Hi Everyone

I wanted to start off this build diary with my own personal Man Cave build - My Home Cinema.

The project started back in 2021 when we first went into lock down. I'd previously had a large extension on the back and side of my house creating a new kitchen and living room which allowed me to transform the old living room into my home cinema and the old garage into a bar (which is still a work in progress).

This was the old living room before i did anything

I Then had to build a new wall as the wall where those double doors are is being knocked down for the dining room

I then needed to get my underfloor heating track and pipework down. Screed the floor and strip off all the old plasterboard from the existing walls and ceiling.

Next up was finding somewhere i can fit a rack mounted equipment rack. I knew i wanted everything to be clean and seamless so my only option was to cut it into the wall. The wall was the existing wall to the house before the extension. I had to knock out the brick work and install a concrete lintel. I was intending on stud framing inside the brick wall so i can install sound proof insulation so made the frame to fit the rack.

Because i wanted everything to be clean and seamless i also wanted to ensure all of speakers and subs were built into the walls and all of the wiring was hidden inside the walls. In order to fit the subs into the wall i had to design and make my own enclosures for the subs. I didn't have much depth to work with so decided to go with the slimline Dayton Audio LS10-44 10" dual 4 ohm Subwoofers.

I designed the enclosures to go low and ended up achieving a -3db fs cut off of around 32hz. I wasn't too concerned with going much lower as i was going to fit bass shakers to each seat. To get this in such a small enclosure i had to build a hybrid of a ported design / transmission line. Its not a true transmission line and is basically a really long port wrapped up inside the enclosure.

I then continued to frame out the rest of the walls and screen area, the raised seating platform and front stage platform. Where possible i tried to keep with THX certified guidelines for angle placements of all of the speakers.

I now needed to start boxing out the enclosures for the wall mounted speakers. The speakers i decided to go with were the Klipsch PRO-25RW dual 5.25" wall mounted speakers. The entire system is designed to be a 7.2.2 Dolby Atmos system. 7 surround speakers, 2 x front left / right. 1 x centre channel (behind the screen) 2 x side and 2 x rear. Plus 2 ceiling mounted and 2 x subs. I had to wait months for these and they turned up 1 at a time every few weeks. I tried every supplier in the world to get hold of them but Klipsch were facing material supply issues due to COVID.

I first boxed out the enclosures, lined them with plasterboard to help with sound deadening, lined them with Tecsound S100 soundproofing and vibration dampening membrane. Then wadded them with sound absorbing insulation rock wool.

I started to run all of the speaker cables back to the equipment rack

Then continued to insulate / sound deaden everything

Once i had done all of cable runs and sound deadening i went ahead and started boarding everything out with plasterboard. I also did a drop ceiling to house some LED lights.

To finish things of nicely i designed some port vents for the Subs and 3d printed them using a carbon fibre filament. The port placements are just behind your head and when the bass kicks in such as an explosion you really feel these ports blowing at the back of your head. Very immersive.

I couldn't get a plasterer in at the time because everyone was in lock down so i taped and jointed everything just like the Americans do. Its actually pretty easy and can sand all your joints down nice and flush. But the sanding is messy.

Next up i gave everything a few coats of black basecoat, checked for any minor pin holes, re-filled and repainted until everything was nice and smooth. I then started to paint out the lighter grey accents colours and started to install the speakers.

I started to install the Amps and get all the wiring tidied up. For the subs and the under seat bass shakers i went with 2 x Behringer NX3000D amps. They have a built-in DSP section with delay, crossover and an 8-band parametric equalizer so i can set all of the crossover frequencies for the subs correctly.

These amps are capable of 2 x 1500w at 2ohm. I wired the dual 4ohm subs in parallel for 2ohm per sub. and the bass shakers i used are Clark Synthesis TST209. These are 4ohm and each seat has one. 2 seats wired in parallel for 20hm per channel again.

The Bass Shakers :

I decided on a Marantz SR7015 9.2 channel AV Receiver as the man amp / receiver. A Nvidia Shield as the media player and a PS5. Everything is networked via a cat 6 cable and network switch back to my main router hub. I also didn't want to turn everything on individually so the whole cinema turns on with 'Alexa - Turn on the cinema'

Even though i had sound deadened and insulated everything i still wanted to install more. I made some panels up using some 1" x 2" timber with a hardboard back and glued on some studio foam and wrapped them in a black felt fabric. The result was amazing and actually sounds quiet weird when talking in there as the sound is just dead no echo or reverb at all. My intention was to eliminate any kind of sound being reflected off the walls and allow the speakers to direct the sound as intended.

I also started to get all of the skirting board down. This came pre painted in white but i needed to spray it black. I decided to fit it first and fill any joints for a perfect finish then masked and taped it all off and sprayed it using a compressor and car spray gun.

My next job was to work on the screen. I couldn't buy a screen i wanted off the shelf, they were either too big or too small and i didn't want to compromise on the size. I set the projector up and put on the test pattern, i dialled in all of the zoom and focus to get the maximum screen size i could based on the throw of the projector. I then marked the wall to the outer boundaries of the test pattern and made a frame for the screen.

Once the screen frame was made i installed all of the metal hanging brackets and ensured everything fit, was square and aligned properly then i wrapped it with 2 layers of white spandex. I'd researched screen material for months and the guys on home cinema forums swore by using the stretch white spandex layered so that's what i went with and at 4k is amazing. I also made another border frame out of aluminium angle and wrapped it with black felt to stop any light spill.

I'm now getting close to finishing. i got every wall covered in my home made studio foam panels, most of the equipment is installed just waiting for carpet to fitted.

The projector i went with was a Benq w5700 and is a bit of a beast compared to my previous Benq projector

I finally got the carpet installed just before Christmas and installed my seating. The seats are from Octane Cinema Seats in the USA. I had to import these in. I had to make some custom frames underneath the seats to mount the bass shakers.

And finally the finished project.

I hope you all enjoyed looking through the build and hopefully it has inspired you to do something similar in your own homes. I've probably forget to mention some stuff or missed out some valuable techy information so please feel free to comment and ask any questions you may have.