What to do? Open space, some wife rules, no Corvettes...

[The DirtMerchant]

OK...I started a Subwoofer thread...but now have moved on to questions about what to do, how to do it, and to keep it cheap and relatively simple.


The elsewhere posted rudimentary layout of my basement ^.
Currently, the SUB will be tucked into the upper right corner of the 29x28 room with the display either on the "upper" or "right" wall.
Seating about 10 ft away from the display.

Any general thoughts on somewhere else I should place the display? Reasons? Somewhere noticeably acoustically better?

Next...general thoughts on what to do to make this the best I can (again, cheap and simple). A dedicated acoustically treated custom built room is a pipe dream
for now. Flint mentioned the ceiling tiles, fiberglass batting will make a great bass trap. I'm thinking, depending on upper/right wall display placement, that I can build
some acoustic treatments for one side of the speakers (either right/left)...what else can I do? Should I do? What's the order of operations?

I have a 60" display, 4 Mackie HR824s, 1 SVS PB12/2...

I'm slightly bothered by my speaker interconnects. Custom length RCA cables from Bluejeans. They're awesome quality wise...but now with a new place/layout/furniture for everything, my processor is no longer the same distance from my fronts/rears. So the custom length cable is...the wrong custom. I probably should have put a few feet of wiggle room on it. Ah well, served its purpose for nearly a decade...maybe actually more. I'll probably use the cables for my rear speakers for the fronts, those were substantially longer...and get new ones for the rear...maybe.

 

[Batman]

If it were me, and the acoustic guys can chime in if theres reasons not to acoustically....but I’d put the display on the adjacent wall in the same corner. I believe it gives you a better layout and overall functionality now, that also gives you more flexibility for future upgrades. Bigger display or projector down the road? No problem. Need to move the seats back or add more? No problem...people in the back of the viewing area want to see the display? No support pole....that’s my 2¢ for now.

 

[Towen7]

I’d put the display in the center of the 28’ wall and the seating up against the supports. In my experience 10’ is a pretty optimal distance.

 

[mzpro5]

My setup is in a siilar sized room. My display is in the center of the 28' wall. seating about 12 feet away and sub in the right corner of the wall where the display is.

 

[Flint]

That's a large space.

A few questions:
1) Do you want to design for an ideal experience for a single person with seating for 3 to 5 people? Or, do you want to design for decent performance for 2 to 4 people? Or, do you want a party room with not terrible performance for 7 or more people?
2) Do you want the most ideal stereo music listening experience, or just something that does movies justice in surround sound?
3) How much of the room can you dedicate to the A/V setup?

 

[Randy]

I’d put the display in the center of the 28’ wall and the seating up against the supports. In my experience 10’ is a pretty optimal distance.

That is almost exactly what I did in my basement. The family room down there is roughly 25'x25' with dupports in the middle.

I have a 55" RPTV down there still, but someday I will update the display and modernize the look and feel of the room.

 

[The DirtMerchant]

That's a large space.

A few questions:
1) Do you want to design for an ideal experience for a single person with seating for 3 to 5 people? Or, do you want to design for decent performance for 2 to 4 people? Or, do you want a party room with not terrible performance for 7 or more people?
2) Do you want the most ideal stereo music listening experience, or just something that does movies justice in surround sound?
3) How much of the room can you dedicate to the A/V setup?

I also forgot to mention...a 2 ft wide space, above the supports going across the entire room, the drop ceiling comes down to 6'...
I believe the large return duct and other utility stuff is there...


1) I'd say...what's the difference (in setup) between ideal for 1 w/ seating for 3-5 and decent for 2-4?
Again, i'm not able to build walls or anything here (yet).

2) Does movies justice in surround sound

3) Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 depending on orientation of the display...say if the display was on the upper part of the right wall, closest to the corner...I could use the half of the room upwards of the supports. However, if the display is on the upper wall...using half...wouldn't quite fit with the expected traffic and setup of the whole basement...BUT...I'm open to listening

 

[Flint]

Okay…. This is difficult. If you want to get the most engrossing surround audio illusion effect, you need a symmetrical space. The distance from the left and right speakers to the nearest walls need to be identical. So, if you are not building walls, you need to put the TV on the center of one of the walls - in this case the "upper" 28 foot wall is the most obvious. But, if you cannot use the entire "upper" half of the room as the viewing area (which is what I'd do - and I think it would be amazing!), then I guess you have to whatever works.

Keep in mind, all the of the speakers which are significantly closer to a side wall than the others will sound "heavier" with stronger and "phatter" bass. They will also present difficulty in adjusting the levels because the bass is likely to cause a gain artifacts which make them measure louder than the others. You can still make it work, but you may have to manually adjust some of the levels.

So, without adding walls, I'd put the TV on the center of the "upper" 2 foot wall and arrange the speakers accordingly.

If you intend to add wall and make a new room for the theater, then you want the largest portion you can make a contiguous space in. The "upper right" area could be turned into a 17' x 14' space, which just so happens to be the same size as my listening room. I can very comfortably seat 3 people and by bringing in comfortable chair to make a second row I can get four more in the room fairly easily with good results.

 

[The DirtMerchant]

Okay…. This is difficult. If you want to get the most engrossing surround audio illusion effect, you need a symmetrical space. The distance from the left and right speakers to the nearest walls need to be identical. So, if you are not building walls, you need to put the TV on the center of one of the walls - in this case the "upper" 28 foot wall is the most obvious. But, if you cannot use the entire "upper" half of the room as the viewing area (which is what I'd do - and I think it would be amazing!), then I guess you have to whatever works.

Keep in mind, all the of the speakers which are significantly closer to a side wall than the others will sound "heavier" with stronger and "phatter" bass. They will also present difficulty in adjusting the levels because the bass is likely to cause a gain artifacts which make them measure louder than the others. You can still make it work, but you may have to manually adjust some of the levels.

So, without adding walls, I'd put the TV on the center of the "upper" 2 foot wall and arrange the speakers accordingly.

If you intend to add wall and make a new room for the theater, then you want the largest portion you can make a contiguous space in. The "upper right" area could be turned into a 17' x 14' space, which just so happens to be the same size as my listening room. I can very comfortably seat 3 people and by bringing in comfortable chair to make a second row I can get four more in the room fairly easily with good results.

Flint,
What's the delineation "ideal for 1 w/ seating for 3-5 and decent for 2-4"?
Is the add wall and make a new room for theater with 17' x 14' the "ideal for 1 w/ seating for 3-5"?
Or is the mid "upper" wall display w/ speakers set accordingly the "ideal"?


I'd say the mid-28' wall is doable. Does the sub stay tucked into the upper right corner?
Considering how far away the R/L walls will be from the speakers...does that take away the necessity of acoustic panels on those walls?

 

[The DirtMerchant]

Bump...been a while.
The TV is in the middle of the upper 28' wall.
I have not been able to put in the rears because I have no power near the speaker locations.
Is it a bad idea to "temporarily" run an extension cord from the front outlets, up into the drop ceiling and back then down to the rears?
I'd like to get them set up so I can have surround sound going and then at some point run electrical and put in outlets.