Advice please on this proposed home cinema setup

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Hello there,A friend of mine has asked me to spec a home cinema for their front room, with certain provisos. It's got to be as discrete as possible, no large speakers, a screen that isn't fixed and as much wiring as possible hidden away. Budget around £3000 and I'll be doing the install myself.Here's the room:

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/8244/roomfrontpu7.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/2541/roomrearsq0.jpg

The room is 14'10" wide by 20' long with viewing down the long length. The bay window is 110" wide, and a 120" electric screen will be mounted above the moulding. My plan would be to put white left, center and right speakers just above the picture rail moulding, on that wall.The projector will mount on the back wall around the height of the moulding, on a white shelf (possibly with a cover) to keep it as neat as possible. Rear surrounds will go in the rear corners, at picture rail height. Sub can go out of the way somewhere.

It's quite a big room and sounds quite bright so I'm thinking we may need to do some room treatments, although the curtains are all heavy velvet, the room's carpeted and there's a comfy sofa and armchair in there too.

 From reading through forums and review sites I'm looking at the B&W MT30 speakers with an Onkyo 875 receiver, which I'm hoping will have enough oomph to fill the room for both movies and sound.Projector will be a Panny AX200 and probably the Oxygon 120" electric screen, bringing the total (less cables etc) to around 3k.

 Anything you'd do differently?Many thanks,J.

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a fitting set up. Why would you want to hide the PV1 though? I think you've got it pretty much sorted. only you could think about the 905 instead of the 875 at todays prices. Have you taken into consideration cables too? Think £2-500?

I don't think you'll need any treatment in that room with the MT-30. Simply not necessary.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. I think if I was going to cut back anywhere in the system it would be the sub. Something like the BK monolith would offer the same sort of bass for around half the price of the B&W unit. Yes, I've thought of cables, probably a load of white 49-strand tucked along the picture rail. Interconnects I'll make up myself in appropriate lengths, apart from the hdmi of course.

ÿ

Cheers,

ÿJustin.ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

If you are worried about a possible 'bright' room, I would seriously
try and demo the MT30's in some sort of similar room..... I've had mine
for about 2 months and cannot wait to replace them with bigger cabinets
and a 'fuller' and 'warmer' sound....

You say the main use will be movies, and yes they perform pretty well here and the PV1 does have some 'oomph', but I have been pretty disappointed with music performance, which in hindsight was more important to me....To be fair, they are in a large room, with a very minimal decor and consequently I dare say a 'bright' and 'hard' acoustic (I'm talking wooden floors, no curtains, modern furniture - so you potentially have a far more 'dampened' room than I..).....I went for the style approach, and finished in white the Mt30 set looks fantastic, BUT, in hollow hindsight, I made a mistake.....I know from reviews etc etc that there would of course be a compromise between AV and music, and another compromise between 'style' speakers and traditional, but I thought it would be ok, that I was buying into about the best you could get in that approach.......As I say, for me it's not, and I want to go a complete other way, far more audiophile....

PLEASE, don't read this as gosple, and they may really work and suit your room, they ARE good speakers, but as others would advise on these forums, just really make sure you test them out with your ears.....I didn't.

It's hard, as I know exactly what you're trying to do...have something subtle and 1/2 stylish in the corners, but also a good sound...

You're on the right tracks with the Onkyo (you could also wait a little for the new 876 perhaps), and certainly you'll get bangs and wallops with AV material with the speakers.....Just don't expect much of a mid range with music, and in my case, a top end brighness that actually hurts after a while......

I'm not trying to put you off, and I really hope they work for you, I'm just trying to stress and advise to be careful..... SC

 

[Alsone]

Is money an issue here?

If not, I'm wondering why they don't want a fixed screen. There are numerous ways of hiding a fixed screen and ultimately a good plasma or LCD will give a far better picture in my opinion than a projector without any of the lighting worries. However, fixed screens are both more expensive than the £3K you've proposed in the kind of size you'd want (50" you might get in budget but you might want 60" I'd think from 20 feet) and the cost of totally hiding them would probably quite be high to professional home cinema standards also unless they were satisfied with a flush mounting in which case the main cost would be a stud wall which shouldn't cost an arm and a leg, although it wouldn't be ultra cheap either - think wooden frame (sturdy around tv mounting area), plaster board and plasterer to finish, maybe under £1K at a guess with professional labour. You'd also need to consider the tv's cooling requirements with a flush mount so some consultation with a mounting expert would be needed to ensure it could breathe adequately.

There is one cheap alternative though that I have seen and that is to put a single floor to ceiling curtain across the entire wall the tv is mounted on. This just gives a modern fabric wall look and with a single curtain there are no gaps in the middle and no bulges or clues as to whats behind if you mount it off the wall further than the tv. The rail can even be hidden with a full width pelmet - again cheap to construct. You can have any colour or pattern of curtain you like to match the decor or existing curtains and the only cost is the rail, ply and battening for the pelmet and the curtain itself. When you want to watch tv, you simply pull the curtain across to against one of the side walls (or retract it electronically if you really want to impress). A manual curtain solution will probably cost less £200-250 depending on the size of the wall and the poshness of the curtain.

However, I'm not an installation expert so couldn't advise on all the specifics.

 

[Anonymous]

Justin Peer:

The projector will mount on the back wall around the height of the moulding, on a white shelf (possibly with a cover) to keep it as neat as possible.

I'd check the details for the projector, to see what set up it expects. Mine is designed to project an image above projector level when the right way up, or below it when upside down. If yours is similar, you may want to consider a wall/ceiling mount rather than a shelf.

Oh - and remember to check the projectors throw ratio to make sure you can get a picture the size you want at the distance you want 🙂

Justin Peer:

My plan would be to put white left, center and right speakers just above the picture rail moulding, on that wall.

Usual recommendation is to put the speakers either side of the screen,at about ear height. I presume the 'ear height' bit is mainly so you get the widest dispersion without needing to tilt them, but I think the idea of putting them either side of the screen is so that the sound appears to be coming from the screen - I'd be concerned that you may end up with the sound appearing to come from above the screen with your proposed layout. On the other hand, center speakers are usually above/below the screen so you may get away with it since I'm not sure how good people are at localising sounds up/down as opposed to left/right.