Mini's HT sound room (Home theater v3) (no56ks)

[Shiroikage]

You need to do the walls up like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ic_chamber.jpg

It looks baller and is awesome.

[kareface]

You need to do the walls up like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ic_chamber.jpg

It looks baller and is awesome.

There is a slight problem with rooms like that, they sound awful (for home theaters). You need to find a nice line between how long it takes for echoes and reverb from a sound in the room to die away until it is 60 decibels quieter than the original sound and having no reflections at all. A surface like that takes all of the 'warmth' away from the room. I'm also planing on using a quadpole design for my surrounds and a room like that would make them worthless. For my room design and size, 8-12 panels will be more then enough dampening w/o killing the room acoustics. That room however would be prefect for testing FR's on speakers or recording really sensitive sound levels, or rape....

I actually jokingly call the home theater room the rape room now, lol.

Edit: Speaking of dampening, if anyone is considering dampening a room I can recommend building your own panels. You can get most of what you need from your local home depot, but if you can't you can buy w/e else you would require from places like atsacoustics. I'm looking at 12 4" thick 2'x4' panels with an NRC of around 1.1 for 450$ with tax.

[Weeks]

I'm buying a Pioneer KRP-500M to serve as my primary TV. I'm about 2 more years (Perhaps 3+, depends whether I want to do a fellowship) from looking into building a permanent home theater but since I'll need an HDMI tuner anyway I've been looking into temporary HTPC/home theater options.

Do you (Or anyone else) have any thoughts on the sound quality of wireless speakers at this point? I don't see myself ever being the guy buying $100k speakers because I can't tell the sound difference, but when I'm settled in I will want a legitimate sound system like yours and I'll probably want to make it a DIY project. Is it possible to use, say, a Sony Bravia system as a stopgap and then upgrade the speaker quality in the future, or is compatibility or sound quality going to be too much of an issue?

Incidentally, is it at all feasible to incorporate an HDMI tuner into the HTPC? The last time I even looked at a simple sound card was about 6 years ago, and even if the hardware is there I'm not sure if there are any HTPC frontends (Eg, XBMC) that would support those functions or whether it would up the requirements for the rest of the components too much to be worthwhile.

[Amastacia]

You need to do the walls up like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ic_chamber.jpg

It looks baller and is awesome.

Anechoic chambers are only good if you want to utterly block all sound resonance.

But they look bitchin'.

If Mini tested ambient noise levels of CPU coolers for a living and he was a total baller, maybe, but he's right on how they sound awful.

[kareface]

I'm buying a Pioneer KRP-500M to serve as my primary TV. I'm about 2 more years (Perhaps 3+, depends whether I want to do a fellowship) from looking into building a permanent home theater but since I'll need an HDMI tuner anyway I've been looking into temporary HTPC/home theater options.

Do you (Or anyone else) have any thoughts on the sound quality of wireless speakers at this point? I don't see myself ever being the guy buying $100k speakers because I can't tell the sound difference, but when I'm settled in I will want a legitimate sound system like yours and I'll probably want to make it a DIY project. Is it possible to use, say, a Sony Bravia system as a stopgap and then upgrade the speaker quality in the future, or is compatibility or sound quality going to be too much of an issue?

There are some issues with this. Batteries can't power a speaker enough to really be worth 2 shits. There is a reason Ipods need speaker docks to listen to music w/o headphones, they really aren't powerful enough to drive full sized speakers. There are wireless speakers that are also powered via an outlet, but that knida defeats the purpose of wireless. I've never heard of someone who isn't a complete AV moron speak any good of battery op wireless speakers. If you are gonna go with the powered solution you might as well spend the money on nicer speakers and wire them to the reciever.

Incidentally, is it at all feasible to incorporate an HDMI tuner into the HTPC?

By that you mean have a HDMI in on your computer? Why would you need something like that? If you are talking about sound over HDMI out then that is common now-a-days. I'm not 100% sure what you mean here tho.

[Weeks]

Well, I need to split out the audio signal from other HDMI source inputs since I'm buying a monitor without sound. So I need an audio receiver that does that, and it would be convenient to have that within an HTPC to minimize the number of components, but now that I'm actually thinking about it I'm skeptical about getting sufficient amplification to drive even a small home theater on an onboard card.

[Nattack]

You can get moisture barriers, what gets damp? If it's the cement then that's pretty easy to fix. The backs of the 2x4's you can get a plastic moisture barrier and the floor you can use a sub flooring system like dricore or make your own with 2x4 framing. What's nice about sub floors is they raise the temperature of the room 3-5 degrees on colder days. I didn't need to go this route because the floors wern't damp or cold enough to warrant it. However I did go with a much thicker pad for extra insualtion but mostly for sound purposes.

its the cement, thanks for the tip. ive actually been plotting it out on paper...

now all i have to do is clean it. . .

luckily that is where the beer is kept

[kareface]

Well, I need to split out the audio signal from other HDMI source inputs since I'm buying a monitor without sound. So I need an audio receiver that does that, and it would be convenient to have that within an HTPC to minimize the number of components, but now that I'm actually thinking about it I'm skeptical about getting sufficient amplification to drive even a small home theater on an onboard card.

No, you can't drive a home theater with an computer sound cards. Most sound cards are designed to drive 30ohms which is the same as traditional headphones. If you try and drive something like a speaker with out an amp you'll end up damaging the sound card. As for the TV with out sound, any home theater receiver will take video and audio over HDMI, output the sound over the speakers for the receiver and then pass the video to the TV. That's how it works really. I maybe misunderstanding the problem because it seems like an odd comment.

[Soracloud]

Impressive and now I want to make a home theater in my basement...

[Isiolia]

Well, I need to split out the audio signal from other HDMI source inputs since I'm buying a monitor without sound. So I need an audio receiver that does that, and it would be convenient to have that within an HTPC to minimize the number of components, but now that I'm actually thinking about it I'm skeptical about getting sufficient amplification to drive even a small home theater on an onboard card.

I can think of ways you might accomplish that, but I don't see logic in pursuing them.

There aren't many ways to get HDMI into a computer as it is. Most ways that exist would be for capture, which of course are not HDCP compliant, limiting what would work through them.

So...

You could go with a device that splits off digital audio (ie, Gefen Inc. - HDMI to DVI Audio Adapter) ...however, this is a potential downgrade (the higher quality Blu-Ray audio tracks won't transmit over optical), and isn't cheap. However, you could potentially use something like that and input the toslink to a PC for playback.

But, then you want/need nicer powered speakers, or amps for speakers anyway. Sound cards, as kareface mentioned, have little in the way of actual amplification.

It makes a whole lot more sense, in my mind, to just get a reciever with HDMI inputs, and use the PC purely as a source, albeit one that can potentially consolidate other sources (audio, Blu-Ray/DVD, video files, streaming video, etc). Simpler, more compatible, etc.

[aalryn]

Amazing job kareface.

Your last post made me go out and build myself a HTPC and transfer my 600+ dvds completely uncompressed to hard drives. I absolutely love you for that. It let me remove 5 bookshelves full of DVD jackets into 2x360 dvd cases that are chilling in my closet now. Couldn't be happier with the extra room and the performance of the HTPC.

It's too bad I don't have a house to do this though :/ Someday.

[Weeks]

I suspect in time HTPCs will incorporate A/V receiver functions, but I guess we're not there yet. Mostly I was hoping I could do it to minimize the number of remotes, but I guess if universal remotes can be programmed to work with HTPCs that'll be acceptable until then.

[Lost]

This works.

Logitech Harmony 880
http://leisure.prior-it.co.uk/images...84-callout.jpg

Kareface, i'm surprised with that setup you use a diNovo Edge and not a diNovo Mini.

[kareface]

Amazing job kareface.

Your last post made me go out and build myself a HTPC and transfer my 600+ dvds completely uncompressed to hard drives. I absolutely love you for that. It let me remove 5 bookshelves full of DVD jackets into 2x360 dvd cases that are chilling in my closet now. Couldn't be happier with the extra room and the performance of the HTPC.

Cool, did you end up using one of the HTPC front ends?

Kareface, i'm surprised with that setup you use a diNovo Edge and not a diNovo Mini.

I'm not a fan of the smaller keys. I still use the computer for other things from time to time and I like having a full sized keyboard. The mini is cool tho, it was what I was planning to go with before I tested it out on display at best buy. What I really need it a nice wireless mouse now. The touch pad isn't my thing.

[aalryn]

Cool, did you end up using one of the HTPC front ends?

I'm using XBMC's program, but just the standard UI for it. It in itself is really easy to use so I haven't bothered with any of the others.


The one thing that I am looking to change in the future though is to get a designated network enclosure for my hard drives and hook them directly into the router to be accessed by any of my computers easily. That way I can have my HTPC in the living room access them just like it does, but also build a cheap dumb terminal in the bedroom to have access to them there too. With the performance of the atom-330 micro pcb's and the fact that they have built in HDMI out, dual core processors, and wifi make them pretty much perfect at only $160. So for less than 300 bucks I could put my entire dvd collection in any room I would want.

[kareface]

Started in on painting the speakers:

My throw together painting booth & test piece of sanded MDF:
http://uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/1-Test-piece.jpg

First layer of primer on the test piece:
http://uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/2...yer-primer.jpg

Second layer
http://uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/3...yer-primer.jpg

First layer of primer on the center channel
http://uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/4...er-speaker.jpg

More to come... 2 layers of primer and 2 layers of paint and a bunch of clear coats.

Also ordered a pair of:
http://www.paradigm.com/en/paradigm/...-1-21.paradigm

http://uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/paradigm.jpg

I'm hoping they timbre match the fronts better then the ones I just bought. We'll see!

[kareface]

All done! I still have to wait 2 months before I begin to polish them, but the finish turned out really good even with what was done.

This is with the 2 layers of primer, starting the wet sand with 400p sandpaper
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...ding-start.jpg

After sanding everything, I coat with 2 layers of paint, then wet sand with 600p sandpaper. I don't have images of between now and the finished product because my camera died on me and I had to borrow a friends. 8(
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speakers/paper.jpg


The 3rd, and last layer of paint was shot today. Here are the results:
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...20finished.JPG
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...%20channel.JPG
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...close%20up.JPG

And the unwrapped speakers:
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...ap%20right.JPG
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...p%20center.JPG

Final product:
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...nished%201.JPG
http://www.uwtechguy.com/mini/speake...nished%202.JPG

I was really happy with the result, I can't wait till I can polish them to perfection! I decided that I'm going to order some feet for the right and left speakers instead of building them. I plan to order the feet from the yamaha soavo 1pn speakers off of their parts site. It'll be about 300$ for both speakers, so I'm going to have to wait a little while before ordering. I plan to at least place the order sometime this month. The new surround sound speakers arrive in a few days too!

The speaker I'm stealing the legs from:
http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/Imag...oavo_piano.jpg

[Cephius]

Great job mini, they look awesome. The color and finish goes great with the rest of the room.

[aalryn]

props to you. The room and speakers are both top notch.

[Weeks]

BTW, how did you break in the plasma? I've been playing a slideshow of the images from the aeprogramming.com break-in DVD (Had trouble with the DVD of it I burned freezing at the end of every chapter) on high-contrast settings for the past 60 hours and am unsure if I should go 100 or 150.