sk3lph's brand new Media/Cinema room

[flame696]

Loving the work so far keep the updates coming

 

[robfosters]

Looks like it's gonna be amazing. Cant wait to see the finished article.

 

[xrs]

I'm interested to see how your star lighting works out. I am refurbishing our house at the moment and had considered using it...somewhere.

Out of curiosity, do you know what make and model you are using? Also how reliable they are?

Keep up the good work. Your home cinema is looking great.

 

[9designs2]

Hmm you lost me now.... what is the point of the star effect?
Me personally would have put more of the (obviously considerable) budget to the acoustic treatments and audio kit rather than the bling.... but then I'm a two channel chap mainly
Are you going to sell tickets to the public ..LOL

 

[sk3lph]

Again thanks for the kind comments appreciate it.

I'm interested to see how your star lighting works out. I am refurbishing our house at the moment and had considered using it...somewhere.

Out of curiosity, do you know what make and model you are using? Also how reliable they are?

Keep up the good work. Your home cinema is looking great.

All the info on the star lighting can be found here - I'm using the MaxiLEDRGBW light source.

I've been talking to Pater Fagan there who has been extremely helpful who will be able to answer all your questions and Peter was able to sort me out with a pretty hefty discount.

Interesting that I found it best to do the installation with the light box switched on and hole location from above the ceiling is achieved by pushing a tail through from below.

 

[sk3lph]

Hmm you lost me now.... what is the point of the star effect?
Me personally would have put more of the (obviously considerable) budget to the acoustic treatments and audio kit rather than the bling.... but then I'm a two channel chap mainly
Are you going to sell tickets to the public ..LOL

Good question on the point of the star ceiling and I suppose it's down to personal taste - I could have covered the room with black velvet and accoustic panels for the best AV experience but as a room it would have been too gloomy and grim.

I'm looking to have a room that has a significant visual impact and the wow factor and I love the star ceiling effect - it looks amazing already and the job isn't even half done. It is not something I could easily revist later as currently the attic above the room has no insulation so now is the best time to do it clearing all the insulation out later would have made the job even bigger and that would really put me off.

I have not dismissed accoustic treatment, my approach is that you can do all the calculations you like but the best way to assess a room is to actually listen to how the kit sounds. If I reckon the room needs it I will get it treated after it's finished.

You are not the first person to ask about selling tickets, I won't be doing that but I'll certainly be sharing it with family and friends.

 

[the_jetsetwilly]

11/10 awesome

 

[9designs2]

Good question on the point of the star ceiling and I suppose it's down to personal taste - I could have covered the room with black velvet and accoustic panels for the best AV experience but as a room it would have been too gloomy and grim.

I'm looking to have a room that has a significant visual impact and the wow factor and I love the star ceiling effect - it looks amazing already and the job isn't even half done. It is not something I could easily revist later as currently the attic above the room has no insulation so now is the best time to do it clearing all the insulation out later would have made the job even bigger and that would really put me off.

I have not dismissed accoustic treatment, my approach is that you can do all the calculations you like but the best way to assess a room is to actually listen to how the kit sounds. If I reckon the room needs it I will get it treated after it's finished.

You are not the first person to ask about selling tickets, I won't be doing that but I'll certainly be sharing it with family and friends.

It's all about what pleases you, so I'm not knocking your efforts.....

Just to say, unless you've heard or experience a treated room, you'll not know what your missing.... unless you have a lot of listening experience of systems and rooms...... the result in my room was pretty major.

 

[jellybeard999]

Been working on the star lighting on the ceiling and the hole drilling is now half done.

My helper is busy tomorrow to I'll be fixing the tails into position tomorrow and trimming them back to about 5mm ready for the ceiling to be painted, then they will be trimmed back a couple of mil again to let the light through after the painting.

I've seen these ceilings on AVF before and while not something i'd have at home personally, they do look good and have a wow factor

Out of curiosity, how do you repaint the ceiling in future? Do you have to cover them somehow or do you leave plenty of slack so you can feed more out again?

 

[sk3lph]

It's all about what pleases you, so I'm not knocking your efforts.....

Just to say, unless you've heard or experience a treated room, you'll not know what your missing.... unless you have a lot of listening experience of systems and rooms...... the result in my room was pretty major.

Appreciate your advice and I can see it's something that you strongly believe in - I will be looking into this further down the line.

 

[sk3lph]

I've seen these ceilings on AVF before and while not something i'd have at home personally, they do look good and have a wow factor

Out of curiosity, how do you repaint the ceiling in future? Do you have to cover them somehow or do you leave plenty of slack so you can feed more out again?

Nope, you just trim a little bit off them again, obviously if the ceiling gets repainted a lot then eventually they will run out, leaving about 3mm proud from the ceiling should mean they last quite a number of years as I doubt I'll be redecorating the room very often.

 

[Lowe]

I have not dismissed accoustic treatment, my approach is that you can do all the calculations you like but the best way to assess a room is to actually listen to how the kit sounds. If I reckon the room needs it I will get it treated after it's finished.

Problem is, by that point it's likely to be a bit late to start tearing things back up again. Absorbers/diffusers etc could have been integrated into the walls rather than being placed on them etc.

The calculations you overlook give you a very good starting point on where to start - hell, it's possible to actually auralise a room that's not even been built in order to get an idea of how it will sound!

 

[sk3lph]

OK - you've both got my attention and I'll look into this now rather than later - would be very interested in your stories and pictures from your own setups so that I can get some ideas for incorporating here. I'm currently thinking maybe bass traps at the front with side and rear panels - I'll send off my details to the company suggested earlier.

A separate sound treatment thread would be good if either of you are up for it?

 

[Lowe]

Bass traps are tricky to be honest, and the typical cheapish foam type that you see advertised do close to jack all. Bass (especially sub bass) wavelengths and the amount of energy involved hearing such frequencies means effective trapping needs materials that have considerable mass. Snag is, that means materials that are typically quite thick. You can get around this by increasing the density of the materials involved, however if you go too far you end up with a material that ends up partially reflecting higher frequencies. The best traps are usually hung, limp mass resonators. These are literally heavy vinyl sheets hung from a frame. Difficult to make look nice unless you're a decent chippy, but they're the best way of controlling primary room modes with treatment, and best of all they're not tuned to a specific frequency.

The easiest way to begin the treatment is to let something like an Antimode deal with the extreme low end, and concentrate on putting some absorbers at the primary reflection points (don't forget the ceiling!)

There's a nice diagram on this site here:

http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

That would be a good place to start.

 

[Richeh]

I got myself something called an Auralex SubDude 2 when I steup my room, its a very dense (and well made) albeit expensive for roughly £50 I paid base that your sub sits on to reduce downward waves and tighten up the sound. It's definitely much sharper although i've not had any complaints regarding noise I have had to have the sub on 20% due to living in a flat but it still hits at the right points

I chose to buy as opposed to make something simply as at the time it was a concern and these, for what they essentially are, were well received.

http://www.auralex.com/product/subdude-ii/

 

[Lowe]

That's only really going to help if you don't have a solid floor. Won't really address the issue of room modes etc.

 

[Ste]

I was thinking about room treatment myself. I know full well the value it can have from years of two channel hifi, but wondered to what extent the amount of auto EQ, standing wave reduction, anti node support,, etc. in modern multichannel receivers negates the issues with room response?

 

[sk3lph]

I was thinking about room treatment myself. I know full well the value it can have from years of two channel hifi, but wondered to what extent the amount of auto EQ, standing wave reduction, anti node support,, etc. in modern multichannel receivers negates the issues with room response?

This is exactly what my AV installer has been saying, room treatments are not as important as modern receivers compensate for room acoustic issues.

 

[Lowe]

Modern receivers can certainly help, but they should never be considered the sole means of correction. There's only so many points across the frequency range that they can address and there's also the issue of phase shifts where the EQ points are. Then, there's the nodes - you can help to smoothen out constructive interference (peaks), but destructive interference can't be dealt with.

Room response is only one part of the problem too. Don't forget about basic reflections created within a room by having a hard surfaces. No amount of EQ will sort that. Stand in your new room Sk3lph and clap your hands loudly. Hear an echo? Even with carpet down, sofa in etc if you have two hard surfaces opposite one another you've got the potential for 'flutters'. This is where diffusers and basic panels come into their own. A similar issue is caused at the primary reflection points where the reflected sound arrives a few ms after the primary 'source' sound from the loudspeaker. This creates comb filtering and your system looses 'focus'.

In a living room environment it's tricky to put treatments up and keep the wife happy due to the looks. But in a dedicated build I see no excuse for it other than budget being maxed or an installer cutting corners - but that's just me.

 

[sk3lph]

Update time, various reasons that there has been a bit of a delay to progress but I have now got half the fibres in and they are now all secured (which is a slog of a job) and they are all trimmed to about 5mm length ready for the ceiling to be painted.

Couple of quick You Tube vids to give a rough idea on what it's like. The points of light look a bit fat as they protruding from the ceiling, they will look smaller once they are trimmed again after the ceiling is painted.

The first one is the basic white colour with slow twinkle.

This one is one of the 23 pre-progammed effects involving different colours and effects.

Looking to get the other half of the ceiling drilled this weekend and hopefully the black-out blind will be put in within the next few days.

Then it can finally be decorated.