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Need advice re:small room HT - new construction

DingDingDao

DingDingDao

Diamond Member
I'm about to start construction on a new house, and I'd like to set up a room for home theater. It's a pretty small room, however, 11'2" x 11'0". My plan for now is to get a Panny AE4000 ceiling-mounted and projecting a 95-105" screen. Not sure about sound, but I think my plan is to mount in-wall speakers for audio. I need some general advice, however, as this will be my first HT build.

1) With such a short throw (~10'), are there any caveats or pitfalls I need to be aware of, or can I achieve this screen size without too many problems?

2) My plan for the theater is to give myself a good upgrade path without having to invest too much money initially. However, what critical things (in-wall speakers, speaker wiring, HDMI, Cat6, etc) should I do during construction that would be much more difficult later on, after construction is complete?

3) I'm such a noob with this that I'm probably not aware of a thousand other issues. Any advice or big issues that I need to address RIGHT now that can't be easily corrected later on?

Thanks all.

UPDATE: New room size, 14'6" x 13'2".
 
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How much effort do you want to put into this?

Those room dimensions will be very challenging in terms of acoustics.

Is the room light controlled?

Budget?

Goals/Usage?
 
since you are building the house is there a chance you might have some leeway on the room dimensions? as tiamat said, your current dimensions will be pretty harmful to the sound (dimensions that are close to being multiples of one another will amplify room modes)

of course, this may not matter at all to you, but seeing as you are building, and are willing to spend $2k on a projector, there is room for improvement there. most newer receivers have room correction (audyssey, etc) which will counteract some of these effects automatically

we'll have a better idea after you answer tiamat's questions, but right off the bat, i'm not sure that in-wall speakers is in keeping with your desire for minimal initial investment leading to a good upgrade path. i think you are better off with normal speakers in that regard.
 
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Definitely try to get more room if you can. I'm building and already having to make some design compromises on my dedicated room and it's 13' x 16'.
 
How much effort do you want to put into this?

I'm willing to put in some time and effort to get this right. If that means spending some weekends working on wiring whilst framing and electrical is being built, then that's fine with me.

Those room dimensions will be very challenging in terms of acoustics.

I'm not an audiophile, nor do I claim to be. I'm mostly looking for good sound for movies and sports. If I can get away with a 5.1 setup in that room (given its size), I'm fine with that.

Is the room light controlled?

There is one window in the blueprints, along the longer wall. I can probably have it removed from the plans, but I'd honestly like to be able to use the system in some ambient light, for watching sports or whatever.

Budget?

I'd like to try to keep the whole endeavor under $10K, if possible, since my wallet is going to be considerably lighter from the whole house construction thing already 😛

Goals/Usage?

Movies, sports, possibly some gaming (PS3/HTPC). Probably not going to be used for daily viewing, as we will have a plasma/LED panel downstairs in the family room. It'll essentially be a mancave (manloft?) for when my buddies come over for the game and whatnot.

Thanks all for your help.
 
vshah said:
since you are building the house is there a chance you might have some leeway on the room dimensions? as tiamat said, your current dimensions will be pretty harmful to the sound (dimensions that are close to being multiples of one another will amplify room modes)

of course, this may not matter at all to you, but seeing as you are building, and are willing to spend $2k on a projector, there is room for improvement there. most newer receivers have room correction (audyssey, etc) which will counteract some of these effects automatically

we'll have a better idea after you answer tiamat's questions, but right off the bat, i'm not sure that in-wall speakers is in keeping with your desire for minimal initial investment leading to a good upgrade path. i think you are better off with normal speakers in that regard.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I figure that shelf speakers are probably cheaper and easier, but with such a constricted workspace I figured that getting the speakers into the wall would be worth the space savings. Like I said, I'm a bit of noob with regard to this--educate me, guys!
 
11x11 is a large closet. Download google sketch up and trying drawing things out. How many friends do you think you can get in a room that size? You are looking at 3 chairs or one couch. Tops.
 
vi edit said:
11x11 is a large closet. Download google sketch up and trying drawing things out. How many friends do you think you can get in a room that size? You are looking at 3 chairs or one couch. Tops.
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LOL you're depressing me. 11x11 is a standard (non-master) bedroom here in socal.

The big problem is that our new house is very much an open plan, with very few walls and larger spaces downstairs, with lots of windows (and hence lots of light). So in terms of finding a space that is manageable in terms of light and acoustics, I'm going to have to work with the study/loft upstairs.
 
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given 11 feet from wall to wall, you'll probably have 9 feet from your eyes to the screen. ideal screen size for that distance is only around 80 inches. if you can enlarge the room to even 15x11 it will be much better
 
vshah said:
given 11 feet from wall to wall, you'll probably have 9 feet from your eyes to the screen. ideal screen size for that distance is only around 80 inches. if you can enlarge the room to even 15x11 it will be much better
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How about 14'6" x 13'2"? I have another room I could theoretically use.
 
My room is 12x15. You can see some pictures here

I am using floor standing speakers for my fronts and in ceiling for the rears. I know it is not the best idea to have your seats against the wall, but in my room (house was already built), I didn't have any choice.

I have acoustic panels on the back wall to help with some of the sound 'bouncing.'

You can also read more about what I did in this thread. I ended up spending about $6K with the room (minus paint / lighting) complete.
 
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YOyoYOhowsDAjello said:
That's about the size of my AE4000U based room.

There are a bunch of pictures of my acoustic treatment project and diagrams of my room here
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=327056

(This is a rented place for me though, so I didn't do any in-wall anything)
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Thanks for the links. How do you like your AE4000? I haven't bought anything yet, but it seems like a great projector for the price. Also, in your space, what size image are you projecting? How is it in ambient light from your throw distance--looks like 14-15'?
 
15x13 is better, but obviously bigger room is better for many reasons. 11x11 = good luck getting more than 4 people to be comfortable in there (sofas etc. take up a lot of space).

Things to keep in mind (I will only comment on Acoustic issues and let others talk about Video):

1. Facing the shorter walls (width walls) is better acoustically.
2. Placing the main seating area 0.30-0.45 of the length dimension allows for the optimal sound quality for that room.
3. Perhaps you can have the front 3 speakers being normal speakers, and the surround speakers being in-wall or on-wall.
4. Do not place the seating area against a wall at all costs.
5. Always have extra outlets than you think you need. Make them 20A or 30A if possible.

Getting the seating position perfect is the most important acoustically within any room. The rest of the problems can be partially fixed by advanced receivers that you can buy today that are equipped with Audyssey multieqxt.

For speakers, I almost never advocate shopping by specific design, but in your small room, you will most likely be placing speakers close to the walls. You will need speakers with the ports facing forward (or get sealed speakers, or speakers with passive radiators)
 
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DingDingDao said:
Thanks for the links. How do you like your AE4000? I haven't bought anything yet, but it seems like a great projector for the price. Also, in your space, what size image are you projecting? How is it in ambient light from your throw distance--looks like 14-15'?
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I like it a lot. My old projector was an AE900U. I had a dust blob on the AE4000U already, but I cleaned that out easy enough this past weekend. I'm pretty confident that those are easy enough to deal with now, so I'm not really worried about them anymore.

The screen is about 102" diagonal.

I'm using it in eco-mode with one of the more accurate modes, so it's not as bright as it could be. It's more than bright enough in my light controlled room, but I'd kick it into high power and one of the brighter settings if I was trying to view with ambient light.
 
YOyoYOhowsDAjello said:
I like it a lot. My old projector was an AE900U. I had a dust blob on the AE4000U already, but I cleaned that out easy enough this past weekend. I'm pretty confident that those are easy enough to deal with now, so I'm not really worried about them anymore.

The screen is about 102" diagonal.

I'm using it in eco-mode with one of the more accurate modes, so it's not as bright as it could be. It's more than bright enough in my light controlled room, but I'd kick it into high power and one of the brighter settings if I was trying to view with ambient light.
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for comparison, my parents have an older ae700u which outputs much less light than the 4000u. in a room with a couple of dim lamps on, from 15 feet, it looks decent in one of the high power modes (dynamic/high lamp). this also depends on what sort of screen you get. some screens will reflect more light back towards a certain viewing angle, which can help.
 
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