In the early 1980s, David Barron rigged his first sound system by using a matrix decoder to get stereo from his mono TV set. Needless to say, audio has been a long-time hobby of his. More recently, David designed and built his own speakers for his first dedicated home theater. Who would have guessed an intellectual property attorney would have such respectable DIY chops? Of course, his engineering background and master’s degree in computer science probably didn’t hurt him in this endeavor.

While David’s audio hobby was long-standing, his current house, which he moved into about two and a half years ago, presented the first opportunity for him to build a dedicated home theater thanks to the half-finished basement. “Before we moved in, someone was actually living in the basement,” says David. “They had painted the cement walls and installed carpeting, yet there was no electricity or finished ceiling and the space was huge and undefined.” With 2,300 square feet to work with, David allocated 400 for the theater and 900 for the adjoining playroom and bathroom.

David started by doing all the framing himself, but hired contractors to cut the concrete for a window in the playroom, install the electrical and HVAC, hang the drywall, and install the plumbing. He handled the door hanging, finish carpentry, painting, tiling, speaker and signal wiring, and equipment selection and installation himself.
As for those speakers, David wanted to design them in order to achieve the audio and aesthetic goals he had in mind for the theater. “What I wanted for audio would have been unaffordable or unattainable off the shelf. I had done some speaker building before, but this brought it to a new level,” he says. The ambitious lawyer (with lots of help from the AVSForum.com community) designed and selected the drivers, designed the crossovers, and built the columns made of MDF with oak veneer in which the speakers reside. Four identical TC-Sounds OEM10 subwoofers even out room bass response and are housed in the bottom of the columns.

“Right now, we are in what I’d call an intermediate design stage,” says David. “We did some testing to assess if the subwoofer and center channel speakers had met my design goals, from which I determined the subwoofer needed more power and the center channel needs a different amplifier and electronic crossover. I am constantly tweaking things.”

David designed and installed all the acoustic treatment in the room, as well. “I bought mineral wool and Lincoustic material, installed it into some wood frames, then put fabric over it and pulled it all together,” says David.  In addition to the visible acoustic panels, the entire space behind the screen wall is treated floor to ceiling. 

The DIYer makes it all sound so easy, but the fact is, David did encounter challenges on the project, such as working around the existing structures and limitations of his basement. “Trying to maneuver around columns, pipes in the ceiling, and soffits, while still creating a theater the size and with the features we wanted was extremely challenging,” he says. For example, the door on the screen wall houses an electrical panel that David simply could not meddle with. To make it look symmetrical, David mirrored the door on the opposite side of the wall. The equipment is actually on the other side of the screen wall in the playroom.

While audio took the lion’s share of David’s time, video was equally important to David. His system includes a DirecTV high-def DVR, Samsung BDP-1500 Blu-ray player, an Audio Authority box for component switching, and a JVC DLA-HX2 projector. “I’d like to eventually upgrade to a full 1080p model, but I have other priorities as the image looks great already.” He also custom-built the screen using Dazian CCC acoustically transparent material.

David’s wife, Sheryl, helped with the interior design work in the theater, picking out the carpet, color schemes, and helping David determine if his ideas were “crazy or not.” His son Grant proved instrumental in selecting the movie posters. “We spent countless hours trying to figure out what movies to put in our movie marquees,” says David. “One day, we were at the mall and found a store with theatrical-size movie posters, so we let it go and let him pick them out.”  The stage was a special treat for his daughter, Sabrina, who uses it with her friends.  A candy stand and velvet rope in the playroom add the finishing touches, and make it “really feel like a theater.”

Quick Hits
Length of project: One year
Ending Budget: $34,550
Theater Dimensions:16.5 wide x 23 long x 7.5 high