FINALLY. See, now this article is ACTUALLY interesting. Why? Because a breakdown of the costs has appeared. It’s a shame that it had to take the comments section to make it appear, but, it’s nice to know ballparks for DIY and professional help. Every article shoudl be informatative as to ideas of cost and what’s involved.

Now was that so hard?

ha, told ya ;)

I love the fact that everyone has an opinon on the relative “value” of the theater. As a trade professional I can help quantify the costs to help the DIY people get a sens of where they can save and put some additional light on the equipment. This theater was completed in mid 2005, so component prices will reflect the period sold in.

Room Build out (framing, riser, double plywood floor,electrical, double 5/8” drywall, trim, ext door for entry, painting, carpeting)  $15,000.00 NOT unreasonable.
Acoustiblok 1lb rubber sound deadner for 4 walls and ceiling $5,000.00
Acoustiblok floating floor material 16” on center $3,000.00
Can Lighting 6 in panels 2 in angled ceiling, 6 sconces. $1,800.00
LEDlighting step and riser edge lighting $ 500.00
Accoustiblok Interior wall & ceiling panels. $ 5,000.00
(6) Berkline Leather & Motorized Chairs $5,000.00
Lutron Grafic Eye Lighting control $1,800.00
Stewart Filmscreen 130” ST130 PERF & Motorized masking with controllers. $7,000.00
Sim 2 Domino30 Projector $6,000.00
Middle Atlantic SRSR 4-20 Rack $1,200.00
Software Racks $300.00
Audioquest 32’ HDMI 6% silver $900.00
Denon AVR5805 $5,000.00
Denon DVD5910 $ 3,000.00
(7) Energy Veritas V2.3 6,000.00
Velodyne DD15 cherry $2,500.00
Universal Remote MX3000 & MRF350 rcvr $1,250.00
Audioquest Interconnects (top quality) $500.00
Mineral Fiber behind screen $300.00
Labot to design, project manage construction, gather equipment, install all components listed, program, calibrate, test ALL, demonstrate to customer. $7,000.00 (est 100hrs man labor)

Gear is 50k
Room is 15k
Labor is 7k
TOTAL is $72,000.00

Can you save if you do it yourself, sure. But what if you make $1,000.00 per day at your job. I pay to have my oil changed, tires rotated, brakes repaired etc. It is all relative.

What matters is the client absolutly loves the theater and uses it 4-5 nights per week with the family. Bulb still looks good after 2,000 plus hours of use. It is a joy to produce an enjoyable entertainment room for wonderful clients!

We appreciate all our clients who have selected Trage Brothers since 1943 for Electronics & appliances. www.trage.com

Barney:

Maybe what we are relaying to readers is that one can build this HT for quite a bit less than $70k. For all we know, the general contractor ripped these folks.

I served as my own GC on my project but that was the extent of my “work”, it was definitely not DIY. BTW my finish is probably better than the HT in the article, upholstered upper walls, upholstered sound panels on the doors, custom millwork, etc.

So, it is important to anyone considering building an HT like that described to know that it can be done for a lot less—a public service announcement, if you will.

ok, so are we saying 70k is too much or too little? and obviously, there is more to a theater than it’s av componants - lighting, walls, flooring, doors, not to mention labor. any re-routing of plumbing, electrical… if you are able to do some of that yourself, you can save a bundle and that could skew the numbers significantly. true, there’s not a lot of info on what they paid per these items, but to say they are exaggerating (or diminishing) the final cost, without knowing the whole project is pretty silly. it’s a nice theater, i would love to have it in my home. not sure why the price is such a hangup. if they have 70k too spend on it, they obviously aren’t hurting for money.