How to build a dedicated home theatre

[Prof]

Firstly to clarify, "a dedicated home theatre" means that the room you will be using will only be used for watching movies and perhaps some TV..

A home theatre can range in price from approximately $5000 - $500,000 and more !! Some American home theatres cost over 1 million dollars !!

This tutorial will describe how to build the lower end of the range..

Firstly you will need to find a suitable room..The bigger the better, but it must have four walls and a door..Open rooms connecting other rooms will not be suitable..

The other aspect of a suitable room is whether you need the theatre room acoustically removed from the rest of the house..

This requires an additional construction to the room to isolate it from the other rooms..

I will include briefly what needs to be done, but for the most part I will proceed on the basis that this will not be needed..

There are a variety of building materials that are used to construct rooms in a house..Timber or steel framing with plasterboard walls, or brick or concrete block walls..

Each of them have their own acoustic values..

The stages of the building process...

1. Selecting the room..

2. Acoustically isolating the room..

3. Selecting the wall and ceiling paint or fabric coverings..

4. Choosing the type of floor coverings..

5. Setting up the front of room for screen and speakers..

6. D.I.Y the screen or purchasing a commercially made screen..

7. Adding acoustic panels on the side walls..

8. Adding acoustic panels in the front corners..

9. Adding acoustic panels to the rear of the room..

10. Selecting the front speakers..

11. Selecting the surround speakers..

12. Selecting the subwoofer..

13. Choosing the lighting..

14..Selecting Amplifier/ receiver..and ancillary equipment

15. Selecting Blu-ray player..

16. Programming the whole system..

So as you can see there is a lot to building a dedicated home theatre..But the end result is a very satisfying movie experience.. 

More to follow..

[Noyade]

G'day Eric!

Many thanks for the manual! 😁

"I suggest transferring them to the front post connectors rather than the surround posts."

I have done that - but there's only room for two speakers?

So my question above was where do I put the other two - based on what the Prof says above, I'm limited. I went with SURROUND L & R as seen above.

Seems to work, but not as loud. However they are different speakers - in fact, they were the last outdoor speakers at the local Bunnings. I believe they're all only available online now?

Cheers

Graeme.

[EricL]

Hi @Noyade

If you've already got the front speakers occupied your only choice is to use the surround posts. The adjustment setup for the surround speakers is located on pages 42 and 43 of the manual. I suggest choosing large surround speakers and adjusting the volume accordingly if possible. The @Prof was right it was called a YPAO setup but I suggest doing it manually as you don't have the adjusting microphone that comes with the unit.

Eric

[Prof]

Noyade...If you want to hook up just four main speakers and no surrounds, you can connect all four speakers to those two terminals..

 Just make sure you connect the two positives to the positive terminal and the negatives to the negative terminal..

Making connections in this way will halve the impedance of the speakers and that will increase the sound level..

[Noyade]

Thanks Prof and Eric.

"you can connect all four speakers to those two terminals.."

Thank you for that! I'll give it a go!

EDIT: 1535 hrs > It works a treat! Thanks very much!  😁👍

[Prof]

THE LIGHTING...

This can be a very personal thing and everyone has their own idea on lighting choices..

There are three main aspects to the lighting..

1..Overhead light /lights..

2..Sconce lighting..

3..Downlights..

It is advisable to have a main overhead light of some sort so when you first enter the theatre you can turn on some lighting..

Most times when you enter the theatre it will be completely dark when you first go in, so you don't want to be fishing around to find a light switch...
I have a wall mounted sensor switch just inside the door that you just run your hand over and the light turns on..

It also has a remote that I can use to switch off the light when seated..

I don't use sconces in this theatre because the diffusers take up a lot of room..
There is a huge variety of wall mounted sconces, so it's just what appeals to you..They are there for just esthetics

Downlights are probably the most used and needed in home theatres.

They can provide lighting down the screen if you have some sort of soffit or ceiling tray above the screen..They also emphasize the screen and it's size..and give a dramatic effect to the overall front area..

The other location for downlights is along the sidewalls in either soffits or ceiling trays..Spaced evenly along the walls gives a nice effect and illuminates the room very nicely..

All of these lighting systems can be controlled combined or individually..

I'll talk more about that in later posts..

[Prof]

SELECTING THE RECEIVER and ANCILLARY EQUIPMENT..

There is a huge range of receivers to chose from..and it can be quite confusing..

The first thing to take into consideration is the size of your room..

If it's a very large room then a receiver with 50W./ch is not going to do the job..

Conversely..Having 200W./ch in a small room is a bit over the top.!

Generally a receiver rated at approx. 150W/ch. will be suitable for most rooms..

There is also quite a number of different brands to choose from..Some are very good for theatre sound but some brands are more suited to stereo music..By that I mean they generally have a more mellow sound than home theatre receivers..

There has been a lot of controversy over the  years as to whether different brands of receivers have their own "sound" or not.!!

Personally I believe they do..after hearing many brands over the decades..!!

On that basis my choices for a receiver for home theatre is..

Yamaha

Marantz

Pioneer

Denon

Generally speaking..If your budget for your whole home theatre equipment was $10,000..then you would allocate approx. $4000 for all your speakers..and $2000 for the receiver..

The other $4000 would be used for blu-ray player..digital TV tuner..subwoofer equalizer..lighting controllers..wireless remote extender..programmable universal remote..and ancillary power blocks and wiring..

That gives you an idea of what the ratio of costs are within a budget..From there you can adjust your own budget..

[MitchellMc]

Another fantastic instalment @Prof! 

Many thanks for taking the time to share your expert knowledge.

Mitchell

[Prof]

Thanks Mitchell...Happy to do it...

[Prof]

THE BLU-RAY PLAYER..

This would seem not to be of any particularly importance in the price of the equipment selections..but that would be very wrong..

You can pick up a player for about $250.00 that would do the job..but considering that there's a brand of a player called Oppo that sells for a minimum of $1000.00 and up to $2200.00..!! There has to be  a reason why this player is so expensive compared to the $250.00 player..

Well there is..I won't go into all the specs for these players..suffice to say these are the "state of the art" blu-ray players and are recognised  as such in mostl Western Countries...

If you have the money..buy one.. but if not there are some players that will be almost be as good for a lot less money.!

One brand that is accepted as the poor mans Oppo is the Panasonic range..Top of the line model is priced at $1900.00.. but you can still get excellent quality in the lower end of the price range..

I bought one for $550.00 and the picture quality and sound quality is excellent.!! I've had numerous blu-ray and dvd players over the years and this one is the best ever.!!

One word of advice..When installing any blu-ray players on a shelf or in a cabinet..always place a rubber mat underneath..

This will keep the unit stable from any vibrations..particularly those loud deep bass sounds.!!

Generally the feet that are on the player will not stop the player from vibrating...

The next and final stage of the dedicated home theatre is the programming of the whole system...This will be the most complicated aspect of the whole system..

You will require computer skills and a ready understanding of how programmable universal remotes are set up..

I will explain what is required and if you think it's too complicated for you I would suggest you get help from someone who has computer skills..or otherwise you can just use each individual remote that came with each piece of equipment..it will just be slower when you are changing between remotes..

[Noyade]

"but considering that there's a brand of a player called Oppo that sells for a minimum of $1000.00 and up to $2200.00..!!

If you have the money..buy one.."

Hi @Prof. 

Just a piece of thread drift on technology and money.

I remember being very excited when CD players came out. I thought the concept brilliant.

I went to Sydney and looked around many Hi-Fi stores and eventually chose a Sony over a Yamaha.

This was 1984.

Can't remember the Model, but it wasn't component size.

Once loaded - you could press play, stop, pause, forward/reverse tracks and eject.

No remote control.

Price back in 1984 was $749.

First CD was Van Halen.

I wish I could go back in time and get that money back.

Still have Van Halen's album - and it still works.