Home remodel and going to build Atmos system. 5.1.4-Acoustics Forum-Acoustic Fields Forum

Dennis Foley said
A, What size room and volume will you be using for this application? I am hopeful you are paying as much attention to your room as you are your electronics. Matching speaker timbres will not matter in the wrong size and volume room along with added blurring and smearing from room distortions. First rule of acoustics is do no harm.  

Hi Dennis

Love your stuff on YouTube.

Unfortunately I am doing an entire remodel on a 2 family home. The first floor is about 3 months away from being done, and we are living on the second floor now and will move downstairs to do the second and adding an entire third floor for bedrooms. When all said and done we will move back upstairs and rent out the first floor to help pay down the equity loan. I am going to have my theater on the second floor, it is going to be an entire open floor plan. We will have a giant kitchen with a large pantry on one end, a bathroom dividing my theater-living room and a stairway going up to the new third floor bedrooms. I could send a pdf of the floor plan somehow. I don’t know if I could post a pic on this forum. I was planning on learning as much as I could by reading, and adding Roxul in the floors, walls and ceiling to help cut some of the sound down for the tenants. I am using Roxul in the first floor in the outside, inside walls and the ceiling as well as sound board on the ceiling and 5/8s drywall. Can’t afford to entirely decouple everything. Upstairs besides the Roxul and soundboard, I will be putting a very thick pad and rug on the floor and add some absorption panels for reflections as well as diffusion. Of course I am not a mathematician and have no training so to learn how to get the correct decay rate for the room I am going to need a lot of learning. My equipment is all ADS L1290/2 speakers in a 5.1.4 Atmos set up. I am using an Anthem P5 Statement to drive the floor speakers and 2 Nikko Alpha 440s for the ceiling speakers. My pre pro is an Anthem AVM60 and has a great room correction system. i have been into music and movies since the Beatles first hit the radio. i started out with mono in a console record player containing one large 12 inch speaker. First taste of surround was quadraphonic. Was addicted right off. First theater experience was a Yamaha DSP1. using 2 different stereo systems with 4 large floor standing speakers. I eventually got a center channel then HI FI vhs, and then Laser Disc, then DVD and my first AVR. Then Blu ray and a better AVR. And my first sub.
I always noticed I could only go so loud and then the room would get boomy. I first thought maybe not enough power, or poor damping factor. I tried equalization, experimenting with the crossover points, running downward sweeps and some very low signals in an A-B loop to get the room as good as I could. I did get it pretty good except for the bass. I then got much more power and the ARC system made an incredible improvement. I was able to play a little louder and the boom in the room was significantly reduced. I think I can do even better with some room treatment. All this was done in a terrible room with no rug, hardwood floors.windows. stairwell, and smooth drywall painted walls. Can’t get much worse for huge echo reflections and slow decay rate. No absorption anywhere. I know with an open floor plan it will be hard to get it right but I at least want to get it the best it can be. My favorite magazine at the moment just changed their name to include a lot more articles on custom home theater , Wide Screen Review. I wish I could afford to hire you and save myself a big pain in the you know where. As more and more enthusiasts start approaching the room you are going to be a very busy man.