A Home Theater Design Survival Guide

    It is important when designing a purpose-built room such as a home theater that you understand some of the overall fundamentals concerning acoustics, lighting, projection, and mood in order to better design that room.
At Dyer Electronics over the years we have strived to understand and put in to use good theater design practices. Theater design is a very personal thing. You can understand the perfect way to do or the so-called "perfect way" to set up a home theater, but if you do not like what the room looks like or functions like, you will be very disappointed.
    To that end, we wanted to give you some basic (or as the name implies -- fundamental considerations) when designing or building your theater. Bear in mind that these are suggestions and that you may care to use a few or all of the suggestions that we have put forth.
    The goal is simple: We want to help you create the best and most accurate cinema presentation in your home. By applying the following design principles, your home can be a better home theater environment than those of the theaters that you pay to go to.

Acoustic Considerations:
A.) Box within a Box: In effect, when designing a Home Theater, you are trying to build a box within a box. This is important for two reasons.
    First, you want to insulate the room from any outside sound as much as possible.
    Second, you want to keep in any sound that occurs inside the room.
    We call the resulting average of noise either Noise Floor or Noise Criteria. The lower the noise floor, the less the equipment has to compete with outside elements or inside elements such as fans, air conditioner motors etc. You want to have good dynamic range. You wouldn't want to listen to music while mowing the lawn. The noise of the lawnmower would be way too distracting and you would not be able to hear the details of the music.
    The difference between loud and soft noises is called dynamic range. In your theater you want the widest possible range or good dynamic range. When you hear a whisper on a movie you don't want to have to turn it up to hear that whisper. You really want it to be a whisper.
    To accomplish this you should do the following things:
1. Double Staggered Stud Wall: A lot of people get this one wrong. First, it should be two 2x4 or two 2x6-stud walls with a separate bottom plate, and a separate top plate separated by at least 1" of dead air space between the walls. Many people use a single 2 x 6 top and bottom plate attached to the 2x4 or 2x6 studs. This provides an easy transference method through the wall for sound. In effect it acts like one wall. Treat each part of the double staggered stud wall as a completely separate wall. When insulating the walls, insulate them as two separate walls leaving an air gap between them. Do not overstuff them. This actually makes the problem of sound transference through the wall worse. A double staggered stud wall has the effect of thoroughly quieting down a room. It is a large loss of space but it truly is a very good method of stopping sound transference. It will not stop all frequencies of sound. In effect only a 6ft thick wall of concrete can stop all notes but it will block most frequencies down to around 100hz. The actual number will vary with how the room is built and it does not truly stop the sound, it only turns most of the sound into mechanical energy. You should plan to do this if you truly want a good noise floor.
2. Rubber Room: We build rubber rooms for a few clients now and again. What do I mean by this? Sometimes we have a client that does not want to give up the space that a double ceiling or double staggered wall requires. For whatever reason, they have decided this is wrong for them. In that instance we will put a layer of rubber underneath the first layer of sheetrock to absorb additional sound pressure levels. This only takes about ½" off the width and heighth of the room so space loss is not a real problem. This will help cut down on overall vibration and does fairly well at eliminating noise flow. It is not as good as double staggered stud walls but if that's all you can do then do it. Also the cost is greater than that of doing double staggered stud walls.
3. Floor and Ceiling: When constructing the ceiling, it would be a good idea to install more floating insulation above the room than normal. 2 times the normal amount of insulation blown in above the rooms is good. Please do not pack it down or in this will make sound transference easier. You can, if you want, put up a second set of sheet-rock on top of the existing sheet rock using Z-clips or even create a second ceiling below the first ceiling the same way you would do double staggered studs. If you have a room above the theater and you do not want sound coming in or going out, you should seriously consider this. A Z-clip is sometimes also called resilient channel and is a metal channel that gives with impact. In effect, it creates a floating ceiling that can react to the sound pressure on either side of it and turn more of the sound into mechanical energy.
    When constructing the floor, first construct a standard floor and truss construction (if you are on the second floor). Then you can put down a set of rubber isolators and float the second floor on top of the first. This helps isolate the bottom floor from the second floor. If you are on a concrete slab, you should definitely consider installing a double layer cross-grained plywood floor that is screwed and glued on top of that floor. Concrete is a very solid rigid surface. Most frequencies will bounce off and create a second out-of-phase time-delayed sound wave. The resulting sound wave can seriously decrease intelligibility (your ability to hear detail in voices and instruments). The plywood approach helps alleviate this problem to some degree. The really serious home theater enthusiast would actually install an entire floor system that was supported by springs or some other material such as rubber that would give and take with the sound pressure. These techniques can add a great deal of cost to the overall project and should not be taken lightly. On the up side, they can really enhance the theater experience by resulting in a completely quiet room with good acoustic characteristics of its own and are well worth the effort.
4. Doors: When designing most Theaters we usually specify a double door system. This means that we want you to have to walk through two sets of doors to enter the theater. This means that when you enter and leave you do not let in or out any sound or light or at least very little. This keeps the people who are watching the movie happy since they are not disturbed when you have to get up to go to the bathroom. We also ask that if at all possible, you should only have one entrance on a Theater. This is done for several reasons. First a Theater should be a destination not a walkway. One entry point means that this is always the case. Second, a double door system cuts down on the amount of noise leakage into the other rooms and vice versa. It can also create a small anteroom that leads into the Theater that can set the mood. Here you can put movie poster in lighted movie cases etc or even a ticket booth. You can in effect create the mood.
    Doors must have an STC (sound transmission class rating) of 45 or higher. We prefer doors to have a completely weatherized seal. All class 45 doors will have some type of seal. We also ask for solid doors and not glass paned doors. Although it is possible to purchase glass doors with an STC of 45 or better you need to tightly control the lighting in the Theater and this will not help to that end. A small round window in the second door at eye level is accepted. You would typically find this in an Art Deco type theater. Doors must close and latch solidly. Please inspect the seal on the door that you have installed thoroughly. We have specified these doors countless times only to have them not even seal well. If it does not seal well, it can't block light and sound -- and that is the whole point. I have had several clients who do not like to have to step over a threshold to enter the room. If this is a problem for you, there are STC-45 doors with seals that lift up when you turn the handle to open the door and close again when the door is closed. Although not ideal, they will do the job.
5. Windows: None are preferred, but if in a given installation there is nothing you can do but use windows, you will need to use some sort of heavy two or three layer drapes that go floor to ceiling. They don't have to be motorized, however this would be a nice touch. The drapes should be made of heavy black-out material and should completely block out light and as much sound as possible. If needed, valances should be installed along the sides and top and bottom of the windows to completely absorb all light. Remember windows and the resulting light can completely white-out any projector you install in your theater. You MUST stop all light from entering your theater. This is critical to the effect. Also remember that windows can create resonances of their own, so cover them up. Also, if you only have one set of windows on the left hand side of the room and none on the right you are creating an unequal environment. This unequal environment could result in unequal amounts of sound in terms of both sound pressure and frequency at the listening posistion. In general, windows in a true theater are a bad idea and should be avoided at all cost.
6. Risers: In order to better layout the sight lines in the room, you should include a riser for seating. This riser can be anything from 6"-12" or even 24" in overall height. The higher the riser, the better the sight lines to the screen. Risers should be built of 2 cross-grained layers of plywood built on a supporting base of 2 x 6 beams spaced at a maximum of 12" apart. The riser should be floating on rubber blocks that will enhance the bass impact experience. Riser depth is strictly based on seating. If, for instance, we use Theater type Irwin seating, the depth should be at least 48" but if we use Acoustic Innovations, the depth should be at least 60". The seats make the difference. You should also take into account where you are going to sit in relation to the frequency hot spots or standing waves in a room. In general, if you sit along the back wall where frequencies collect, you will not have a good presentation, if you sit too close to the speakers you will not get a good stage, and if you sit in the dead middle of the room you will have unequal amounts of sound at different frequencies to contend with. In general, slice the room up into thirds. Your speakers for stereo should be in one of the thirds of the room or along that line, and your head should be in the other. This will result in better sound stage and more equal frequency distribution at your seating position. There are also acoustic programs to help you figure out what your room will do and how it will react, but you might want to consult a professional for this information.
7. Dampening and Diffusion (also called Live End / Dead End Theory): One of the things we do know about home theaters and studios is that to create a live sound stage at the front of the room, you want to minimize reflection. This reflection off of the sidewalls can create all kinds of problems for your perception of sound. If you deaden or dampen the front ¼ of the room with sound deadening drapes or sound panels you can open up the sound stage and recreate a more live environment. This happens because when sound reflects off of a hard surface it creates a time delayed sound wave that reaches your ear a millisecond later than the primary sound (the sound from the speakers you want to hear), and it is usually out of phase with that sound or reversed to some degree. This creates confusion for your brain. It hears both sounds, and with more than one point of reference, can easily triangulate where that sound came from. Now for your brain, it is easy to hear where that speaker is and where it is coming from. This makes it much harder to hear a sound stage (the natural sound of people placed appropriately on a stage), and harder for your brain to become convinced that what you are listening to is not recorded. By placing absorption panels in the primary reflection spot on the walls and ceiling, you effectively nullify that second sound wave or reduce it to a point that your brain is not confused. Now, sounds become more detailed and more alive with more intelligibility. You, on the other hand, want good reflection in the back sound stage for good diffusion. This will help create the feeling of surround and ambience that you want in a good theater. Most of the time in the back of the room, we simply leave the existing drywall. Drywall makes a pretty good reflector and thus it can help create that ambience that you want for surround sound. Sometimes we install Diffusion Panels in the back of the room. These panels typically 4"-9" thick and very non-uniform in appearance, and have the effect of scattering sound equally in all directions. This creates the feeling of being in a larger space than you are, and thus you get superb ambience. It also helps the front speakers to not slap echo off the back wall, again giving your brain something to be confused about.
8. Room Size: Believe it or not, someone has sat down and actually figured out optimum room dimensions for a theater. The basic rule of thumb is not to have dimensions that are multiples of each other. For instance you would not want a room that is 10 x10 x 10. This means that if an 80hz note completes in 10', then we have a 3db jump at 80hz for every equal room dimensions. This means we have a 9db bump at 80 Hz. No equalizer can correct this. The best way to fix this is to make the room dimensions non-equal. The best room ratios to use are Height /Width/Depth Option 1 1.0 /1.14 / 1.39, or another option of 1.0 / 1.28 / 1.54, or a third option of 1.0 / 1.60 / 2.33 This means for instance, if you have a ceiling height of 10', your room width would be 11.4', and your room depth would be 13.9'. This will provide you with the best neutral sounding environment to work with. In essence, we start with a blank canvas, much like a painter starts with a blank canvas. Remember to account for the sheetrock depth and any risers that you plan on putting in when you take into account the overall dimensions of the room.
9. Room Shape: So many people get this wrong. First things first, don't build a circle, square or octagon. If this is all you have and you can't build a theater anywhere else, then good luck. These three shapes are absolutely the worst for sound. The best and most predictable shape to build is a rectangle. Although not perfect, it works well for seating layouts, screen placements, risers, doors etc. In general, it is a good overall shape and it is predictable. Also, if you want to improve on the shape a little, you could slant in the sidewalls toward the screen. This creates a megaphone shape. You will see this a lot in larger auditoriums. It helps to evenly spread sound and amplify it, as well as create non-parallel surfaces for the sound to bounce off of. This type of shape is more complicated to predict, so you should really consult a specialist before building it. Also, do not put any strange ceiling shapes in a theater. Domes are bad and arches do not help. They can be very pretty but beware they can create hidden acoustic traps.

B.) Video and Lighting Control:
Controlling the light in a theater is so important I don't know where to begin. You must have black out drapes installed over the windows. We actually prefer to control the Drapes with motors and control the lights via the system installed. If you turn it on to a movie, it sets the tone first by lowering the lights and then by closing the blinds, and then turning on the sound and starting the movie. Just like a real commercial theater. Lighting Control is important because even today's projectors cannot output more light than the sun. Your average CRT projector will only put out about the amount of light that a 100-watt light-bulb puts out and DLP projectors will only put about the same amount of light a 150-200 watt bulb produces. This is not a whole lot of light when you consider that it is spread across a large screen surface. To compensate for this, we have to darken the room. This forces the eyes to open up and let more light in. It is a matter of dynamic range. The darker the room, the brighter the projector will seem.

C.) Heating and Air Conditioning.
1. One of the most common mistakes in a Home Theater is to underestimate the air conditioning requirements of the room. The room should first be figured at 2-3 times the normal heat load of a given room. When you consider that you are going to install hot equipment (projectors, amplifiers etc.), and then cram in as many hot bodies as possible, it is easy to see why the theater deserves special treatment.
2. Secondly, if you are going to seal the room for the best possible acoustics, you will need to install an air return. This provides circulation. Without it, you will suffer unless the Theater doors are open. If you do not provide a return, the air will have nowhere to go in a sealed room.
3. Third, all vents should be oversized by 2-3 times the normal size. This cuts down on the amount of wind noise that you will hear when you are listening to a quiet scene.
4. All vents and returns should be worked into a room if possible, instead of just dotting the ceiling with them. You could build a light soffet and include them in there or use a more stylish long rectangular vent along the sidewalls. In any event, you should attempt to minimize the noise of the HVAC and work it into the architecture of the room.
5. All duct pipe and return pipes should be bent back and forth at least 5 times on the way to and from the air handler. This will help eliminate the mechanical noise that the fans make from traveling down the pipe and into the theater.
6. All ducts and return pipes should be lined with insulation to help reduce the noise.
7. All equipment locations should have their own independent Air Conditioning system independent of the theater Air Conditioning. A simple exhaust fan is often times not enough to cool the amplifiers and all the other equipment that a home theater needs. This should be figured by taking the wattage draw of the units and converting that into B.T.U.'s to figure out the heat load. Also, if the equipment is to be located in the room the air conditioner for the equipment must be kept cool. This is a strong argument for a separate equipment room.

D.) Equipment Selection:
1. You can select equipment ranging from low end to high end. To an extent, this will determine the amount of sound control and ideas you incorporate into your Theater. We can design a Theater that will fit your budget, however, we would definitely recommend that before any construction begins you take some time to select equipment. This will greatly speed the design process and help prevent costly mistakes. The projector, for instance, and screen size must be selected ahead of time to properly lay out the room and the projector location. For instance if we select a screen of 52" high by 92" wide (a diagonal of 109"), you will need to place a Runco 933 projector 122.36" inches from front of lens to the screen. However, if you use a LCD projector, your throw distance may be anywhere from 145" to 180". Thus choosing your projector will allow you to build the room for that projector.
    The same applies to speaker selection. If you want to build the speakers in, then you need to know how big they are, and where they go. Speakers come in lots of sizes and shapes. Your screen also can be built in to the wall. To do all of this requires strict attention to detail. Seating and couches also play a role in room design. If you want to optimize the sound, then we need to know where you're going to sit and what you are going to sit on. All this matters.
    More often than not, we put in systems in untreated living rooms. Although this works, we often have to overcompensate with more power than is needed and more speakers to make them sound good. Even with all the extra money tied up in good gear, we can never achieve good movie theater-style sound. A good home theater is not just good equipment, but a good environment and good equipment combined to recreate a true cinema experience at home.
    Projectors: What fits for you? There are basically three types of projectors to choose from when designing a home theater: C.R.T. (cathode ray tube) based projectors, L.C.D. (liquid crystal display) projectors and D.L.P. (digital light projector) projectors. These three types each have their usefulness, and each was created to present big screen video.
1. C.R.T. projectors: generally, in most high end theaters you will see C.R.T. based projectors used more often than not. They have the best black level (night looks like night), are the most capable of displaying high definition broadcast, and in general are very customizable. The down side is that they are big, must be placed exactly in a specific location, and they take a lot of work to setup properly. Generally, only your better dealers will even understand how to best install them and set them up. We personally prefer C.R.T.'s to any other type of projector but this is changing.
2. L.C.D. projectors: generally L.C.D. projectors are not used in high-end home theaters. They produce a brighter than normal image by sacrificing black level, so nights tend to look gray and not black. They tend to have a limitation in terms of number of pixels, and so in most cases you will see small dots on the screen that make up the image. On the up side, they are brighter than average, they are great at displaying data from a computer and they are very cheap. L.C.D. projectors are also extremely easy to set up, but are not very customizable, so some aspect ratios may be wrong or not quite correct and so color balancing an L.C.D. may be impossible. If you are on a tight budget then it may be a good choice, but otherwise, move on.
3. D.L.P. projectors: Digital Light Projectors have come a long way in just a very short time. They are the wave of the future, and will probably supplant all other types of projectors in just a few years. They have some limitations at this point in time and are not as capable as C.R.T. projectors when it comes to displaying High Definition Television material. They are, however, very bright and pixelation is not a big problem since the pixels are extremely small. The drawbacks are bad black levels (gray nights are the norm), and they are not very customizable when it relates to aspect ratios with a few notable exceptions. There are basically two types:
1 chip D.L.P and 3 chip D.L.P. Without getting into the particulars, suffice it to say the three chips are very expensive, perform wonderfully and are completely customizable. The one chip D.L.P.'s do not perform as good and are less customizable, but are also much smaller in size than most C.R.T. projectors and 3 chip D.L.P. projectors. The D.L.P. projector is a good choice for the moderate home theater and will someday replace the C.R.T. in the truly high-end home theater.
4. Preamplifiers, Receivers and Amplifiers oh my…
One of the more daunting tasks is deciding what you should select for the sound and amplification, as well as switching task in your theater. You can select an Audio/Video Receiver, which will handle all three jobs of switching, surround sound decoding and amplification, or you can choose components that do these jobs separately. In most cases, when split up the quality is much better, and of course the expense is much greater. You should select a solution to these jobs for your theater with a few basic criteria in mind:
A. How important is Sound Quality to me in both surround sound and stereo modes? If the answer is very important (and it should be if you are constructing a dedicated home theater), then a separate preamplifier and amplifiers is a must - otherwise buy a receiver.
B. How easy is it to operate? This is very important. We have seen receivers and preamp / amplifier combinations with at least forty or fifty buttons on the front and the remote, and they are impossible to use. On the other hand, we have seen preamplifiers and receivers with only 5 buttons that were a joy to use. Make sure that what you are buying is easy to use and also that it integrates well with the rest of the equipment you will need to complete your home theater.
C. How much power is enough power? The answer is simple; you can almost never have enough power. This is true in almost all cases. The most common reason speakers fail or distort is lack of power, not too much. For this reason, most audiophiles buy a "separates system" where they can then buy an amplifier to match the specific speakers they are going to buy. It is important for them to match in terms of power. You should take the speaker manufacturers' recommended power specifications and buy at least that much amplifier if not a little bit more.
5. Speakers: The choices are endless, but let physics be your guide… Perhaps the most important part of the system is your speakers. They are the final link to your ear. Too many people do not play close attention to the physics of buying a good speaker. They are generally more concerned with size and finish than how they sound and how they are made. A good high quality speaker is usually very large. It is a matter of physics. A small (6" driver and tweeter) cannot produce the entire range of sound you are capable of hearing. If you buy a small driver (otherwise known as a satellite speaker), you are probably going to be missing something in the reproduction of both movies and music. Remember you are building a room dedicated to the faithful reproduction of sound and the speakers can be placed exactly where you want them, and if needed built into the wall or surround room. They do not have to be eyesores, but they do have to be big enough to do the job. In general, you should look for speakers that have some basic criteria in mind.
Driver Arrangement: Most speakers you will see on the market are arranged with a single 6" or 8" driver underneath a single soft dome tweeter. They are generally rectangular in shape and can range in height quite a bit. For a home theater you should avoid these. The single tweeter above the midrange driver means that regardless of where you locate the speaker in front of you, if you have rows or tiers of seats, someone is going to get more high frequency than low and someone is going to get more low frequency sound than high frequency sound. Look for a speaker that has two midrange drivers (6" or 8") flanking the tweeter. This creates an as even as possible sound field in all tiered seating levels.
Cabinet Build: You should look for a speaker that is built of extremely rigid materials. Most speaker cabinets are built of a low quality Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF), and thus the cabinet resonates when the speaker is playing. This resonance is unwanted noise and adds to your ear's confusion since it will resonate non-linearly and out of phase with your speaker. To eliminate this problem, look for a speaker that is made of at the very least High Density Fiberboard (HDF) and is internally braced for strength. There are other exotic materials that can also improve a speaker's performance. You should also look for a speaker cabinet that is built in such a way that the tweeter and midrange drivers of the speaker will be time-aligned. This means that the sound from the tweeter and the sound from the midrange drivers are aligned in space such that a sound wave from each speaker hits your ear at exactly the same time. This is hard to do and is more expensive to make, but is unparralled in its accuracy and makes instruments and vocals seem much more natural and compelling.
Subwoofers: How many do I need? You will need at a bare minimum one. This is not recommended however. We feel that you should have at least 3 or more in any given room. The reason for this is simple: if you have a 6" or 8" speaker driver trying to deliver the full range of hearing from 20hz to 20khz a 6" or 8" driver is not capable of this. To supplement these speakers, a 10" or 12" speaker should be added to take care of the low frequency spectrum. Ideally you should have a subwoofer for each of the three main speakers in a room (Left, Center and Right) to supplement them. That would mean at a minimum you would need at least three one for each speaker and an extra for the L.F.E. (Low Frequency Effects) channel available on most DVD soundtracks. Most people have only one subwoofer in their system and if you have small satellite type speakers for your left, right and center speakers, this is a mistake. The general rule of thumb is to purchase as many as you can afford and as many as the room demands. You should consult a professional for advice in this regard.
Component Quality (Paper or Plastic?): Any speaker is only as good as the sum of its parts. Good quality components can be hard to find in some speakers. Try to educate yourself about what makes a speaker a good speaker. The better the components, the better the sound. It is a well-known fact that most speakers are made out of either paper or plastic. Neither material is perfect for sound, but they both have good qualities. Paper tends not to last very long but is very cheap and very light for good response times. Plastic is a little heavier, but will generally last a long time. Also, look at the tweeters and see what they are made of. A metallic tweeter can really be very bright and shrill sounding and after a while can be very annoying. Softer materials like silk can be very good but cannot handle a great deal of heat. You would not want to use them in a nightclub, for instance. Horn tweeters are good if done right but most are not. Above all, listen to what you are going to buy. If you don't like it, move on. Your ear will tell you all you generally need to know.
Source Gear: Where does all that sound and video come from? The sources for your system can vary wildly. In general, you will need at the very least a DVD player, a VCR (we prefer S-VHS models), a Satellite Receiver or Cable Box, a CD player, and possibly a Personal Video Recorder. Be sure to see how easy each is to operate and pay attention to the overall quality level. The basic rule of thumb is you get what you pay for. Expensive DVD players tend to last longer and perform a lot better when you blow up the image to 96" wide or better. So be wary of good deals and low price leaders. Remember, you wouldn't put a Mercedes engine into a Yugo. In the same way, you wouldn't install a $100 DVD player into a $100K room.
Screens: What you see is what you get… Screens should be chosen with the projector in mind. This should really be left up to a professional. The more seats you have and the wider they are spread out, the lower the gain the screen will need to be; and the brighter the projector, conversely the less seats you have (and the more on axis they are) the more gain you can have, and the projector can be less bright. Likewise, if you intend on putting a center channel speaker behind the screen, you should buy a perforated screen and consult the speaker manufacturer to have the crossover changed so the speaker will sound right coming through the screen. You also have a choice of masking or non-masking. Masking can make a dramatic improvement in you viewing experience by canceling off any stray light that your screen kicks back. In general, when it comes to screen choice - consult a professional.
Control Systems: How do I work all this stuff? In order to control your new theater easily and with little trouble (especially for those in your house who do not know every detail of your system), you should consider some type of control system. These range in price and features wildly and should be considered very carefully. In general, you will want some type of control system that is two pieces (one part is the user interface and the other is a coordinator of sorts that wires into the system in the equipment rack), it should also be capable of serial control, Infrared control and most importantly, should be able to tell which components are on and or off at any given time (otherwise known as status). By having status, a remote control system is capable of setting the system up like you want it to be with a single button push. It looks at what is on and what is off at any given time, and when you call for DVD, it turns on the DVD., and if it is off and whatever else needs to come on in conjunction with it. Remember, the best system in the world is worthless if you cannot enjoy it because you cannot use it.

There is so much to choose from, what should I choose?

   Equipment selection can be one of the most difficult items to discuss when talking about building a theater. There are literally thousands of vendors with thousands upon thousands of products that they want you to buy. You should look over everything thoroughly and discuss what you intend to buy with a professional. They can clue you into potential compatibility problems you never knew that you might have.
    A good designer can save you a lot of money and lot of grief by sorting through the myriad of components and choosing what will fit within your budget and with the general theme of the room. A good idea would be to look at the several different Audio Video Magazines and take a count of the number of times you see a piece of gear used in the featured systems within the magazine (pay not attention to the adds). Look at what other professional installers are using.
    Although this may vary a little, many of the same manufacturers get used over and over again when it comes to designing an upper end theater. Most of these vendors build very good gear and as a result, installers and theater designers love them and use them repeatedly.

Equipment Placement: We typically like to place the equipment in a separate equipment closet. This in of itself cuts down on the noise and heat inside the room. All of the equipment can be controlled remotely. The only consideration is that to put in media you will need access to the front of some of the equipment, so don't make it too hard to get to. Also, you need to have an air return and an air conditioning vent on this room. This should be figured as the at 2-3 times the normal heat load of a conventional room. If you are planning a large amplifier stack, you should also calculate the B.T.U. or thermal output of all of the gear and give this to your H.V.A.C. contractor, so he can plan accordingly to handle the heating load. Your equipment will likely never need to be heated so be sure to include some kind of damper to shut off hot air flow to the equipment in the winter.

Projector Box: Projectors make an awful lot of noise. They have fans that are required to keep the lamps of the projector cool. They run almost constantly. This noise can be avoided by building a place or a box for the projector. This box must be slightly larger than the projector. The box should have an inlet vent for cool air and an escape vent for hot air. The projector can sit either on the floor as a coffee table or as a ceiling mount projector. We usually recommend ceiling mount. This means that the ceiling will need to be reinforced at that point with extra blocking.

Finish Selection: In keeping with the idea of controlling light, we usually ask that when selecting colors for your theater the darker the better. Please try not to choose flashy colors. Red for instance, although a popular color in theaters, is not a good choice unless you want all of the actors to appear flush. You should attempt to choose neutral colors that won't make the movie look sick or angry. Browns and blacks are good. The screen wall itself could be a darker color (prefer black) to, in effect, shadowbox the screen. You could also do fabric walls or buy prefabricated acoustically-correct fabric covered panels.

Furniture Selection: In keeping with your color scheme, furniture should be along the same color lines. Please try not to use a glass coffee table or any highly reflective surface. This can be distracting during a movie. I would also take this opportunity to point out that Theater seating is available. It is specifically designed with the Theater in mind. They are very comfortable and low-backed for the best surround sound. Remember when choosing theater seating to make sure it works for you over a long period of time. After all, during the average movie you will be sitting in it for at least two hours. Just make sure the seat fits you well and fits the room well too. Make sure to choose the seating and seating layout long before any construction begins on the room. This is critical to everything else. If you do not know where you are going to sit you cannot optimize the video and audio for that spot and your system will never meet all of potential.

A Word or Two about THX: You have probably heard about THX. THX standards are set forth as some of the preeminent standards for designing a home theater. These standards should, in my professional opinion, be followed. They help to achieve an overall effect of a good home theater. They are not always the optimal standards for a theater, but provide a good starting point for the amateur theater designer, and do ensure a higher degree of quality than if no standard was followed.

The Theater Mood: One of the most common misconceptions about a home theater is that it is simply a bunch of equipment and speakers that make noise in conjunction with a movie. This is not true. A good home theater is kind of like a mood-altering drug. If it works right, your mood should change when you enter the room. When you walk in, all your senses should tell you where you are. You should feel like you've dressed up and gone out to the movies. You should have the popcorn machine, the movie posters, the double doors, the riser steps -- in short, all the things you have grown to expect from a good theater. You should be able to sit down and watch a movie uninterrupted from start to finish and be totally absorbed by it. It should be a place of escape and fun. Too many people I know in our industry get lost in all the technical details, which are important, but should not be the reason you build the room or its sole foundation. Remember, you are building this room for fun and entertainment. Keep that in mind and you can't go wrong.

----Kyle Griffith

We at Dyer Electronics hope all of this helps. If you should have further questions about anything above or if you are beginning to design and build your own room and need help feel free to contact us. This is our passion and we want to share it with you.