The As-Yet-Unnamed West Seattle Cinema

I've been very excited to start this thread, spent a lot of time thinking and clearing out excess stuff after we moved from Iowa to Seattle this past late summer. We moved into our new home in October, and the room that will eventually be the theater space/multi-purpose room has been the staging area for boxes that still need to be sifted through and either put away, sold or donated.

The night we closed on the house, we ordered a couch for the theater space, which was set to deliver at some point in February. That time is quickly approaching, the new screen has been ordered, the plans are (mostly) made, and I have started moving forward on the setup.

A quick list of equipment that was brought with from my previous setup:

JVC X790R projector
Anthem AVM-60 processor
Emotiva UPA-700 amplifier
Emotiva UPA-500 amplifier
Triad Bronze LCR in-wall speakers x3
Triad Gold Satellite speakers x7
Triad Silver MiniSat speakers x4
SVS PB2000 sub
Home-build PLEX server w/60TB storage array
Nvidia Shield Pro
AppleTV 4K

Initial evaluation said this would likely be downsized from 7.1.4 to 5.1, at which point I sold the UPA-700 amp. That eval turned out to be inconclusive, however, and the room may in fact become a 5.1.4 system after all, which of course means I'll need an additional amp for ceiling channels. We'll see as things progress. Probably a phase 2 project.

I've also added 2 more speakers - a pair of Triad Bronze LCR on-wall speakers for my surround channels. This way I have 5 identical speakers for bed channels.

The room itself is not ideal, but we love the house and there's no way we would trade it. We will definitely make do. The house is a contemporary design with concrete floors, 3 levels, and very few doors. Very much open concept. The basement level has a big open room that is 23' long by 10'4" wide. This will be both the theater, and my work from home space (work from home involves a lot of video production, so it's actually a pretty natural fit).

Here's the room as the previous owner had it set up. Yes, those are windows. Yes that's a concrete floor. We'll be using the same basic orientation, but it will be much different.



Yesterday we brought home lumber for the screen wall and got that all in and configured. The extra pair of speakers (Triad Gold Satellite) is being placed for a separate 2ch setup, just in case. I have plenty of extra Triads, so I may as well put a pair in there.



Up next is relocating all the modem stuff and the HDHomeRun tuners, wiring to the speakers, insulating the wall, and we'll just use acoustic panels to fill out around the screen.

The screen, by the way, will be a SeymourAV Proscenium motorized masking model. I had a DIY screen in my previous build, started with XD material and later swapped it out for UF when a remodel moved my viewing distance closer. The screen will be pretty much wall-to-wall 2.40:1, masking down to 16:9. We were originally going to go with a 16:9 native screen, but reality hit last night when we sat in place and realized that it would be A- a little too massive, and B- probably a problem with heads getting in the way of the projected image. Going native 2.40 will solve both those issues.

Once the room is built out, I'll be putting together an acoustic treatment plan. I know I should be doing this first, but if my previous room is any indication, my plans tend to change throughout the build process. I think this room is a little more 'finished' in the planning stages, but we will see. There's room for play on the main seating position, so I want to get screen and couch in place before locking anything in. Then I will mount surround channels accordingly, and generate a plan for acoustic treatment. There's no way this will be soundproofed. The only interior doors in this house are on the bathrooms, closets and guest room.

Oh, and I realize my speakers are close to the sidewalls. This is the same distance they were in my previous room, and some immediate dampening on the side walls made it a non-issue. This being a non-load-bearing wall, I can (not so) easily remove the screen and reposition the L-R channels if I need to.

So...here we go. Expect to see some quick progress in this one. I have a feeling it's going to come together quickly - just need to get rid of the rest of the stored stuff in here!

I had to get a new rack. In the old house I had a rack off in a closet that handled all the networking, the PLEX server, smart home, and some miscellaneous pro audio gear, and one in the theater specifically for that equipment. This time around I’m combining them into a single rack, so the upgrade arrived today.
On another note, I was informed this week that delivery of our couch for the theater has been pushed back another month.

phillihp23 said:

Welcome to the area thrillcat. I’m just down the road a little ways.

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Nice, thanks. We are really enjoying West Seattle, and the area in general.

New rack is loaded up, wired, for the most part (had to order a couple more cables).

Projector mount is on the way.

phillihp23 said:

Looks like your making progress

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Making slow progress. If all the parts were here I could probably wrap it up in a weekend but I’m taking my time as pieces trickle in.
Waiting on couch and screen mostly. My new vinyl shelves upstairs will generate a rearrangement that will free up the cable I bought for my sub down here.
Don’t want to start building panels for the screen wall until screen is hung and I have exact measurements. May even just stretch fabric rather than building full panels.

Insulation
Mount projector
Screen
Fabric panels
Couch
Mount surround speakers
Enjoy.

The rack is complete and fully wired.

I put up insulation in the screen wall today and of course I’m like 4 sqft short. So aggravating.

The projector mount arrived today too, but I think I’ll wait to mount it, even though I don’t have a screen yet anyway. Just don’t want to try and do it myself.

Just got word that the couch has landed and is ready to schedule delivery, so the game is officially ON!

Photo of couch in store for reference.

Big day today.





Y'all know what that means.




The projector has been hung.



Still no couch (next Sunday), and no screen. Just throwing an image on the landscape fabric that is living over top of the insulation and the Triad Bronze LCRs behind the screen.

Once the couch is in the room, I can lock in exactly how high I want the screen to be when it arrives, mount the side surrounds, and get everything else prepped and ready. Still a few more boxes to get rid of. After the screen arrives, I'll be building some fabric panels to put above and below the screen, allowing the whole wall to serve as some absorption. I'll also need to plan out more absorption throughout the room.

But there's a picture. I confirmed all the rack is wired correctly. We're on our way.

RyanDSM said:

Nice to see the progress, Travis.

I am looking forward to your thoughts on the new screen. I have been kicking around the idea of manual masking a bit but keep coming back to the fact that our mutual buddy makes some of the best automatic masking screens around and shipping isn't even a consideration!

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The prices on that Proscenium model are insanely affordable. I cannot wait to get it in house. The couch arrives Sunday, the screen hopefully in a couple more weeks.

Then it’s finishing up panels and acoustic treatments.

Almost forgot to post, the couch arrived this weekend, and I picked up another rug. Also mounted the surrounds (not pictured).

Todd Anderson said:

Great thread, Travis!

I like the fact that you created an adjustable wall (of sorts) for the speakers. Really smart not to lock yourself into one specific positioning.

Also, nice score on that JVC! Look forward to seeing that screen install!

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I really went back and forth on the false wall. I really wanted a clean, permanent look here, so I thought seriously about tearing into the walls and installing, running cables, etc.
In the end, this won out because of the drastic sound absorption this room requires, and the lack of desire to run wires. I still might, in the future, open up a small hole in the ceiling to research in ceiling speakers for Atmos, but that’s probably a while off.

A V.I.P. Was just delivered. A Very Important Piece of the new theater. The Fifth Element, if you will…

Video coming soon…

Grabbed a quick photo of one of the surrounds mounted tonight.

RyanDSM said:

You need to stop going to stupid John Mayer concerts and get this thread updated!

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Waiting on a final piece, but I did film another video last weekend to put together and post this weekend, highlighting another key element…

RyanDSM said:

You need to stop going to stupid John Mayer concerts and get this thread updated!

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Being a videographer, I just happened to have a big roll of white seamless paper in the closet under the stairs. Not exactly "acoustically transparent", but it has made it so that we can watch a movie down there and gauge exactly what the most comfortable location will be for the screen, upon arrival.





This is not the aforementioned "VIP" that arrived. Watch for a video on the homepage yet this weekend with a review of that piece. Just finishing it up!

Going to be looking at fabrics for the non-screen areas of the screen wall this weekend, and I think I've locked in on what I want to use for the primary absorption panels flanking the screen - check out these panels by Output and DEFI. Great looking, modest price point, and the reported effectiveness is comparable to thicker traditional panels. I'm likely going to order a set of these for the side walls, and perhaps the ceiling as well.

Speaking of treatment, I picked up some el-cheapo foam squares off Amazon last weekend and was able to effectively cut the slapback delay from the rear wall, and hid the projector cabling at the same time. My bigger problem is going to be the stairwell, and we don't want to put up a curtain.



More than anything today, though, I just want to show off our new mailbox! This thing is awesome.



I've probably spent more time than anyone ever researching cool, well-built mailboxes. I lived in my last house for 11 years, and the mailbox needed replacing from day one. I spent 11 years researching it and never did replace it, because by the time I found this site, I was already planning a move. I did convince a friend down the street to replace his mailbox from the site, and it reinforced my opinion that I had found the source of my next mailbox.

Received a teaser this afternoon. My screen is done and ready to ship!!!

I’ll be putting my review on the home page shortly, but I have a hot take to share with y’all.