center channel would be fine with me.
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Personally I would always rather have two really good L/R and no C than mismatched L/C/R. The imaging available off good L/R speakers is way better and more consistent than an average Center channel, and in most home theaters it will work fine because most viewers are reasonably on axis. The surrounds are mostly for fun and effects so also a fine place to save some cost. Of course, the guys who are mastering the stuff you're watching are using all matched components, all of which do 30Hz for real, and listening at about 87dB.
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Bennett Prescott said:
Personally I would always rather have two really good L/R and no C than mismatched L/C/R. The imaging available off good L/R speakers is way better and more consistent than an average Center channel, and in most home theaters it will work fine because most viewers are reasonably on axis. The surrounds are mostly for fun and effects so also a fine place to save some cost. Of course, the guys who are mastering the stuff you're watching are using all matched components, all of which do 30Hz for real, and listening at about 87dB.
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So what's with the HT crowd that insists that the typical SPL should be 107dB?
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Tim McCulloch said:
So what's with the HT crowd that insists that the typical SPL should be 107dB?
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Probably they have noisy rooms, every real mastering room I have seen is NC-30 at worst. Also, I have yet to see a piece of consumer gear that would do that kind of level in a typical home theater where the listener is 6dB away from the speakers at least. Most of these speakers will do about 105 at 1M. Perhaps they are including subwoofers in their statement, in which case I think they should add at least 10dB ;)
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Tim McCulloch said:
So what's with the HT crowd that insists that the typical SPL should be 107dB?
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If they're following industry conventions (whether they know it or not), true cinema calibration as per SMPTE 202-M spec is 85 dB-C slow, with 20 dB of headroom. The LFE track is +10dB of in-band gain, so it measures out at something in the neighborhood of 91 dB-C slow, also with a 20dB headroom capability.

There are options to do various small room SPL calibrations (82 and 79), but I doubt there's many home theater systems that are calibrated as such. So yes, if any real HT system designer is trying to follow spec, 107 dB is not an unrealistic number to be able to hit.
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Brian Bolly said:
If they're following industry conventions (whether they know it or not), true cinema calibration as per SMPTE 202-M spec is 85 dB-C slow, with 20 dB of headroom. The LFE track is +10dB of in-band gain, so it measures out at something in the neighborhood of 91 dB-C slow, also with a 20dB headroom capability.

There are options to do various small room SPL calibrations (82 and 79), but I doubt there's many home theater systems that are calibrated as such. So yes, if any real HT system designer is trying to follow spec, 107 dB is not an unrealistic number to be able to hit.
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As a peak target I have no problem, I'm referring to some of the "mine is bigger than yours" modes of operation. I really don't need or like dialog averaging 100dBa...
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Evan Kirkendall said:
saying fuck the center channel would be fine with me
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For what it's worth, I watch movies in my (~18 x ~23 ft.) living room on an ~8 ft. wide screen with NO center channel, using just the L/R that
comes out of the S/PDIF on the DVD player. Now, I do tend to sit within about 2ms of the central axis, but it never occurs to me that
dialog is coming from anywhere other than the people talking on the screen. The screen is ~6 ft off the front wall and the couch is ~6 ft
off the back wall. The speakers are flown a little below mid-height in the front corners of the room. I don't watch a lot of "action" movies -- mostly dramas and documentaries.

--Frank
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Frank Koenig said:
For what it's worth, I watch movies in my (~18 x ~23 ft.) living room on an ~8 ft. wide screen with NO center channel, using just the L/R that
comes out of the S/PDIF on the DVD player. Now, I do tend to sit within about 2ms of the central axis, but it never occurs to me that
dialog is coming from anywhere other than the people talking on the screen. The screen is ~6 ft off the front wall and the couch is ~6 ft
off the back wall. The speakers are flown a little below mid-height in the front corners of the room. I don't watch a lot of "action" movies -- mostly dramas and documentaries.

--Frank
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I know this isn't the home theater forum, and I will confess that I am not even a novice in the subject, but I was under the impression that a lot of the audio mixes on DVD / Blueray / etc. were 5.1 or more. Which to me means that someone sat there and came up with a mix, including the center channel. When I watch TV, I was under the impression that the center was constructed by the receiver unless I paid extra to the cable company to deliver a full digital multi-channel audio stream.

Experimentally I tested this, by watching TV with the comcast cable box, which only outputs two channels. Then I put in a DTS encoded DVD movie which only output its data over the SPDIF link to the amplifier/decoder. I also run into this, when I sit in my office at night and watch a movie on my headphones while I'm working. I thought that movies sounded really bad until I downloaded a plugin to rematrix the audio output down to stereo.

So my question is.... If you only have a L/R channel for a 5.1 encoded movie, how does the decoder rematrix, if it does at all? Because the guy which produced the mix for a 5.1 encoded film intended for there to be a center, what are you loosing by removing it and rematrixing? And etc.
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Tim McCulloch said:
As a peak target I have no problem, I'm referring to some of the "mine is bigger than yours" modes of operation. I really don't need or like dialog averaging 100dBa...
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The guys that have the massive systems typically down't watch "movies".

They sit around and watch the action clips. And skip forward through the "boring stuff".

I know-back when we used movies for a lot of demos all we showed were the "cool fun parts".
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Ivan Beaver said:
The guys that have the massive systems typically down't watch "movies".

They sit around and watch the action clips. And skip forward through the "boring stuff".

I know-back when we used movies for a lot of demos all we showed were the "cool fun parts".
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Just like the crazy high end audiophiles don't listen like you or I, they mess around with gear for a few weeks and then play a track or two to confirm their prejudices.
 
Re: Home "theaters"

Evan Kirkendall said:
Thanks guys. To answer some questions-

-Budget is maybe a grand or so. Not looking to spend a ton.

-SPL is important(go figure): 100dB or so at couch position would be nice.

-If the system gets down to 30hz happily, I'll be happy.


Honestly, I'm probably going to voice this system like a concert rig and just crank the shit out of it all the time. :lol: So, I'm thinking building a L/R, buying 2 surrounds and saying fuck the center channel would be fine with me. Just need to figure out how to make it all work together, and not take over the living room...




Evan
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As much as I'd like the room for a Danley HT system, I went along Mark's route with small coaxial drivers. My family room is 15'x15', with a fireplace to the left of the stystem shown in the corner of the room. I made the cabinet originally for a 36" Sony flat CRT television that weighed 250lbs. The cabinet is cherry veneered baltic birch, with a stiffening rib underneath the bottom shelf. It all rolls on Colson 3.5" casters.
The speakers are Eminence 8" coaxials, in vented cabinets, that I finished in Cherry veneer also. I used a commercially available ceiling mount for the center speaker, and it is anchored into added lumber tied into the joists. The L/C/R are pretty efficient. The sub is a 12" Acoustic Elegance AV-12 in a 2.5" cuft sealed enclosure with a 200 watt plate amp from Parts Express. It would normally be the speaker stand for the right channel speaker, but is out getting finished after I finally veneered the MDF cabinet in Cherry as well.
Rear speakers are QSC 12" coax ceiling mount, as I do not have any room for surrounds in cabinets on the floor. The window behind me in the pic is mostly glass. We invested in room darkening shades.
 

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