Home Cinema Build

[RoyMi6]

Moved into this house about 6 years ago now, and since moving in I've been keen to get a cinema room again.

I used to have a multi-purpose room in my old flat (computer desk/sofa bed/electric ceiling mounted screen to keep it out of the way) and loved it, so it's been a missing part of this new home for a long time!

We're renovating the whole house, and it's taking me a bit of time to do each one as I'm stripping out all the lathe and plaster before adding insulation and plaster-boarding the rooms and doing my best to keep old features where they're still there - such as the cornice. Obviously a dedicated cinema room isn't high on the priorities when we had leaking showers and roof

Anyway, got past the worst of that now and on to the fun stuff!

AV gear wise my set up is based around ~3/4 year old tech. I could have easily convinced myself that I "needed" a £10k HDMI 2.1 compliant projector, with matching processor and dedicated amps, but I've saved myself a bit of money by basically matching everything to the gear that I was looking at when I started thinking about this 3 years ago and buying second hand. So while I couldn't afford a Sony VPL-VW550ES projector when it launched, I'm happy that I picked one up for a rock bottom price today.

Originally I had planned on having my desk in front of the alcove in the back right of the room but, as you can see from the pic below, I've not left myself much room I didn't originally plan on having two rows of seats, but we got this entire corner set free, so kinda felt obligated. The back riser, that the three seats are sitting on, was a complete afterthought put together in an afternoon then wrapped in leftover strips of carpet I had from the install I'll probably remove it in around 6 months when the novelty wears off from showing friends and family.

On to the setup...

Video
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• Sony VPL-VW550ES 4k Projector
• Fixed 120inch 1.0 gain screen
• Nvidia Shield Pro
• Apple TV 4k
• Sony PS5 for blurays

Audio (7.2.4 Channels)
---------

• 7 x KEF T301 surround speakers
• 1 x BK Electric XXLS400 - Down Firing Subwoofer
• 1 x BK Electric Monolith Plus - Front Firing Subwoofer
• 4 x Wharfedale DFS ceiling mounted speakers
• Anthem MRX 720 AVR
• Arcam FMJ P7 - 7 Channel Amplifier
• miniDSP 2x4 HD

Random Other info
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• Fully addressable (using WLED), totally hidden, 600 LED strip that lights the cornice
• Electric roller blackout blind
• Harmony Companion Remote controlling AV gear
• 7 individual seats that sit 10 comfortably/cosily
• Wall mounted tablet showing Home Assistant cinema control screen
• One button press on tablet that "Gets ready for a movie" by doing the following steps...
  • Turn on all the AV equipment
  • Start closing the blinds
  • Turn off the main lights
  • Turn on the LED lights
  • Start the Perl and Dean music through the SONOS in time to finish with the blinds closing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WQrLuaMBMw)
  • Start Plex
  • Start the "Amaze" Dolby demo (handy to run to tune volume based on audience preference)
  • Turn off the LED lights in time with the Dolby demo finishing
  • Shows a "royPLEX" logo

To say that I'm happy with it is an understatement... In my flat I just had 7 channel surround setup without a sub (trying to be neighbour friendly) but man... these subs are to die for in a full 7.2.4 setup I've got now! My KEF T301 speakers replaced some B&W and Wharfedale towers that I had mixed and matched previously. I wanted something that took up less room as you can see the subs/cabinet and chairs take up a lot of space. Side by side (when I bought just two KEFs to test) I did prefer my older towers, but with everything in place I'd be hard pushed to identify any deficiencies with my setup when paired with good subwoofers. Saying that... I do have some planned upgrades

• I'm still using Wharfedale DFS speakers on the ceiling that are designed for 5.1 systems surround speakers and "throw" the sound around a little. I was just using what I had so not massively fussed, but over time I'll probably put some matching KEF T301s on the ceiling
• I need to run the rear speakers from my AVR rather than the dedicated amp. There's some noise coming from the amps for these channels on the AVR so keen to add a dedicated second 4 channel amp to avoid this
• Get a matching BK Electric XXLS400 and sell BK Electric Monolith Plus
• I thought I'd only be able to fit a 120inch screen (using the various projector throw calcs) but I managed to push the projector back further than I thought so think I can get a 130inch screen. Would also like to make it acoustically transparent and get the LRC speakers behind it as sometimes the centre speaker can sound a bit "low".
• Add some acoustic treatment. It sounds totally fine at the moment but haven't even run the calibration yet so interesting to see what difference that might make!)

So, here goes... the reveal!

What I brought the room back to...



Where I've ended up...







Home Assistant Screen for the tablet:

 

[RoyMi6]

Cheers. It's roughly...
4.28m from the screen to the window
4.47m from wall to wall
3.88m ceiling height

 

[RoyMi6]

Nice Room but....
Improvement Suggestions:

Automated Curtains across the Screen.
Popcorn Machine?
Get someone to go round the room with a tray of Ice Creams during the Feature for a more Authentic Cinema Experience.

Ha, so it won't be automatic but i am planning on "blanking" fabric for widescreen movies. Curtains crossed my mind but thought better of it!

My wife actually had a popcorn machine when we first started living together but it's long gone unfortunately!

Ice-cream is definitely on the cards for the 12 hour LOTR marathon we've got planned!

 

[RoyMi6]

How about getting some pre-pubescent youths to sit in the front row chatting and lighting the room up with their phones? Isn't that what happens in a cinema.

Other than that I think the ice-cream and popcorn machines would be good.

Ha, you know, an automated popcorn launcher might be a fun addition

Upgrade your kef speakers.
Also pointless having power amplifiers for those kefs.
You shouldn't mix ported and sealed subs

Laaawls. Let me fix that for you...

Looks like you put a lot of work into that! So I'm interested why you made some of the choices you did. Those KEF speakers aren't really the best value for money as you're paying a lot for looks/size without benefiting from a larger cabinet, or even in wall speakers, to get better frequency response. Additionally, you'll probably find that the built in amplifier for most AVRs would have sufficient power to handle the KEF speakers on it's own, so I'm not sure what you're gaining by having a dedicated amp?

It's also generally accepted that mixing ported and sealed subs can be hard to get matched correctly so I agree with your planned upgrade of swapping out of ported Monolith sub for a matching XXLS400.

Thanks hornetstinger, it WAS a lot of work! As with a lot of things in life, my cinema is a compromise of time, money, comfort and space. As I mentioned in my OP I did actually have some nice B&W tower speakers that I brought over from my previous system, but given that we wanted a really large screen to create that "cinema" feeling (and we've already got a 65 inch in the living room), at one point I realised that I wasn't going to be able to fit everything in comfortably.

I'd considered a lot of things, demoed some speakers in Richer Sounds, even had some KEF Q950s delivered to demo at home (before I knew about the lack of space) and, for me, everything sounds pretty much like for like... I'd already managed to get some hand-me-down T301s for the rear and obviously demoing things side by side is hard, but when I tried the T301s and managed to accidentally get confused as to what speakers I had plugged in between my T301 (with the sub on) and the KEF Q950s and had to touch them to find out which one was running, that's when it clicked for me that "these are fine...". However, I did start looking at in-wall speakers as well. The KEF Ci3160RL-THX was on my list at one point, but as the room came together I noticed that in wall wasn't going to cut it for the surrounds due to the lack of space to create the right volume they need. Additionally, it's my wifes study on the opposite side of the screen, where I'd put a lot of effort into sound insulating that wall already, so didn't really make sense to me to start putting speakers IN that wall

Ultimately I got a great deals on the T301s and I spent less than £110 per speaker for the 7 that I've got - I've got no complaints. Matched with good bass I'd actually say they're a pretty brilliant compromise for me.

As for amplification, unfortunately the MRX720 only has 7 amplified outputs so I do actually need a dedicated AMP. While I don't NEED a 7 channel AMP for the 4 additional speakers it was one of those absolute steals that came up that was better value than the 4 channel amps I was looking at! It was also local so I could collect without having to risk someone posting it. Double bonus is that it means everything is running super cool in the cabinet because nothing is being pushed near their limits. Triple bonus it supports upgrading to a dedicated processor in the future.

We've obviously we've got different opinions/priorities when it comes to AV equipment, and our reasons for swapping out the subs probably highlight that the most. I'm very much of the opinion that for every article you find telling me you "can't" mix ported and sealed subs I'll be able to find one that says you can. Using my miniDSP I've found that I can get pretty great results with these two subs and have no complaints from how they perform, but as you've correctly spotted I do plan on swapping out the monolith... but I'm doing it because I want nice "visual symmetry" in the room!

Ignoring the short term upgrades I listed in the OP I do plan a number of other upgrades, but they're most likely to be and HDMI 2.1 compatible projector and dedicated processor - which is also partly why I plan on picking up another dedicated AMP to allow that flexibility in the future while addressing a specific problem right now (humming coming from the AVR amps)

 

[RoyMi6]

System looks brilliant! Nice to see a somewhat budget friendly one too, working with what you have rather than spending £££ on all brand new stuff.


There’s one area I think you may benefit from, if you haven’t looked into it yet - acoustic treatment.


It’ll take any sting out of the room, and help you listen to just the sound of the speakers, rather than the room too.

Cheers @MRRocklife, yeah, I definitely put myself in the "bargain bin" end of high end audio gear trying to source everything I could for cheap as possible, and I think it's paid off.

When I open the door to show friends and family they've been in awe. We've had tears from listening to the Queen live aid performance, and gasps at the LFE from the first 5 minute battle in LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring. That's a win in my book

Acoustic Treatment - yes! You're totally right. I've already got some rockwool leftover from the build that I plan on making into panels, I'm just waiting on the covering material. And yeah, despite all the furniture in the room it's all "leather" and thick wood, so the roof definitely does still have high pitched reverb even from just a clap. I had previously spent some time tuning the subs in another room (just for fun) and so my miniDSP is configured with totally inappropriate config at the moment so it's not plugged in. Additionally, I need to get a PC into the room as ARC doesn't support MacOS for my laptop - ugh!

So yeah, it's on the cards, but I'll be honest... even as is, not a single person (including the wife) has complained about audio quality yet... Matching 7 channel speakers does have the advantages that no speaker is over/under powered. It does appear to have made set up fairly painless and my biggest bugbear, of voices being illegible, has not been a problem - so I'm happy about that

 

[RoyMi6]

The 720 doesn't support dual sub correction from memory, as in you can't independently calibrate them with ARC - is that what you're using your mini DSP for? But definitely a great shout going for 2 subs - really helps even out the bass response in-room. Also, I notice you've put them in corners - people say not to, but I've always found it much easier to get them integrated when I do, as you can always tone down the bass a little if need be.

Yeah, exactly that. One sub output from the MRX720 to the miniDSP which can independently control four subs. I use REW and calibrated mic to measure room response and generate curves which can be uploaded to the miniDSP to create one "virtual" sub. Then I run ARC on the MRX720 afterwards.

Reason I've not done it yet is because I don't have my acoustic treatment. Because it will probably take me a day to do it all I figure I'd wait until that's all in place.

Oh, and yeah, subs are just in the corner for convenience. They may move when I get around to calibrating but unlikely to be anywhere other than in one of the 3 corners where there's space. It is a dedicated room for watching movies but I'm unlikely to have them literally sitting in the middle of the floor

Not got Interstellar, might have to pick it up

 

[RoyMi6]

They're from DFS, but they don't sell them any more I'm afraid!