# Forum Home Renovation Home Theatres  Home Theatre

## Kote

Hi All, 
This is very good forum, I'm still reading it.
I bought couple of tools (CS, planer etc..) so I just want to do something but big.
my lounge is crappy, got a 14" TV( still living in stone age).
I went to buy a TV many times last 6-8 months and came back without buying, because I knew Plasma and LCD becoming cheap. but I can't wait any longer I have to catch up lots of movies, haven't seen Starwars iii yet. I have save enough to buy a 32" may be 42" or bit more Plasma or LCD and read all crap about pros and cons about those. but I have not got a place to put it. 
So I thought to change my lounge room to make like a Cinama a bit, home theatre or media room what ever you call it. I have draw a rough plan and I thought to publish it here and get your ideas. I can not find a plan or diagram for it. If you have a plan or have seen in a book or in magazine please let me know.  
Thanks a lot. 
Kote

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## bennylaird

Not sure if it's a good idea to have the heater so close? But as long as it doesn't effect the electronics it's fine. 
Not missing much with Star Wars...... No storyline as such and a waste of time. Wish I hadn't seen any of them.

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## Kote

quote=bennylaird]Not sure if it's a good idea to have the heater so close? But as long as it doesn't effect the electronics it's fine. 
Not missing much with Star Wars...... No storyline as such and a waste of time. Wish I hadn't seen any of them.[/quote] 
Thanks, I think gel heaters does not make much heat that way, and also heater is bit in front, may be you right then need to put something look like a heater but no heat. 
what I can not do is making all those mesurement for the frame.

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## Harry72

Depending how far you sit from the screen, your front side speakers idealy should be at or near the same level as the screen.(and futher apart than the plan shows).
If seating is far it is not so critical(4m+), the centre needs to be close as possilbe to the screen as well.

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## Barry_White

This is what I did for my home theatre. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ight=projector

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## Auld Bassoon

Kote, 
You might just want to hold off for a couple of months as I've read (Monday's Australian) that the price of large LCD screens is about to radically drop due to some advance in manufacturing technology. 
I seem to recall that the article spoke of 42" LCDs for $1,500 or thereabouts - but it was in the media, and quite possibly written after "lunch"  :Biggrin:

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## Trav

Kote 
I saw the same article as Steve B. I'd love to get a big screen, but I suspect I'll wait for a few months yet.  
I have just moved into a new house and I spent the last week or so rewiring my home theatre.  Good fun but it took much longer than I expected. 
Do you have a surround sound system? If so, there is nowhere on your diagram for your centre speaker. If not, you are really missing out on half the experience if you don't get a surround sound system. If you buy it at the same time as a plasma/LCD, you should get a pretty good deal.  
The centre speaker needs to be (ideally) directly above or beneath the screen. So you'll need to find a space for it. If you are going to build it into the wall, look for front ported speakers.  
I think the placement of the heater will cause you problems. Home theatre components can crank out some serious heat - enough that I wouldn't want to compound the problem by having them next to a heater. Plasmas also get pretty hot, so you might also have a problem there.  
I assume you are building a fake stud wall to house all this stuff. I like the idea and have done something similar in my place. Remember that it is 10000000 times easier to put your wiring in place before the plasterboard is in place, rather than after. Also think about where your power is and if you have enough.  
Hope that is helpful. Sing out if you have more questions. 
Trav

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## John Saxton

Hi Kote, we bought an acer projector and 4/3 ratio screen from Big W , they had a special on them all up around $1150. 
We have'nt got it pemanantly mounted due to moving from here some time down the track but have it sitting on a coffee table.I reckon it's great for those special movies and music dvd's to enjoy. 
We've only a basic sub woofer and satellite sound system in place at this time but it will suffice until we re-settle/move.
As we have an 8x6metre room its effective and we can really darken the room with roller shutters for maximum effect if need be. 
Of course the downside is the cost of replacement lamps but we can supposedly get 3000 hrs on an economic use rather than 2000 on full lamp employment. 
Of course you need to weigh up quite a few factors for your individual situation and plasma/lcd may well be the way forward for you.
I can but say I'm more than happy with the view i get on a big screen. 
This isn't really relevant to your to your question but it does say there may be other venues to explore and perhaps this forum will provide that for you. 
Cheers :Smilie:

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## seriph1

Hi - I might be able to help as I have just been through the task of researching many of the LCD and Plasma screens available here. Personally, we have decided to go with a Hitachi 55 inch, but the Fujitsu and ____GULP____ the TEAC were very good in the 42 inch range - I suppose I consider myself to be a bit of a videophile and wouldn't have touched any plasma/LCD except I broke our Loewe TV. There just wasn't a replacement for it so I had to look into the current offering. It took a month I guess, to go through them all. We are in Kilmore (58ks from melb GPO) and don't get great reception so watch a lot of DVDs. I burned a range of action sequences and tested everything using that - it gave me a fairer evaluation than the store's proprietary feed. For me, LCD is not there at all yet, though Plasma has come leaps and bounds since I saw it in 2000. Decent manufacturers have fixed 90% of the problems inherent with plasmas in my opinion and they seem excellent value for money - the main things to consider are power consumption - at around 300-400 watts - claimed brightness and contrast ratio, and whether the TV has measures to avoid burn-in, or screen-burn. LCD - the refresh rate just made nearly all of my fast motion video yukky to watch comp'd to Plasma. I know the owner of a Hi Fi store very well, if you need a contact name - he will let you test stuff all day if you want, sells for very reasonable prices and knows his stuff. PM me if you want the contact details etc.

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## seriph1

......after seeing Star Wars 3 I not only wanted my money back I wanted the two hours back!   :Smilie:  :Smilie:  :Smilie:  :Smilie:  :Smilie:  :Smilie:

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## Master Splinter

There are a number of issues to consider when outfitting a room for home theatre, and the biggest is the room shape.  In a badly shaped room, you will spend ages trying to fix resonance problems. 
The more square the room is, the more problems you will get with bass interference (bass frequencies going in and out of phase across the room, leading to patches of *extra bass* and _little bass_).   
The worst possible shape is a cube, with rooms where the dimensions are multiples of each other (ie a 2.4 meter high room that was 2.4 meters wide and 4.8 meters long) coming in next on the _bad sound_ list. 
Something to do, if possible, is to make the room slightly trapezoid - make the room get slightly wider towards the back of the room - this will help control unwanted reflections. 
When wiring it up - wires are wires, no matter what the sales rep at the hi-fi store tells you.  The 2 meter, $90 '99.999% pure deoxidised crystaline copper interconnects' sound no better than the $3.00 a meter speaker wire from Jaycar.  Actually, they probably sound no better than the $0.40 per meter bell wire from Bunnings, assuming the bell wire has sufficient current carrying capacity.  Same goes for the interconnects.   
However, as this is a woodworking forum, I really should suggest you buy some of these...   http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me...roduct_Count=2

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## redwood

> When wiring it up - wires are wires, no matter what the sales rep at the hi-fi store tells you. The 2 meter, $90 '99.999% pure deoxidised crystaline copper interconnects' sound no better than the $3.00 a meter speaker wire from Jaycar. Actually, they probably sound no better than the $0.40 per meter bell wire from Bunnings, assuming the bell wire has sufficient current carrying capacity. Same goes for the interconnects.  
> However, as this is a woodworking forum, I really should suggest you buy some of these...   http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Me...roduct_Count=2

  :confused:  if as you say $90 interconects are no better than $3 jaycar ones then how can you suggest buying $485 knobs that as the review said sound "better" than bakerlite ones:confused:  "The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved"  just by adding their wooden knobs:confused:  :confused:

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## seriph1

I think your leg is being pulled .......... anyway, I can't talk now coz I have to go git me sum oh dem nobs!

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## Master Splinter

...for $400 US, they just have to make your sound sound better, dont they? 
Dont they?  :Biggrin:   
But if you prefer something even more natural. how about granite... http://www.audaud.com/audaud/DEC01/E...uip3DEC01.html 
And can someone tell me what they are smoking/snorting or injecting, 'cause it _has_ to be good....

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