Splitting this out to it's own thread:
Backstory: in high school (mid 90s) my best friend at the time got a job at Best Buy, ended up working in their AV area and in the late 90s had a very nice home theater set up in his basement. He later went to work for Abt in their home theater department and I think even later started his own custom home theater company in the north suburbs. I lost contact with him (as happens) and haven't spoke to him in 20+ years. Needless to say, he was in intoduction to home theaters and proper sound. I always had a cheap receiver of some sort, even in my bedroom with external speakers. I have never used the TV speakers for audio since the mid 90s. I'd consider myself an "audiophile", but much in the way that I'm a car enthusiest, I'm not looking for an 8 second street car nor am I looking for a 6 figure home theater.
When we were looking to move in early 2020 (signed papers with our realtor in mid Feb 2020) **I** had a major want on my list, a basement home theater. It didn't have to be completed, but in the back of my mind it was important.
It just to happened that the house we ended up with had (in addition to all the other items on our checklist) by all accounts, previously had a home theater in the basement (speaker wires in the walls, holes in the walls were the screen had been, etc).
After we closed here (late May 2020) there were clearly other priorities, so the basement home theater had to wait.
At the previous house, I had the following set up in our small living room:
I already had a Dolby 3.0 setup at the old house with Klipsch towers and a Klipsch center channel and a decent Pioneer 7.1 Receiver that I got in 2018 to replace hand me down, mismatched 5.1 speakers and a cheap Denon receiver.
We also had a Sony 8500 series 4k TV that we bought in 2016.
Those all got moved to the basement and we replaced that in our current bigger living room with a X800 series 85" TV and a soundbar.
Feb 2020, I had a friend who works at Costco, so she hooked me up with their black Friday deal of a 12" powered Klipsch sub. Last summer, I picked up Klipsch 5 1/4 bookshelf speakers as rears and had a true 5.1 set up in the basement finally.
Seating was left over misc non matching chairs. Last last summer we ordered some proper theater seating that got delivered in Nov. Thus started the true home theater build.
Last week, we ordered an Epson 4k Projector and 120" screen for the basement. We had a Best Buy Magnolia theater specialist come by and inspect the room. We spent about 2.5-3 hours going through the room and various options.
So, alot of what the Magnolia guy and I discussed in the 2.5 hrs is how far down the "enthusiast/audiophile" wormhole. I don't have multiple 5 figures to throw at this odd shaped room to make it a true home theater. I don't even have low 5 figures for this (though all in with the price of existing furniture and the stuff we have it would be)
There have to be compromises somewhere. Like I said, the shape of this room is odd, it's not ideal for a true theater, and I knew that going in. I'm not trying to replicate my local AMC in my basement, I just want something at home that's decent for a decent price point. What we ended up coming up with, I think, will be a really decent movie watching room for the family.
Here's the work I have to do before they install the projector/screen on the 23rd
Some of the items are being delivered straight to me, including a Panamax MR5100 Power Line Conditioner, which we may have overpaid through BB, but I'm going to see if I can get a pricematch once it's here (should be here by the end of the week) if it's still on sale on Amazon (about a $200 difference). Once that's here, I need to move the components we're keeping (Xbox One, Apple TV, Roku, Switch, Receiver, Panamax) over to where they'll be mounted, off to the side (right) of the seating.
I need to buy the stuff to make some shelves, looking at some industrial pipe shelves for them and put it in it's final spot. Then I've got to run the wiring from there to where the speakers are at currently. I bought 2 spools of speaker wire, 100 feet and a 50 foot of RCA for the subwoofer.
Then I've got to build a mounting box attached to the beams in the drop ceiling for the Projector to mount to. He said to have it as close to the drop ceiling tile as possible. He also suggested mounting the ceiling speakers to a piece of wood and attach that to the beams as well instead of having them hang on the drop ceiling. I'm not positive if those speakers will be delivered directly to me beforehand of brought on site the day of the install. I'm going to the pull the existing rears down and not mount them until everything is finalized, incase the towers end up moving. We got the Best Buy Total Tech subscription, which was $200 but saved us $450 in install and includes tuning of the receiver, so I'll utilize that.
The exact mounting point will be determined on the exact seating and the spacing of the ceiling tiles above the seats. He suggested 1 speaker directly above each chair, as close to the middle of the chairs as possible.
Oh and I have to remove the 65" and the wall mount and figure out what to do with that.
Then once the room is all done, we're going to start painting and decorating. Area rug on the floor, posters and canvas prints on the walls.
It's alot of work for the next 2 weekends, as I don't want pull everything apart now, as we use the room regularly.
I'm excited to see how it turns out.
Backstory: in high school (mid 90s) my best friend at the time got a job at Best Buy, ended up working in their AV area and in the late 90s had a very nice home theater set up in his basement. He later went to work for Abt in their home theater department and I think even later started his own custom home theater company in the north suburbs. I lost contact with him (as happens) and haven't spoke to him in 20+ years. Needless to say, he was in intoduction to home theaters and proper sound. I always had a cheap receiver of some sort, even in my bedroom with external speakers. I have never used the TV speakers for audio since the mid 90s. I'd consider myself an "audiophile", but much in the way that I'm a car enthusiest, I'm not looking for an 8 second street car nor am I looking for a 6 figure home theater.
When we were looking to move in early 2020 (signed papers with our realtor in mid Feb 2020) **I** had a major want on my list, a basement home theater. It didn't have to be completed, but in the back of my mind it was important.
It just to happened that the house we ended up with had (in addition to all the other items on our checklist) by all accounts, previously had a home theater in the basement (speaker wires in the walls, holes in the walls were the screen had been, etc).
After we closed here (late May 2020) there were clearly other priorities, so the basement home theater had to wait.
At the previous house, I had the following set up in our small living room:
I already had a Dolby 3.0 setup at the old house with Klipsch towers and a Klipsch center channel and a decent Pioneer 7.1 Receiver that I got in 2018 to replace hand me down, mismatched 5.1 speakers and a cheap Denon receiver.
We also had a Sony 8500 series 4k TV that we bought in 2016.
Those all got moved to the basement and we replaced that in our current bigger living room with a X800 series 85" TV and a soundbar.
Feb 2020, I had a friend who works at Costco, so she hooked me up with their black Friday deal of a 12" powered Klipsch sub. Last summer, I picked up Klipsch 5 1/4 bookshelf speakers as rears and had a true 5.1 set up in the basement finally.
Seating was left over misc non matching chairs. Last last summer we ordered some proper theater seating that got delivered in Nov. Thus started the true home theater build.
Last week, we ordered an Epson 4k Projector and 120" screen for the basement. We had a Best Buy Magnolia theater specialist come by and inspect the room. We spent about 2.5-3 hours going through the room and various options.
So, alot of what the Magnolia guy and I discussed in the 2.5 hrs is how far down the "enthusiast/audiophile" wormhole. I don't have multiple 5 figures to throw at this odd shaped room to make it a true home theater. I don't even have low 5 figures for this (though all in with the price of existing furniture and the stuff we have it would be)
There have to be compromises somewhere. Like I said, the shape of this room is odd, it's not ideal for a true theater, and I knew that going in. I'm not trying to replicate my local AMC in my basement, I just want something at home that's decent for a decent price point. What we ended up coming up with, I think, will be a really decent movie watching room for the family.
Here's the work I have to do before they install the projector/screen on the 23rd
Some of the items are being delivered straight to me, including a Panamax MR5100 Power Line Conditioner, which we may have overpaid through BB, but I'm going to see if I can get a pricematch once it's here (should be here by the end of the week) if it's still on sale on Amazon (about a $200 difference). Once that's here, I need to move the components we're keeping (Xbox One, Apple TV, Roku, Switch, Receiver, Panamax) over to where they'll be mounted, off to the side (right) of the seating.
I need to buy the stuff to make some shelves, looking at some industrial pipe shelves for them and put it in it's final spot. Then I've got to run the wiring from there to where the speakers are at currently. I bought 2 spools of speaker wire, 100 feet and a 50 foot of RCA for the subwoofer.
Then I've got to build a mounting box attached to the beams in the drop ceiling for the Projector to mount to. He said to have it as close to the drop ceiling tile as possible. He also suggested mounting the ceiling speakers to a piece of wood and attach that to the beams as well instead of having them hang on the drop ceiling. I'm not positive if those speakers will be delivered directly to me beforehand of brought on site the day of the install. I'm going to the pull the existing rears down and not mount them until everything is finalized, incase the towers end up moving. We got the Best Buy Total Tech subscription, which was $200 but saved us $450 in install and includes tuning of the receiver, so I'll utilize that.
The exact mounting point will be determined on the exact seating and the spacing of the ceiling tiles above the seats. He suggested 1 speaker directly above each chair, as close to the middle of the chairs as possible.
Oh and I have to remove the 65" and the wall mount and figure out what to do with that.
Then once the room is all done, we're going to start painting and decorating. Area rug on the floor, posters and canvas prints on the walls.
It's alot of work for the next 2 weekends, as I don't want pull everything apart now, as we use the room regularly.
I'm excited to see how it turns out.
