Isolated Home Theater Still Roars

A 120-inch perforated Stewart Filmscreen display allows audio from three Energy Veritas in-wall speakers to sound through from behind.

Soundproofing proved to be a challenge for homeowners turning their basement into a dedicated home theater on a $70,000 budget.

The owners of this home theater had one in a previous house, but for their new one they wanted something better.

Gregg Schwartz of Trage Brothers Electronics & Appliances of Forest Park, IL, had already consulted with the builder about the best location for the home theater. That was in the basement. The homeowners experienced a similar system in Trage’s showroom, heard Schwartz’s pitch to isolate the room for sound as much as possible, and gave the go-ahead.

“We needed to prevent the sound in the room from permeating into other areas of the house,” Schwartz says. The homeowners were particularly concerned about people playing cards in an adjacent area being distracted by the home theater sounds, so Trage unrolled a 1-pound-per-square-foot sound barrier material behind each of the walls, built out double walls—or a wall within a wall—on the two sides not abutting the foundation, and insulated the walls and isolated them with isolation brackets. These clips connect the wall to the floor but also have rubber between to absorb or deaden sound from traveling through.

In addition, a “floating floor” was constructed by rolling out the sound barrier and then placing plywood on top of that. “The reason we do the floating floor is to get the low-frequency vibration from the subwoofer through your butt,” says Schwartz. In other words, the floor has some flex that enhances bass-level special effects in movies.

A Sim2 Domino30 single-chip DLP projector shines on a fixed and perforated Stewart Filmscreen display, with Energy Veritas speakers placed behind it. There are two inches of mineral fiber sound insulation behind the screen, with cutouts for the three speakers. A Denon AVR-5805 10-channel receiver pumps 140 watts per channel to the speakers, providing plenty of juice. “It’s not the pinnacle of home theater, but bang for its buck it gives you as much as you need,” says Schwartz.

Surround speakers were placed in the angled soffits, Schwartz explained, because Trage used seven identical directional speakers for the sound system, as opposed to the conventional method of using more-ambient-sounding speakers for the surround channels. “We wanted to find the places where [they would create the most ambient effect]. This way, we’re creating a larger sweet spot in the room.”

Inside the room, decorative sound absorption material was hung an inch or two off the walls and ceiling to catch any unwanted sound reflections, explains Schwartz. “They’re inexpensive solutions that show you don’t have to spend $20,000 to treat a theater [for acoustics].”

The equipment rack and a cabinet for media storage are on the left wall. The 24-by-14-foot room has 10-foot-high ceilings, so the ceiling could be dropped eight inches. The owners opted not to do a floating suspended drywall ceiling to block sound, reasoning that when the home theater was in action, no one would be upstairs in the dining room.

Check out these other home theaters on a budget:

-Basement Gets A/V Makeover ($10,500)
-Mini Home Theater with Tropical Flair ($15,000)
-High-Tech Touch for Country Farmhouse ($50,000)
-Five-in-One Home Theater ($100,000)

EQUIPMENT LIST

Displays
• Sim2 Domino30 720p projector
• Stewart Filmscreen 120-inch Studio Tech 130 perforated screen
Speakers
• Energy Veritas V2.3WM in-wall speakers (7)
• Velodyne DD15 subwoofer
Audio/Video Components
• Denon AVR-5805 receiver
• Denon DVD-5910 DVD player
Control & Lighting
• Universal Remote Control MX3000
• Lutron GRX-506 Grafik Eye lighting control stationv
• Lutron SG-PROI-BLA 4-button wall station
Accessories
• Acoustiblok sound isolation material
• Audioquest interconnects
• Berkline motorized theater seating (6)
• Kinetics rollout floor material
• Kinetics wall isolation hangers
• Kinetics Perimeter Isolation Barrier
• Kinetics wall panels
• Middle Atlantic pullout rotating in-wall rack

CONTACT
System Design & Installation
Trage Brothers Electronics & Appliances
Forest Park, IL
www.trage.com