Calibrate Your Home-Theater Audio
Sound is a big part of a satisfying home-theater setup, and people tend to give a movie higher marks when they watch it with good surround sound audio than with simple stereo. So improving the audio listening environment in your family room or living room may yield a much more immersive HDTV viewing experience.But how do you set up your audio system to achieve the best sound? The secret lies in understanding your room. A few years back, I attended THX technician certification training. Most of the classroom time was devoted not to electronics, but to understanding room acoustics. Once you know a little about that, you can start down the road of improving the quality of your surround-sound audio system.
Work the RoomNot everyone can afford a custom-designed home-theater space. My own family-room space, where my audio gear and HDTV live, is a fairly difficult environment. In this article I won't discuss such complex issues as room and wall treatments (modifications to walls and the internal space behind your walls and ceilings). Altering those variables can have a big impact, but doing so can be expensive.
Let's take a look at a floor plan of my family room (left).
At about 15 by 15.5 feet, the room is essentially square, which creates problems bass frequencies, which in turn complicates subwoofer placement.
A standing wave occurs when a particular room dimension is equal to the wavelength of the sound. In most rooms, such a wave typically occurs at very low frequencies.
You can calculate the standing wave frequencies pretty easily.
F (in feet) is the room dimension (length, width, or height) under consideration. You'll need to adjust the constant for speed of sound (given here as 1130 fps), depending on your altitude above sea level.
A 15-by-15-foot room can have a pretty noticeable dead zone at 36Hz to 38Hz near its center. Rectangular (nonsquare) rooms can have two different, but less intense, bass dead zones in different locations. That frequency happens to be precisely where a lot of low-frequency effects occur in surround-sound movies. You'll notice a distinct lack of deep bass where the resonance frequencies overlap. The problem may be harder to detect with music, unless the music has very deep bass content.
The intensity of standing waves depends to some extent on the composition of the walls. Walls composed of extremely stiff materials like brick or concrete may produce dead zones that are quite noticeable. Walls with more flex--cheap drywall, for example--may decrease standing-wave intensity.
Home Theatre Room - News
Great home-theater audio gear demands great sound quality. To get that quality, you need to know your room. By Loyd Case, Sound is a big part of a satisfying home-theater setup, and people tend to give a movie higher marks when they watch it
Sound is a big part of a satisfying home-theater setup, and people tend to give a movie higher marks when they watch it with good surround sound audio than with simple stereo. So improving the audio listening environment in your family room or living
How much room-shaking home theater power can you expect five minispeakers and a pipsqueak subwoofer to deliver? Technological advances have certainly changed my thinking on this matter, but my listening tests proved speaker size still matters when I
Incorporating the company's proprietary Dynamic Lamp Control Technology, it boasts amazing brightness levels for users to experience 3D "cinema-style" movies in their own living room. Sony has announced the VPL-HW30ES 3D home theatre projector that
Not long ago, home theatre enthusiasts had to shell out a pretty penny for a digital projector if they wanted a cinema-like experience in their living room. But these, days some of the top-rated models range from about US$700 (Dh2,571) to $2200,
Making psuedo theater room (small room).. need some ideas/assistance
Hello!
I have a spare bedroom in the basement that has no purpose for me at the moment, so I'm turning it into my AV room. I have most of the required components, but have some questions. As I am new to this stuff I'm going to break down what I'm doing, and hopefully you guys can let me know how it sounds, and what, if any, changes to make. I'm sure there are lots of changes I could make... but I'm trying to stay within my skill level and budget (I blew the budget before I started.. so there goes that).
The room dimesions are 13' x 13'. Here's a diagram for easier understanding.
Ok. I've run most of the speaker wires underneath the baseboard already. I cut a 1 inch slot at the bottom of the drywall, and I am running the speaker wires into the closet and then I'm putting the baseboard back on. As you can see from the diagram I have to have my floor standing fronts a bit away from the wall due to the door for the closet. These walls are exterior walls, so there's no way to run the speaker wire in the wall without cutting and repairing drywall, and I'm just not at the point to tackle such a project yet. So I thought this would be the best option. Raceways were my other idea, but they aren't as clean looking and I'd spend $100+ to get what I need. Will I be fine running them the way I did?
Second. I bought monster XP cable. This was before I really read anything, and I can't take it back (store closing). So I have 100ft of it ran already. Its 16g (which I was able to find out from searching online, as it doesn't list gauge size on package), and I have two runs right at 50ft (max for that gauge I've been told). I had used the same wire prior to moving everything to this room, and it sounded great. But the runs were 15ft, not 50. Is this going to suffice, or am I needing to waste $50 of cable? I can shorten these cable runs by 15ft, but then they wouldn't be hidden, as I'd have to run them across the floors at the door jambs.
Third, I plan on having most of the cables, residential gateway (uverse), power management in the closet. I plan to have the receiver, cable box, PS3, and wii sitting under the TV. The only issue here is on that 5ft wall for the TV there is a power outlet 1ft from the floor. The wire for this drops down from 3 feet or so. Will this outlet cause me issues if I buy a power management system with filtering abilities?
I wonder if my mother will turn my room into a home theatre when I leave lol.
Lying and watching movie in the theatre room. Feel like I'm at my home.
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OMG this cabin got a full game room basement with a full home theatre! Sheeshh!
I do! I have a home theatre set up in my room to play HD porn!Home Theatre Room - Bookshelf
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