Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Lets plan a theater space

Fiddling around with loose ends. HVAC (HRV) finally up an running. The rain quit long enough for 5 hours of beautiful weather. I got to work putting in exterior vents.

Coming from Calgary, this weather for December is totally strange.

Even though the basement is not drywalled, I can definitely feel the air circulation in the theater space is going to work well and be fairly silent. With my ear inches from the supply I can only hear air - no mechanical noise. Cool beans!

When I switch the unit from low (where it will run normally) to high (where it will run when shower control buttons are pressed) it literally feels like I'm in a light breeze. I have prewired for a 2 stage in room t-stat to handle temp swings automatically.

Bring it on chilli night! LOL! Ewwww.

I am starting to get into looking at ordering room finishes. I'm starting early so by the time I need to make decisions I have left ample time for my wife to be involved in the choosing process.

I have plans for a DIY door involving 4 layers of 3/4 MDF and 2 plates of glass (planned with one plate @ 1/4" and one plate @ 1/2" per door spaced at 2".) These will be built and hung before the room is drywalled to allow proper sealing and beefing up DIY casings. We are heading to HD tonight to have a look at colour schemes for carpet/paint/trim/woodwork. This way I can keep finishes in mind as I am sealing the area between the plates of glass. I've been warned the door can't be a mcguyver hackjob. Huh?!

I also went to a local AV specialty store to try to source an AT screen locally, or at least find out about pricing. The first guy didn't even know what I was talking about. He was the owner..... "I'm looking for an acoustically transparent screen for a front projection theater." Pause. "You know, where you mount the speakers behind the screen at the front of the room." Pause...... "Is that a 4K tv?" I guess they dont get much call for these where I'm at.

The second fella in the store, a seasoned installer, knew exactly what I was after and quickly jumped on the phone. I got a quote for a screen from the distributor for a Draper fixed frame woven AT screen at 110". He was pretty great to deal with and I could tell he yearned for more customers with a background in the hobby.

It was pretty expensive, more than I imagined. So far the DIY route remains a no brainer.

I made a 138" DIY frame with Seymour XD (AT) screen material. Total cost was less than like $350 for everything. It was nice to get the screen material only right from Seymour.

There are other alternatives. Jamestown is basically a DIY screen on steroids. A friend of mine has a 140" Seymour screen on a Jamestown frame with Axiom in-walls firing through it.

Of course you guys are in Canada, so who knows what your cost would be.
Jamestown Screens

DIY is still cheaper, but having something easy to put together and knowing that it will be perfect the first time without running around to get lumber, supplies, help to put things together, etc has value too. Granted, I didn't go that way. LOL

The duty from Seymour was around $30??? It was a while ago but I do recall it being a lot less than I thought it would be.

Just a reminder, XD comes in 98" widths which I turned 90 degrees and used the 98" dimension as the height. The roll can be quite long should you choose.

I went with a roll 8'x11' and didn't trim any off. I could have and still might but it's worth mentioning.

The roll showed up in a nice heavy cardboard tube.

Well worth the cost.

I should add the also carry a black AT screen like material. I am considering it for the front and back wall.

Thanks guys. I really like the idea of an AT screen that is ready to go on a pre-fab frame. I'm sure in the end I'll need to shave some money off it for some other expense. So DIY frame likely... After the first blackout cloth screen success from V1.0 this should be OK. I'd be a little paranoid with the XD fabric is all.

Is the black fabric speaker cloth? Flame retardant?

For those squirming with curiosity the retail screen was just under $2500 before tax.

I made it out to Futureshop over lunch to check out the Pioneer SC-85 with Pioneer Elite Atmos enabled speakers in the Demo room. The dolby ATMOS demo disc was kinda cool. I knew the scenes from articles and podcasts so I asked for the leaf scene, the F1 scene and the dolby crystal triangles scene. They were pretty cool and I thought they sounded pretty good, but nothing too crazy. Then it dawned on me....

The receiver had never been firmware updated and I had been watching all the clips in DolbyTrueHD only. (Only, right! :D) Anyway, the salesguy there was pretty stoked we noticed and he is going to have the techs install the firmware tomorrow or Friday. I'll be able to directly compare the ATMOS demo in both standard and Immersive then.

He is also going to have The Expendables 3 on hand for demo material. Should be fun. Finally! I'll have my ATMOS experience.

As a side note the pioneer elites seemed pretty decent in non atmos config.

For a Canadian manufacturer/supplier of screens, you should check out EluneVision. I believe their screens are available through Future Shop or from Eastporters in Hamilton.

Not sure if its flame retardant.
I should say I assumed it was similar to the projection screen and not fabric. It may be. They do offer a few different options.

For less than $500 you would have a XD screen on a DIY screen frame. Its possible you could upgrade to the newer screen inside the $500. Seymour has 2 sites, if you go DIY you will want http://www.seymourav.com/screens.asp .

Thanks Fred. Checked out the 4k audioweave products. Still very expensive. 1649$ for 108" 16:9. Still better than the Draper no doubt.

Brwsaw, I've been checking out the DIY section at seymour periodically. They were out of stock and had some production run issues I guess. I'll still end up ordering through them I'm sure. Just too good a deal to pass up and independent testing confirms their product performance.

Found it. Report seen here. Pretty good on those who went XD I'd say.

http://www.accucalhd.com/documents/accucal_front_projection_screen_report.pdf

Yay! Now I can sleep at night knowing my screen is "best in class."