There Is Always Something!

While working on the curtains in the Theater Room I headed over to the stack because I heard a strange sound. "Tick, tick, tick, tick..." At first I thought it was one of the pieces of equipment. As I moved my ear from component to component I was hit in the face with a cold wind coming from BEHIND the stack!

Needless to say, that's not supposed to happen.

It soon became apparent that the access door from inside the attic had not been closed. That meant that the closet containing all of the electronics was open to the attic (and the outside) via a hole large enough that man could fit through.

This is the door that was unfortunately not closed all the way.  Once I got here I heard the ticking sound!  Since the door was not closed properly it was rattling every time the wind blew.  The insulation was left hanging open and half the pieces lay strewn around the door.

Since I was there I crawled inside the access space and took a few photos.  Having solved two problems I put everything back the way it WAS originally and remind myself to ALWAYS do a double check after having work done.

Blackout Curtains Are Complete

Theater Room Curtains Are Getting An Update

After 8 years of punishing Idaho sunshine it is time to replace the blackout backing to the Theater Room curtains.

The curtains are pretty light after taking off the blackout portion.

Can you guess where the sunshine is?

Theater Room Gets An Upgrade to Dolby Atmos 11.1

4 new speakers in the ceiling.

About Dolby Atmos

About Dolby Atmos from Dolby Laboratories on Vimeo.

Dolby Atmos Questions Answered

Greg Russell, re-recording mixer for Transformers: Age of Extinction, discusses bringing Dolby Atmos to the home theater

The Theater Room Has Been Open 4 Years Now...

New Years Eve we decided to clean under the chairs!

Crawling for Bass - Subwoofer Placement

Start by placing your subwoofer in the spot where you usually sit when watching movies or listening to music, and turning on a fairly bass-heavy test track. Then, crawl around on the floor and listen to where the bass sounds the best...

The Most Expensive and the Coolest Home Theater in the World

6 Million Dollars for a theater room?  That's just a bit much!

Santa Brought Us A Popcorn Machine!

A big "Thank You" goes out to this Eugene based Santa!

Theater Room Gets Some Upgrades

LT-1RA Rackmount Light




Integra DBS-6.9 Blu-ray Player





Here's how it all looks now.

A Theater Room To Die For!

Way over the top!

Partial Equipment List for the Kipnis Studio Standard Beta CinE:

Picture Elements:
Sony SRX-S110 Professional Video Projector
Stewart 18-by-10-foot Snowmatte 1.0 Gain Laboratory-Grade Motion Picture Screen

Players and Sources:
Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Player
Sony PlayStation 3 Gaming Console
Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player
JVC HMDH-5U D-VHS Recorder
SATA Drive (72 HDTV Hours Total)
Mark Levinson N° 51 DVD/CD Media Player
Pioneer HLD-X0 Hi-Vision HDTV MUSE Laserdisc Player

Surround Processing and Decoding:
Theta Digital Generation VIII 32-bit 8x Oversampling Dual Processors (13)

Amplification:
Mark Levinson N° 33h Amplifiers (2)
McIntosh MC-2102 Amplifiers (30)
Crown Macro Reference Gold Amplifiers (3)

Speakers:
Snell 1800 THX Music & Cinema Reference Subwoofers (16)
Snell THX Music & Cinema Reference Towers (8)
MuRata ES103A Super Tweeters (10)
Snell THX Music & Cinema Reference LCR-2800 Center-Channel Speakers (3)

The Mystery of the Missing Bass

It started two nights ago... watching a concert DVD in the Theater Room. Something was wrong. "Where did the damn bass go?" I headed over to the sub woofer and it showed a power light. I could even hear a small weak amount of bass, but nothing like it should be. After checking the settings on the amplifier I finally had enough, and pulled out the sub. It was cold, really cold!

The temperature outside was around 25 degrees, not unusual. Could it be the direction the wind was blowing, hitting the house head on, and streaming in through the gable vents unabated? Did they even put insulation around the sub box after they made it?

What ever the cause, the bass cone was so cold it could not flex! The sub was well below operating specs and the box it was sitting in was as cold as a refrigerator.

"What the hell?"

Go ahead and put your beer in there! It will stay cold!

The ladder to trouble. The theatre room sits above the garage, so at least I can get to this problem.

Well, there is the problem! First thing to notice is the giant gable vent opening the attic crawl space to the frigid arctic air outside! Next is the totally exposed sub woofer enclosure sticking out there freezing it's magnet off!

Thank goodness I hired professionals or this would have never happened!

Half an hour later and one roll of R13 insulation later and I think I have the problem licked.

Even with this I think I may have to find a better solution. The speaker fits so tightly in the box that warm air from the inside can't circulate around it. My thought is, maybe a heating pad under the sub on low during the winter might be the only way to keep it warm enough?

I await your thoughts.

Theater Room Officially Done!

It is true. After five months of work... most of it waiting for very slow people to do their job, it is done. Sure, there are some things still swimming around in my head to be completed, but it finally works as advertised.

The Theater Room Is Up!

Rope lights are working around the seating platform.

The projector has not been calibrated and it already looks amazing! (Coral bed from 'Finding Nemo')

The recliners have been installed and are very comfortable. I've personally sat in every one, and there is not a bad seat in the house!

Just a little bit of wiring has gone into making this thing work!

The rack is looking like it means business!

The projector is huge! It is working great from the laundry room.

At this point we are watching movies and playing the Xbox 360 on the system. There have been no calibrations and the remote is working some of the time. We still need curtains, painting, auto switches on the lights, and wall accents. There is still quite a bit of work that still needs to be done and I figure at least another 2 weeks to finish all of it and call this theater open for business!