As promised, I will be giving updates on my progress on the theater room. I have not had time to set up another blog, so I will have to post it here for now... (Don't worry, for the hundred or so of you that received my wife's disclaimer email, I will keep it clean!)

Dad spent a couple of days with me to work on the theater room. I had put some pretty lofty goals in place as far as what I wanted to accomplish in the two days that I took off work. In no particular order, I wanted to finish:

Sound stage
Screen wall
Riser for second row of seating
Projector mount
In-wall wiring for surround sound and audio connections to projector/ A/V receiver

We didn't finish every item on the list, but we did get a lot accomplished. (Thanks, Dad)

[Image]

Here is the screen wall. This was built for two purposes. 1) The builder decided to send the water heater exhaust flumes through the front right corner of the room, making it impossible to mount a screen larger than 100" against the back wall. Since I plan on a 120" screen (1.78 ratio - that's 16:9, or HDTV, for those that don't know), I needed to build a "false wall" to mount the screen on. Fortunately, this allowed purpose 2) the use of an accoustically transparent screen. The bracket you see in the middle of the screen wall is where the center speaker will sit. This means that center channel audio / speech will come from behind the screen (not above or below), just like it would as the movies. Sweet.

[Image]

This is the sound stage. Sitting on two layers of carpet pad, it is a bottom layer of MDF, a plastic-lined interior filled with ~300 lbs of play sand, and topped with a layer of MDF. The purpose of the sound stage is for placement of the subwoofer - this is meant to dampen a vibrations from the subwoofer, so they are not to be felt throughout the house. They say that it can take 600 lbs. of sand to get the desired effect, but I am hoping that my smaller version will make at least some difference. Besides, my theater is on the second floor, so I didn't want to have too heafty of a sound stage.

[Image]

Projector mount. I wanted to conceal the ceiling plate in the attic, and only have the drop pipe visible. I should have taken a picture of the ceiling plate, because we did an excellent job with it. It basically is a Chief RPA-101 ceiling plate mounted to a 2x10 using rubber washers for dampening. The 2x10 was then laid across the ceiling joists (also with rubber washers between the joists and the 2x10), and the pipe was lowered through the ceiling. I am hoping that this eliminates any possible vibrations that may be transduced to the projector.

[Image]

All in all, I felt like we accomplised a great deal. Hopefully I will get some equipment in that room shortly (all of the equipment that is just sitting in the study), get it wired, and be able to enjoy a true home cinema.[Image]