Room feedback and screen size - 3d renders (1 Viewer)

[shadow5606]

Hello folks! I'm looking for feedback on a HT design. I've dreamed for years about doing one and I now have a pending offer in on a home with a basement.

I prefer sitting closer to the screen and like the idea of an acoustically transparent screen but bumping it out far enough to put speakers behind it makes my already small room smaller.

Here are some digital sketches and 3D renders I made today...

Full room - Front section is 11'2" x 11' with a smaller area (due to a closet) that narrows down to 7'9".


Here's the same image zoomed in a bit to see measurements...


If I go with an acoustically transparent 120" screen here's what things look like from the 2nd row


And from the 1st row...


Last, if I do the acoustically transparent screen this images shows all the distances to viewing distances...


And a big temptation would be to use a 135" screen but that would take up nearly 100% of the wall and look like this...



So... Handful of things I'd love feedback on please...

- If i configure things this way above I do have chairs right next to walls and I wonder if that will be an issue and if I can just address it by hanging heavy fabric along all the walls?

- Will I be OK having my fronts and center up against the wall and behind a screen? I'd love to get them further from the wall but don't have much space to spare?

- Should I consider that huge 135" screen or stick to the 120"? If I go for the acoustically transparent screen and put it in front of my speaker then I'll be down to a 6"9" viewing distance from the front row... However when the seats are reclined I'll probably gain another 8" or so of viewing distance which gets me up to 7'6" viewing distance when reclined.

- With this room design where would you put your surrounds? I'm open to 5.1, 7.1 or could even mess with Atmos but I'm not to worried about that. With that closet that bumps out would you put a set of surrounds up for the front row and another set for the 2nd row? or maybe just in the ceiling in between the rows? I want to make sure the single chair in the front left still gets a good experience.

- Gear under consideration is the Optoma UHD60, a pair of Klipsch 8000F for fronts, a Klipsch center TBD and surrounds TBD. I do own a nice SVS Sub with two down firing 12s which would in theory go behind the screen.

Are there other bits of feedback you'd give me or questions you have?

 

[Dave Upton]

Hi Cliff.

Welcome to HTF, and congrats on starting your first dedicated theater project!

- If i configure things this way above I do have chairs right next to walls and I wonder if that will be an issue and if I can just address it by hanging heavy fabric along all the walls?

This will pose a problem acoustically. When you sit near a boundary, you are going to get very wonky low frequency (bass) response, and pretty cruddy imaging. While you can mitigate this to some extent by covering the wall in thick bass traps - I would still avoid it like the plague. You are going to be much happier sitting at least 2 feet away from a wall.

- Will I be OK having my fronts and center up against the wall and behind a screen? I'd love to get them further from the wall but don't have much space to spare?

This is fine, if you buy speakers that are designed to operate this way. Many speakers are rear-ported, so they don't play nicely with walls behind them. There are a lot of sealed speakers designed to be wall mounted however that would work just fine - you simply need to keep this in mind when choosing gear.

- Should I consider that huge 135" screen or stick to the 120"? If I go for the acoustically transparent screen and put it in front of my speaker then I'll be down to a 6"9" viewing distance from the front row... However when the seats are reclined I'll probably gain another 8" or so of viewing distance which gets me up to 7'6" viewing distance when reclined.

I would say this is way too large for your viewing distance - not terribly so, but it will be a bit too close for SMPTE guidelines. Those guidelines are pretty clear, at 1.6X the diagonal. So in your case, the maximum screen size at your viewing distance that would conform to SMPTE guidelines is only 55"!
THX, which is the most generous, says a 40 degree viewing angle is the maximum human vision can tolerate. That would put your max screen size at 1.2x viewing distance. In your case, that would be 74", which you could stretch to 92" at the very most. I would not go any bigger than this, no matter what.

Please be very careful about this - as you could find the picture unwatchable that close.

- With this room design where would you put your surrounds? I'm open to 5.1, 7.1 or could even mess with Atmos but I'm not to worried about that. With that closet that bumps out would you put a set of surrounds up for the front row and another set for the 2nd row? or maybe just in the ceiling in between the rows? I want to make sure the single chair in the front left still gets a good experience.

I would try to stick with on-wall or in-wall surrounds for the left and right surround, and base those on your primary listening position. For rear surrounds, looks like an angled in-ceiling speaker is your best bet.

- Gear under consideration is the Optoma UHD60, a pair of Klipsch 8000F for fronts, a Klipsch center TBD and surrounds TBD. I do own a nice SVS Sub with two down firing 12s which would in theory go behind the screen.

This is a rear ported, speaker, so it wouldn't work very well so close to the wall (you need at least 12" breathing room).

Are there other bits of feedback you'd give me or questions you have?

Just be very careful about going too big with the screen, or sitting too close to the sidewall. It could have a very negative impact on your experience.

 

[shadow5606]

yeah, have been kicking this around a bit and may try to knock out that closet and build over the sump pumps inside it to gain some width.