Basement Home Theater

[Tommy-G]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

These rooms don't need to be in a basement. It's just a convenient space to have one as people typically utilize spaces above ground for other purposes. The biggest challenge if movies are your priority is light control with a room above ground.

I know, just being a jag-off. My home design wont allow for a room like this. 3 bedrooms and an office but the office is quite small. Probably moving locally next year to where this could become a selling point especially after what we experienced 2020 and enjoying time at home more.

However, I feel like basements tend to have better acoustics and naturally better temps due to being underground. IMO

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

I know, just being a jag-off. My home design wont allow for a room like this. 3 bedrooms and an office but the office is quite small. Probably moving locally next year to where this could become a selling point especially after what we experienced 2020 and enjoying time at home more.

However, I feel like basements tend to have better acoustics and naturally better temps due to being underground. IMO

No doubt. It's much more flexible in building out such a room in a basement versus an an area above ground.

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by Wht340i

That’s a good size for a theater room. After you get the speakers maybe a few acoustic panels on the wall will help if you’re not finishing it. Also Is that counter top from Lowes? I just built a desk using the same one.

Yup, I actually bought 2 and made the second one into a work bench on the other side of the basement. Plan to use that one for another top for more basement storage and might use a portion to create a new top for the bathroom sink.

Originally Posted by zx10guy

You're going to have a ton of issues with reflections and brightness as there's nothing in there that will absorb any of the first order reflections. This is going to translate into clarity and brightness issues. If you're not going to put up walls and finish off the ceiling any time soon, I would put in a big heavy rug preferably with padding underneath to help with some of the reflection problems. Acoustics will still be a problem no matter what speakers or room EQ you use.

Will definitely be getting a real carpet, not what is there now. Can put foam on walls also. I just don't have the time, desire or skills to finish the whole thing. Plus I would imagine celling would be super low as all the AC ducts come down pretty low.

Originally Posted by Wht340i

Those laser projectors are nice however for 120” screens you need the lens to be over 20” from the screen. Then add another 10”+ for the machine itself. That’s going to sit pretty far from the wall.

Those are some of my concerns with projectors. I only have about 14 ft from the wall before I hit HAVC and can't do anything. Also the wall itself is not THAT large. I think a 120" screen would have to come down pretty low. We have an 82" TV in FL and I love it. I think it's a great size so I'm leaning towards an 80+ tv right now.

Originally Posted by dogbone

Acoustic treatment - Before you think about acoustic treatment, you will have to decide how much you are finishing the unfinished room. I can't exactly tell how much the wood support post encroaches into the room, but I might consider a straight wall that goes across the whole front of the room to eliminate the bump-out in the front. This will allow you to center your screen in the room versus pushing everything to the left. And you could plan to run wires behind the wall and keep things clean looking. And in that front wall, you could put studs or plywood exactly where needed to support heavy stuff.

Let's say you finish the whole space with dry wall, an 11'x14' room with parallel surfaces and a fairly low ceiling is a recipe for muddy/washy acoustics. (I do music for a living. And I used to mix television shows for a living. I've put my time in sound/music studios.) In a room like that, I would recommend acoustically treating the walls somehow (and it would benefit you to put some stuff on the ceiling too). People never get excited about spending money on foam panels to reduce sound reflections. But you gotta do something if you want to avoid muddy sound. I've been a fan of Auralex foam panels over the years for my music work. They're simple to use and they've got a bunch of shapes, thicknesses and colors.

If you don't finish the walls, you can do more vibey things like putting full length floor-to-ceiling curtains on the sides and back of the room. They do an incredibly good job of killing unwanted sound reflections. And curtains can look like anything. They can give a cool funky look to a room. And of course, carpet helps with unwanted sound reflections. I've been in some incredibly high end music studios that have curtains and swooping fabrics coming down from the ceilings to kill reflections. The studios are super vibey.

Your setup looks pretty sweet! The support beams actually run right along the side where the "hole" ends. So unfortunately even if it was flat and centered the couch would not be centered. I was looking at one couch, 3 seater recliner and that was 85" wide and I only have about 95" between the support beams and wall so not much space to play with.

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

No basements in Florida....I'm jealous

Yeah at the FL house we just have an 82" TV in our living room/family room with some big floor speakers and sub. I actually like the setup a lot even though I have no rear speakers as there's no back wall. Could mount them on the ceiling and run cables through attic... but hell no!

I just want to take this one a notch up since it's an open space and I can run whatever cables I need on the ceiling easily.

What do you guys think of seatcraft seating? They have a couple 3 seater reclining theater seats that look pretty nice to me. Definitely want something that's not fake leather as I've had bad experiences with those.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

Yup, I actually bought 2 and made the second one into a work bench on the other side of the basement. Plan to use that one for another top for more basement storage and might use a portion to create a new top for the bathroom sink.



Will definitely be getting a real carpet, not what is there now. Can put foam on walls also. I just don't have the time, desire or skills to finish the whole thing. Plus I would imagine celling would be super low as all the AC ducts come down pretty low.



Those are some of my concerns with projectors. I only have about 14 ft from the wall before I hit HAVC and can't do anything. Also the wall itself is not THAT large. I think a 120" screen would have to come down pretty low. We have an 82" TV in FL and I love it. I think it's a great size so I'm leaning towards an 80+ tv right now.



Your setup looks pretty sweet! The support beams actually run right along the side where the "hole" ends. So unfortunately even if it was flat and centered the couch would not be centered. I was looking at one couch, 3 seater recliner and that was 85" wide and I only have about 95" between the support beams and wall so not much space to play with.



Yeah at the FL house we just have an 82" TV in our living room/family room with some big floor speakers and sub. I actually like the setup a lot even though I have no rear speakers as there's no back wall. Could mount them on the ceiling and run cables through attic... but hell no!

I just want to take this one a notch up since it's an open space and I can run whatever cables I need on the ceiling easily.

What do you guys think of seatcraft seating? They have a couple 3 seater reclining theater seats that look pretty nice to me. Definitely want something that's not fake leather as I've had bad experiences with those.

You can build out bulkheads which box out any of the mechanicals in your room. Some may be able to be moved some cannot. In my situation, look at the picture in my post showing the back of the room. You'll see two bulkheads. Those were required to close off the ceiling. The first bulk head over the sofa is for a metal support beam which runs the span of the room. The second bulkhead at the back of the room with the recessed lights in it is for the HVAC trunk lines. That bulkhead is actually wider than what would have been originally required. This was due to the HVAC contractor my GC brought in to assess the HVAC situation for my home with the basement and addition I put on the house adding to the overall finished space. Because at the time, I didn't have the budget nor desire to replace what was maybe a 4 or 5 year old HVAC system (I bought the house new construction). The wider bulkhead was put in as a compromise to allow me to adjust air flow to the basement via a damper as the builder installed furnace was undersized for the amount of airflow needed for the new spaces.

What was able to be moved so I could have a flush wall without a boxout was the drain pipe for the kitchen sink which is directly above. The builder had it installed sticking into the room a bit without installing it flush to the poured concrete wall. So my GC moved the drain pipe to make it flush so I would have a continuous smooth wall.

ETA: I also have seen some people put in drop ceilings in their HT room setups. Some of them actually don't look half bad and I seem to recall they used ceiling tiles which were designed for HT use. Going with a drop ceiling while not as nice as having the ceiling totally dry walled, will give you access to the stuff up there. The only draw back is you do lose a bit more ceiling space.

[zx10guy]

Something else which hasn't been discussed here is power. Don't know how far you're going to go with this project but you should put a little thought into the power situation in the room. At the very least, I would look into having a single dedicated circuit to power the equipment you are going to use off of it. If you go with adding recessed lighting in there, you would want anything lighting related totally separate from the power being used to power your equipment. Reason being is if you plan this right, you can put in different lighting zones to allow flexibility in what lights are on and at what level. But this is achieved with dimmers which can introduce noise artifacts into the power circuit. I have I think 4 lighting zones in my room. I primarily use two settings. All on which is what you're seeing in the pics, or just running the low voltage MR16 lighting that are on the sides of the room.

You can go crazy with putting in dedicated power. I went to an extreme with mine. I have 3 dedicated 20A circuits. One feeds my Bryston 6B-ST 3 channel power amp only. The other feeds the two Velodyne subs. And the last one goes into the rack mount balanced power transformer which provides conditioned power to all the front end equipment and the Emotiva XPA-2 2 channel amp.

On the other end of the two circuits that feed the Bryston and Velodyne, I have two hardwired balanced power transformers coming off a 100A subpanel I had installed for this very project.

[Wht340i]

Spray the ceiling black. My cousin just did this and it looks great. Makes the room look larger.

[ramman434]

Originally Posted by Tommy-G

No basements in Florida....I'm jealous

Ughhhh tell me about it. Makes me miss living in TN


I'm drooling over all of these setups

[Patrick303]

We went with a bit of an unconventional approach to our home theater. We chose a giant sectional sofa over theater seating because it's usually just us watching movies in this room so we wanted to be able to get really comfortable.

We went with a 77" Sony OLED and while the picture is excellent, I will agree it's a bit small for the room. I may consider upgrading to a quality screen and short throw projector in the future.

We used Sonos for our sound. 2x Subs, Arc soundbar, and ceiling mounted Play:1's for surround. Not as clean as some in-wall/in-ceiling mounts, but we can take them all with us when we move.

[infinitekidM2C]

No basements in Cali

[malvorlagenfurkinder]

you are so rich maannn

[oVeRdOsE.]

I did mine on a budget, since I wasn't sure if I will use it, and it turn out very very nice for the price.

- TV vs Projector : If you have a nice everyday tv, Ill go projector, they are pretty good now. 4k and hdr support, dynamic contrast for better ''blacks''. If your basement can be 100% dark, go projector.
I went projector for 2 mains reason : 120'' screen , look sleek since I'm using a grey paint , on a wall ( no projector screen). no tv will get you the in/$$ ratio like a projector.

* Please note that NONE of the internet video/pictures will represent a projector quality, I though projectors were bad, but the fact it play on your eye bight/dark adaptation to trick you, and interpret the contrast way higher than it is. You know, projectors black are not more black than the wall/screen. In real life with you brain interpretation, black are black, and image is amazing.

I have a benQ Ht3550 DLP 4k , open box, unused, for quite cheap on newegg.

- Sound System : Go right away with something that will last . 4k and atmos at least. (real speaker. Even if sound bar can simulate 360° with bouncing sound waves, sound waves is physics, and so far, nothing will replace real directional sound that physical speaker)
I also got my amp for cheap, a audiophile was selling his everyday kit to upgrade. So it was almost new (2.5y). Onkyo TX-NR787. It got all the bells and whistle, 9.2 ch. I'm on a 7.1 setup right now.

- Speaker : I very enjoy vintage speaker. FB is full of these, they are cheap, and sounds very very nice.

- Sub : Ive salvage one on the best sub for the buck , the famous Z-5500. only the sub. 10'' , ported, with the upgraded big capacitor mods.

If you can , I suggest 2 sub in diagonal. Lets say : front left, and one rear right, behind/next to the seating position)

- Acoustics; I have a acoustic floor, ceiling and I had acoustic pads on my wall (not in the picture)

- HTPC : this is very important, not all plug n' pay devices will give you all the experience. IMO a win10 pc is the way to go. I'm using a old pc with a GTX960 card, that will decode 4k without any drop frame. Win10 can load color .icm file for color accuracy. Also , it has a easy multichannel control. Win10 support HDR. And easy to see what kind of audio track you have. ohhh and ... heuh,, plex, torrent, pocorn, reddit stream, youtube, real netfilx, VPNs, gtaV....

Let say you have a 2ch or 5.1 ch audio track; then you set your amp so it will simulate the missing channels (mine is Dolby Surround sim)

Atmos or 7.1 true HD, you set it on direct multi. (atmos, the amp will switch it automatically)


I have few friends that paid someone to do a basement home theatre, and they spent 15k$+ and they are jealous of my 2000$ setup .

Sound is crisp, 360°, warm, and super clear. (about 2 hours of setting) Ive used a tape for distance, and a sound level meter)

Image is awesome, can't see a MAJOR drop from my 32'' HDR 4k computer monitor, with a VA pannel (va lcd = deep blacks)

[zx10guy]

I'll be that guy. I auditioned an Atmos system. Wasn't impressed at all. My approach is decent speakers, set up properly, and the room acoustics addressed.

For reference, the Atmos system was in the home of the owner of one of the speaker brands mentioned here.

[oVeRdOsE.]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I'll be that guy. I auditioned an Atmos system. Wasn't impressed at all. My approach is decent speakers, set up properly, and the room acoustics addressed.

For reference, the Atmos system was in the home of the owner of one of the speaker brands mentioned here.

audio is super subjective.

Bench test proved that beats by Dre, were very out of 'real' sound, but people like them since low freq are boosted.

Atmos has nothing to do with sound quality, if the recording is good, it will be good in 1ch to xx ch.

Atmos is a process. Its not individual sound track like 5.1 (6ch) or 7.1 (8ch). Its a sound track with binary instruction for the 'atmos' processor. No individual sound track, the processor will decode channel as per your #of ch in your setup. Iirc it can simulation up to 32 channel.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by oVeRdOsE.

audio is super subjective.

Bench test proved that beats by Dre, were very out of 'real' sound, but people like them since low freq are boosted.

Atmos has nothing to do with sound quality, if the recording is good, it will be good in 1ch to xx ch.

Atmos is a process. Its not individual sound track like 5.1 (6ch) or 7.1 (8ch). Its a sound track with binary instruction for the 'atmos' processor. No individual sound track, the processor will decode channel as per your #of ch in your setup. Iirc it can simulation up to 32 channel.

I wasn't referring to the sound quality. The attempt Atmos does in creating a bigger more immersive sound field for me was a big fail. I got as good of an immersion with my 5.2 system.

[oVeRdOsE.]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

I wasn't referring to the sound quality. The attempt Atmos does in creating a bigger more immersive sound field for me was a big fail. I got as good of an immersion with my 5.2 system.

i see.

Indeed it could be different since its a computer that split channels, since real 5.1 / 7.1 is most of the time a human that mix the tracks.

Atmos start to be effective on 5.2.2 setups and more

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by oVeRdOsE.

i see.

Indeed it could be different since its a computer that split channels, since real 5.1 / 7.1 is most of the time a human that mix the tracks.

Atmos start to be effective on 5.2.2 setups and more

I'm not saying it won't work. Just that, I haven't heard a system yet that screamed to me wow this is what I'm missing without the extra fill channels.

For me, it just wasn't natural sounding. I think you have the same mindset as me. Multichannel systems should just disappear. I shouldn't be noticing that this sound comes from that speaker which was the false selling point when surround systems first hit the market.

[oVeRdOsE.]

atmos can be fake indeed.

Have you tested the same sound track with a 5.1/7.1 file and then an atmos format ?

I dont have a complete atmos setup. its 7.1 on normal, or 5.1.2 on atmos, but ultimately both files were very similar at my ears


Here the test files : https://www.demolandia.net/cinema/do...hd/page-9.html

Like I said , its subjective, you can always bypass atmos if you want in the amp options.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by oVeRdOsE.

atmos can be fake indeed.

Have you tested the same sound track with a 5.1/7.1 file and then an atmos format ?

I dont have a complete atmos setup. its 7.1 on normal, or 5.1.2 on atmos, but ultimately both files were very similar at my ears


Here the test files : https://www.demolandia.net/cinema/do...hd/page-9.html

Like I said , its subjective, you can always bypass atmos if you want in the amp options.

I have. The same movie I watched at the aforementioned home, I had watched on my system. Didn't miss any of the extra channels and the effects with Atmos.

Yes, it's entirely subjective. Everything about this hobby is subjective. I prefer the sound of B&W speakers as I enjoy how they perform with mids and especially vocals. It was enough to get past that to me B&W speakers tend to be aggressive with the highs. I've tuned a lot of that out with the room treatments I've installed in my room. I remember going to one of the high end audio boutiques where the owner was raving about the new Dynaudio speakers. I listened to one of them and was...meh....especially at the price premium. Same thing with video. Some love that blown out in your face picture presentation. I prefer a more natural presentation hence why I always do something to the TVs I have with dialing in the picture settings where possible.

With bypassing Atmos, sure, but then you've spent all that money putting up speakers and the extra amplification for nothing. I just think Atmos needs to mature more before someone such as me will accept it.

[omasou]

I had started finishing my basement but this last storm has put me back to square one. Some lessons learned.

1. Find out where the water table is around your house!!!!!!! I'm not sure how to do this?

I had ~ 6" of water in my entire basement. Prior to the power coming back on the water started to drain out of the basement through the sump. I "think" this is b/c during the storm the ground and drains were overwhelmed and once the water table started dropping below my basement the water in the basement started to drain.

Any one know if this is correct? If so, I plan to build a 12" wall around my sump to stop a future flood.

Yes, I should have had a battery backup and generator but got into analysis paralysis. I cannot use a water pressure backup sump b/c I'm on a well. No power, no water.

2. I "sealed" the concrete floor using DRYLOK® Natural Look Curing Membrane & Penetrating Sealer to serve as a vapor barrier and if a "little" bit of water intruded it wouldn't soak into the concrete and would dry quicker. UGL recommend this product at the time b/c the Drylok for the walls "seals" and if water pushes up from below the floor it will heave and crack. Today they offer an additional product for basement floors called DRYLOK® Floor & Wall Masonry Waterproofer.

https://d3itmjxbj69sp9.cloudfront.ne...art-4-8-19.pdf

3. I sealed the concrete walls using DRYLOK® Extreme Masonry Waterproofer.

4. I used DriCore for a subfloor. This stuff is great! Unfortunately, since it was underwater the black plastic feet underneath retained water and kept the bottom side wet after the top was dry. I could pull a few and check but for ~ $2K it's not worth it for me. I've ordered the new DriCore R+ which is warmer but also 1/4" taller. Therefore, if I cannot lift the walls enough to slide it under, I'll have to get creative w/the baseplates. Walls were built on top of the DriCore.

4. I glued 2" FOAMULAR (EPS) on the walls and sealed all the joints. If you want you can build the walls and then spray foam behind them. This requires much more planning and you will need to run and inspect the wiring and pluming first.

5. I spray foamed all the joist cavities. This made a DRAMATIC improvement to the basement and whole hose warmth and lowered my heating and electric bills. Cannot recommend this too much!

Prior to this my basement was very dry from water but very humid and I purchased a whole hose dehumidifier and I highly recommend one if you have humidity. The plastic on the wall and floors test showed no water vapor, so sealing the floors and walls was overkill and belt and suspenders but I never expect to see them again once finished and I don't want to worry about moisture condensing and molding down the road.

https://shop.aprilaire.com/collections/dehumidifier

https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-hous...del-1850-1850w

The DriCore made the floor walkable during the winter in bare feet and the Fomular also made it warmer but still slightly chilly.

Luckily I hadn't progressed pass framing the walls or I would have a ton more work to do.

You can spend months going down the sound isolation rabbit hole but I feel what I have done plus the Roxul that I will used on the basement ceiling and walls (yes, over the Formular) will be more than enough to help w/the sound. The main things that I have learned that carry sound to the rest of the sleeping family is bass when too close to a wall and the duct work. I plan to attenuate the ducts. I have already started sealing and taping and may wrap them in that bubble insulation or just frame and Roxul, probably the latter.

As for equipment. I would recommend racking all AV equipment above the water line (see #1) and all outlets higher than normal.

For TVs the new Sony A80J (OLED) is at a sweet spot for price / value. It supports the Apple TV app and basic Homekit if that's important. The picture is fantastic. So much so, I wouldn't spend more for the A90J.

For sound, that depend on budget. I had/have an older Proceed setup but the wiring (Transparent) is as expensive as the AV. For speakers, I love Canton but they are hard to find and as others have said speakers are very subjective. I didn't like B&W in the past but today I have a wireless/ethernet set of B&W Formations that I love!! I have the Bar, Sub and 2x Flex (rear). Yes, they are only optical do not support some of the newer formats but for what most people watch they are more than sufficient. If you're the type that needs 7.1 or 9.1 then I have no recommendations b/c I feel those are well past the point of diminishing returns.

https://www.bowerswilkins.com/formation

Lastly, talk w/your insurance agent; sewer and flood is a separate rider and sometimes does not cover the heaters! Luck for me my heater and dehumidifier were placed on cinder blocks and safe.

HTH.