As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, there are lots of new products and technologies available in the world of home entertainment and automation. In many construction trades, most of the people involved are unfamiliar with these audio. video, and automation products, and with the range of technologies outside of their areas of expertise.
Home Theater Specialists of America, or HTSA (Leon is the 2010 president), has prepared a great guide for helping you ask the right questions when it comes to building a new home or remodeling your current one. This Home Technology Planning Guide contains sections on the following areas: Home Control, Home Lighting, Wiring Your Home (Infrastructure), Networking, Home Theater, Mobile Device Integration, Stereo vs. Surround Sound, Whole-House Music, and Video & Video Distribution.
This guide is available for pickup at both the Raleigh and Pineville showrooms of Audio Advice. If you’d like to receive a digital copy by e- mail, just go to the Contact Us page of this website, or e-mail us at web@audioadvice.com. (Please mention HT Guide in your e-mail or header.) You can also find addresses and links to our Google map pages on that page.
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An inside look at our Reference Theater design process by Audio Advice chairman Leon Shaw:
In Sept. of 2009, after we signed the lease for our new store in Charlotte, I started mapping out how to remodel the space. The one room I wanted to be perfect was our Reference Theater room. Every time I drive to our Charlotte store, one of the first things I do is sit down in our Reference Theater, start up a new Blu-ray movie in the changer, and grin ear to ear. The combination of the B&W speakers, Classe processor, and Rotel amps is magical. The sound and picture are just flat jaw dropping! I don’t think a single person has come out of a demo without having a similar reaction. When there are dynamic effects, they sound incredibly realistic. You can hear every nuance of emotion in the voices of the actors and actresses. The level at which this theater came out has me all excited to redo our big theater here in Raleigh. Keep reading, and I think you will find it useful and have fun learning about the ways we went about deciding what gear to use, how we designed the acoustics, and our installation and room calibration process.
Presenting the latest video technology for home theater was a big goal. We want you to see how the wide screen viewing experience you have in a commercial theater can now be created in the home. Most blockbuster movies are shot in much a wider ratio than the usual HDTV image. (HDTV has a 1:78 ratio, where most popular films have a ratio of 2:35.) To create the 2:35 image for both home and commercial cinema, an anamorphic lens is needed. It slides in front of the projector’s primary lens. The projector electronically stretches the picture from top to bottom, and the lens stretches it left to right, creating the 2:35 presentation. The anamorphic lens causes the picture to have a slight barreling effect, which is eliminated with a curved film screen (another requirement for our room).
Charlotte Reference theater curved film screen
There were audio goals we wanted to reach as well. In commercial theaters, the center channel speaker is always behind the screen. This helps create the effect of the dialog track matching the picture. We wanted to make sure to accomplish this in our reference theater. We also wanted the front three speakers to be identical, to perfectly match sounds panning across the front sound stage.
Matched B&W speakers and subs behind front theater wall
Another audio item on our checklist was great dynamic range. This is the measurement of the difference in sound between the softest part of the movie and the loudest part. The best theaters have tremendous dynamic range. If you start with a room having a very low noise level, then by default you have greater dynamic range. Take a room with a low noise level, design it for great low frequency impact and add very efficient speakers, and you will get the best possible outcome.
We knew our theater would have seating for 7-8 people, so we wanted every seat to provide a great viewing and listening experience, with the goal of hiding every speaker and piece of equipment. The only thing we want the viewer to see is the movie screen!
Reference Theater seating arrangement
Meeting all of these goals was a challenge for me, but also lots of fun. The planning started from the outside in. Only one dimension (the width) needed to be fixed, so I played with the ceiling height and room length, creating dimensions that worked well acoustically. Since the room was going to be a rectangle (in which you can actually predict acoustics to a high degree of accuracy), and we had free reign on two of the three dimensions, we were able to plan a space with the right dimensions
The next step was about half luck. The room directly behind the back theater wall was a space we planned to use for rack building. Instead, we decided to take advantage of the space and make our Reference Theater just like a real movie theater, where the projector and equipment (which all make noise) are in a separate space. We designed this smaller area to hold the projector and theater gear, and used projection booth glass to totally isolate the two spaces.
The building HVAC system makes quite a bit of noise, so we applied acoustic dampening treatment to the ceiling above the theater. Seating was mapped out for the best acoustic spots in the room. Then the correct ratio of seating distance to screen was calculated to get the ideal screen size for the room.
Close up look at acoustic treatment panels
Gerry Lemay of Quest Acoustics and I spent many hours working on the next step in design: getting the acoustic treatment to match speaker and seating placement. We determined to get the acoustic treatments exactly right to make the Reference Theater an example of how good things can sound with proper planning for acoustic treatment. In my opinion this can ultimately make a much bigger difference in the performance of a room than the components. The end result has just been spectacular.
B&W Custom Theater CT7.3 LCRS Speaker
Next, the real fun began, picking out the gear! The simplest thing would have been to pick the top of the line from our best vendors, write a big check and be off to the races. However, outfitting an all-new store meant we needed to watch our dollars just like anyone else. Fortunately, B&W had recently introduced a new line of Custom Theater speakers having an incredible value. We chose B&W CT7.3 speakers for left, center, and right. These are priced at a very reasonable $1500 each. CT Series SW15 subwoofers from the same series were picked as well. To get really dynamic bass, we elected to use four of these: two in the front and two in the back. All of these CT Series speakers are less than 12” deep, making them easy to hide behind a screen wall. For surround and rear speakers, we used top of the line B&W in-wall speakers.
For the picture, we chose an acoustically transparent Stewart curved film screen with masking for HDTV content. This let us put the center channel behind the screen and we flanked the sides of the screen with left and right speakers. Digital Projection has had a close connection with the film industry for many years, so we chose to use their Titan projector with their anamorphic lens.
Classe SSP-800 Processor
We also chose the top of the line Classé SSP-800 processor. This is an amazing surround sound processor, the best sounding one we have ever had by far, yet at $9000 it costs less than many of its competitors. To balance our splurge in processor spending we picked Rotel amplifiers to drive all of the speakers. (The Rotel amps are just a great value- I have them in my own home theater along with the Classé processor.) The Kaleidescape movie management system and a Sony BluRay changer are our source components.
The last step was choosing the look of the room. Everything finally came together from a design standpoint. We wanted it to be tasteful, but our focus was performance and not an extravagant décor. We decided to use cherry molding trim and a simple fabric wall covering, even making columns from wrapped fabric material to keep things simple. United Leather makes a great value line of theater seats, and was our seating choice.
Building the Reference Theater
Then it was time to build it all! We wanted to have great speaker cables connecting the gear, so before the sheetrock was up we ran Transparent speaker cables all over the room. Then sheetrock went up and was ready for the acoustic treatments. After our great Charlotte team installed the equipment, the acoustic treatments went in. All that was left was calibration and control, with a basic Universal remote being used to control the theater room.
There is nothing like it our Reference Theater any store in Charlotte or, for that matter, probably within 300 miles. The viewing and listening experience you will receive from this theater is simply stunning. If you live in the Charlotte area and are into home theater at all, you owe it to yourself to experience our Reference Theater. Heck, if you live within 200 miles, it’s worth the drive!
Watch for more news as we begin our Raleigh theater renovation this summer. We hope you’ll come experience just how good home cinema can be, and learn how you can do all or part of it in your own home. We’d love to help design your home theater!
Another view of the Reference Theater screen
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Have you ever had the experience of removing all of the furnishings from a room in your house to either paint or when you were moving out and noticed how your voice sounded so much different than it did when the room had furnishings? If so, you now understand how much of a difference acoustics can make.
Live or Dead
Acoustics is both an art and a science. Experts in acoustics will refer to a space as “live” or “dead”. Ideally you want something in between. What you are trying to achieve is a balance between too much reflected sound (live) and not enough (dead). Reflected sounds are made up of the sounds that bounce off another surface before they arrive at your ears. This is compared to direct sound, which comes directly from the speaker to your ears. A room with no furniture in it would be a good example of a room with too much reflected sound (live). A room with all of the surfaces covered with sound absorbing material (an example would be an anechoic chamber used by speaker designers) would be a very “dead” room. The trick is to the right balance. Too much reflected sound and the dialog is almost impossible to understand. With too little reflected sound, you get no sense of space. (note, I think a drawing here would be good).
In addition to reflected sound, some amount of dispersed sound is also good. When sound waves hit a flat surface (such as sheetrock), then its considered reflected. When the sound hits an uneven surface and then bounces off in all directions, then it’s considered to be dispersed sound.
So how does all of this apply to your media room or home theater? In a media room you typically have to work with furnishings to get closer to ideal acoustics. Anything that has uneven surfaces is great. A bookcase full of books is ideal! Make sure from the main seating position that you can physically see all of the speakers. A speaker blocked by a piece of furniture is not ideal. If you can set yourself up to be equidistant from the left and right speakers do so. There are several ways to “treat” the acoustics of the room using common furnishings. Large leafy plants can make a big difference in the sound of a room. Adding a rug to a room with hard surfaces for the flooring will be an improvement as well. Tapestries and other wall hangings will help you get the right balance of reflected sound. Draperies and window treatments also help.
In a true home theater, the options for acoustic treatment are much better. Audio Advice can actually analyze your room and make suggestions on acoustic materials that can be placed on the walls. The best solution is to use a track for a decorative fabric, which hides the acoustic treatments behind the fabric. We will attach the various acoustic panel treatments to your walls, then fabric is stretched across the wall. This gives you the real theater look and is the best option. We’ll calculate where to put the absorptive panels, the reflective panels, the combination reflective/absorptive and the dispersive panels. If your room is rectangular, this becomes much more of a science and is very predictable.
What the heck is a mode or node?
The dimensions of every room effect how the sound waves bounce around in a room. These are called room modes. They will have dips and peaks at spots in your room where they build up (lots of modes) and where they cancel each other out (a node). The effect is most pronounced with low bass sounds. The dimensions of your room play the role of determining how big and at what frequency these problems occur. A cube would be the worst sounding room, filled with tons of acoustic problems. Take this into consideration if you can impact the dimensions of your future theater room. Even in a room with perfect dimensions, placing the main seating right in the middle of the room is not ideal. In the design process for your theater we will calculate the best place for your seating to be to minimize this effect and if we have the leeway, can help you get to the ideal dimensions, but as a general rule, try to have your main seating position about 1/3 away from the back or front wall. Room modes and nodes are typically less pronounced at these points.
What about noise?
When a home theater can put you on the edge of your seat without having to blast you with high volumes, the room probably has a very low noise floor. This means the inherent noises in the space are minimal so they do not mask out the subtle sounds of the film. Noise can come from many sources including equipment fans, the fan on your projector, a noisy appliance, or other external sources. If you have to turn the volume up louder to overcome these noises, your system will have less of a sense of dynamic range, and as a result be less satisfactory. Ideally you want to be able to literally be able to hear a pin drop in your room. We can work with you to be sure the design takes into account reducing noise.
It all adds up
Many people do not even consider acoustics when planning their theater space. It’s a real shame to spend lots of money on gear and not give it the right environment to perform to its best if you have the option available. If we help you nail the acoustics and construct a room with a very low noise floor, you would not believe how this can improve your experience. A $2500, professionally calibrated speaker package in a well engineered room will put most un-calibrated $10,000 speaker packages to shame that are placed a room with bad acoustic properties. Of course the better packages really shine in a well done room! I hope this article has helped you understand that the most important component of your home theater is the room itself!
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Viewing Distance, Viewing Height, and Screen Size
The first question we are usually asked is: just what size screen should I buy? The answer can take you down many paths. Tons and tons of research has been done on viewing angles by SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers). Of course the distance you sit from your screen and its size will translate into your viewing angle.
When HDTV was being developed as a format, the final research indicated a 30 degree viewing angle was optimum for the 1080i standard of HDTV. The testing suggested viewers felt a pleasant level of presence and immersion when the viewing angle was 30 degrees or greater. To put this into perspective, a 52” diagonal HDTV set should be viewed at a maximum distance of about 7 feet.
For viewing movies, THX (Tom Holman and George Lucas’s company for movie standards) recommends a viewing angle of 36 degrees. SMPTE suggests the best viewing angles in a theater fall within the 35 to 55 degree range. Again, for some perspective, this puts the ideal distance from a 52” set at 5.8’ or less for viewing movies.
What does this mean for the consumer? On first take, it means most people are sitting way too far away from their sets for an immersive experience! We think that is totally true. If you really want the true home theater experience, you need a big front projection screen, period. However, lets not forget that a 52” HDTV set is still a lot more fun to watch than an old 36” tube non-HD TV!! We suggest you buy the biggest (and best, because big and not good is unpleasant) picture you can get. Don’t go over the recommended ratios, but try to stay as close as your room and budget allow.
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Screen Diagonal 16:9 size
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SMPTE Recommended Distance for HDTV
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THX Recommended Distance for Cinema
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26″
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3.5′
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2.9′
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32″
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4.4′
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3.6′
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40″
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5.4′
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4.5′
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46″
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6.3′
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5.2′
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52″
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7.1′
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5.8′
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55″
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7.5′
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6.2′
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60″
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8.2′
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6.7′
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65″
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8.8′
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7.3′
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84″
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11.4′
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9.4′
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92″
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12.5′
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10.3′
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108″
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14.7′
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12.1′
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114″
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15.5′
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12.8′
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The good news is, for the typical room used as a home theater, you can achieve real SMPTE standards and have that immersive effect!
And what about how high you put the screen? THX states in their manual for designing movie theaters, the maximum vertical angle should be 35 degrees. This means if you were looking straight ahead from your seat and looked up, you should not have to look up more than 35 degrees to see the top of your picture. We feel this is actually pushing the limit as this spec pertains to the front row of seats in a theater. For most people an angle of 15-25 degrees works out about perfectly. In the world of home theater, this can get a bit tricky to achieve with multiple rows of seating and sight line issues. This is when hiring a home theater company skilled in theater design can make or break your home theater project.
Once again, this means many people with flat panel TV’s above their fireplace have them mounted up too high to meet the spec. However, remember, if you slouch back or have a reclining chair, the angles all shift!
One great way to figure out both screen size and viewing angle is to simply get some painters tape and mask off the proposed image size on your wall, or for smaller screens, just cut out a piece of cardboard. Sit back and see if it seems right from both a size and height perspective, then at least you will know you did a little analysis before you made your decision. Of course, for a true home theater, our experts will lay out all of this for you to help design the optimum experience for your room!. And, don’t forget to ask about the newest technology for film viewing in the home, the 2:35 anamorphic experience. This really puts you in the cinema for the best immersive experience we have ever seen!
Also, if you want to learn more about the future of the viewing experience, check out this article on the SMPTE website: http://www.smpte.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/2008-04-uhdtv.pdf
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