JamesN's Basement Home Theater

[JamesN]

Projector
Panasonic AE-4000u 1080p LCD Projector

Screen
Carada 125" Diagonal 2.35:1 Criterion Screen with Brilliant White Fabric (1.4 gain)

A/V Equipment
Yamaha RX-Z11 11.2 Channel Receiver
Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-Ray Player
Denon DVD-1920 DVD-A/SACD DVD Player
Pioneer DVL-909 LaserDisc/DVD Player

Speakers
Paradigm Titans v2 (mains)
Paradigm CC-170 v2 (center)
Paradigm ADP-170s v2 (side surrounds)
Paradigm Atoms v2 (rear surrounds)
Paradigm Atoms v2 (front presence)
Paradigm Atoms v2 (rear presence)
Paradigm PDR-12 (subwoofers)

Miscellaneous
Buffalo Electronics IR-350 IR Repeater (installed in ceiling tile)
Buffalo Electronics IR-100 IR Controller

Seating
La-Z-Boy Matinee Home Theater Seating

[tilapiah6]

That is an absolutely fantastic setup. 10/10. I love those chairs. The ceiling lights are also a nice touch.

[louisdamani]

That's a nice clean room and color. What are the dimensions?

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by louisdamani

That's a nice clean room and color. What are the dimensions?

Thanks! The room is roughly 13' W X 20' L X 8' H.

[BLURAYSONYES]

lucky you! Very nice room for a great setup! awesome.

[SeanMF]

Front presence speakers? First I've seen of that...how do you have that wired for those?

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by seanfarley2

Front presence speakers? First I've seen of that...how do you have that wired for those?

It's a Yamaha-specific technology. Not everyone is a fan. You can read more about it here if you're interested.

[SeanMF]

Originally Posted by JamesN

It's a Yamaha-specific technology. Not everyone is a fan. You can read more about it here if you're interested.

Interesting...your right though on not everyone is a fan. I don't think I'll go that route ever being as not a fan of Yamaha receivers overall looks (they do perform great and solid receivers just the same). I wonder if my cousin I live with has this on his receiver. He just bought a new Yamaha receiver awhile ago. Have to check that out.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Wonderful setup James! Very clean and stylish!

John

[Beta Man]

yes.... very nice! Did you try the sub in various places, and that worked out best????

[crazyBLUE]

Vary Nice setup James ! I like the way you have set it up !

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Nice basement. Love the carpet. And great set up too.

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

yes.... very nice! Did you try the sub in various places, and that worked out best????

Thanks! Actually I spent a lot of time (re)positioning the sub in various locations and auditioning a variety music and movies. To my ear, its current location blends the most naturally with the rest of the speakers. If I wasn't already planning on upgrading all of the speakers in a few years, I would look into a second sub.

[D]

Well Done System James! Love the Paradigm's! Great looking room pal!

[Shinrai]

Originally Posted by JamesN

It's a Yamaha-specific technology.

Not necessarily... http://www.dolby.com/consumer/techno...logic-IIz.html

[JamesN]

I recently completed a major renovation of my basement home theater. New pics can be found here.

I have archived my old pics here for comparison and posterity.

As always, comments, suggestions, and general discussion are most welcome. Here is a summary of the changes:

Walls
My old theater had solid dark blue walls throughout. Although it was well suited to movie watching, I spend at least as much time in the room listening to music with the lights on, and the dark color was oppressive and cheerless. I also wanted to give the room a bit more "character" without having to resort to architectural modifications. My solution was to leave the bottom half of the walls the same dark blue, paint the top half a lighter steel blue, and add a chair rail between the two colors. I got the idea from other home theaters I had seen with similar dual color schemes, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I tried several shades of paint before I found one light enough to cheer the room with the lights on, but still able to "disappear" well with the lights off.

I covered the front wall completely with black velvet fabric, applying it directly to the wall with wallpaper paste. I used a "strippable" paste product in case I ever need or want to redo it in the future. The fabric was from the Buffalo Felt company (distributed by McMaster-Carr), and is the same product used and recommended by several others on this forum. [After working with it, if I had it to do over, I would have chosen a different product, but I'm pleased enough with the results that I won't be re-doing it any time soon.]

I also replaced the wall sconces with ones more in keeping with the room's decor.

Screen
I retired my old 100" diagonal 16:9 DaLite screen and replaced it with a 125" diagonal 2.35:1 Carada Criterion with Brilliant White fabric (1.4 gain). The workmanship on the Carada far outshines that of my old DaLite, and although 33% larger, it actually cost less! Also, I can't say enough good things about Carada as a company: their customer service and professionalism are second to none.

Projector
I replaced my 4 year old Sony Cineza HS-51 720p projector with a Panasonic AE-4000u 1080p. The Panasonic provides 6 different lens memory banks (which recall zoom, focus, and vertical shift settings) to achieve CIH at various aspect ratios, and I'm using all 6. My memory settings are:
16x9 (for both 1.33:1 and 1.78:1 content)
1.85:1
2.00:1
2.10:1
2.35:1
2.40:1
Between my Blu-ray, DVD and LD collection, I find use for all six.

Receiver
I replaced my Yamaha RX-V1800 with a Yamaha RX-Z11. The Z-11 provides 11.2 dedicated channels of audio output! That's 7.1 discrete audio channels, 2 front and 2 rear presence channels, and true stereo subwoofers! Unlike other Yamaha receivers, none of the channel amps are "shared". (Most Yamaha's have one pair of amps for both the presence speakers and the rear surrounds, preventing them from being used simultaneously. The Z-11 lets you run all 11.2 channels when appropriate for the content.)

Speakers
I received some negative comments in my old system regarding using white speakers on the front wall for the presence speakers, and I had to agree they were distracting. I have since moved those speakers to the rear (for use as the rear presence speakers) and replaced them with a pair of black Paradigm v.2 Atoms up front. All of the front speakers now disappear nicely into the black velvet fabric wall.

Cabling
I tore out all of my existing in-wall cabling and ran new. The old cabling was run by a subcontractor. Not only was it very thin gauge wire, but the layout was also a total rat's nest. Although no one saw this, it always bothered me and troubleshooting anything was a nightmare. So I took the opportunity during renovations to clean things up cable-wise. All of the new in-wall cabling is from Blue Jeans Cable. I used Belden 12 AWG wire for the speaker cables, LC-1 for the subwoofer cables, and Belden Series 1 for HDMI. (The IR repeater uses CAT-5 in-wall, and I just used some extra I had around. This is the only in-wall cabling that didn't come from Blue Jeans Cable.)

For the wall jacks, I used Leviton QuickPort modules from SmartHome. Speaker cables were terminated with GLS locking banana plugs from Orange County Speaker Repair.

Power Protection
The subwoofers and projector are newly protected with Panamax in-wall AC outlets. Everything else, as with the old system, is protected with a whole-house surge protector on the main breaker box. The main equipment rack is also employing a floor-model surge protector strip, but this will soon be replaced with a dedicated component line conditioner.


Future Plans
Like everyone else bitten by the home theater bug, I don't think I'll ever truly be done, but right now I need to give my bank account some time to recover from the trauma of this renovation. Once recovered, my purchase plans for the near-term future (i.e. sometime later this year) include (not necessarily in chronological order):

• Power conditioner (looking at Furman/Panamax, possibly one including a UPS and remote connection of the projector to the UPS)
• New Blu-ray player (leaning towards the OPPO BD83, unless an equally performing 3D-capable player emerges by the time I'm ready)
• Universal remote control (looking at the Harmony One or 110)
• Remote controlled light dimmers (I don't really care about this but it's high on my wife's wish list)
• Wireless music server receiver (likely the Squeezebox Duet, but would prefer the Transporter if sufficient funds can be scraped up)

Long term I would love to add a screen masking system like the Carada Masquerade. It's a seriously cool product, but it's hard to justify the price tag.

At some point I'll also have to start considering a speaker upgrade. My Paradigms are going to be celebrating their 8th birthday soon. They still sound great to me, and I'm actively avoiding auditioning Paradigm's latest line for fear of catching acute upgraditis.


That's it for now. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and looking. I enjoy this forum immensely--especially following the progress of everyone else's theaters. I've learned a lot here from many of you. So even though I may not comment as much as others, I do hang around almost daily, and I want to say thanks to everyone for the all help, ideas, and inspiration!

[SeanMF]

Looks good like before James!

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by SeanMF

Looks good like before James!

Thanks Sean! I've been following your progress as well.

[SeanMF]

Originally Posted by JamesN

Thanks Sean! I've been following your progress as well.

Its non stop process if you let it be. What's the next addition/upgrade?

[JamesN]

Originally Posted by SeanMF

...What's the next addition/upgrade?

Trying to add some greenbacks back into my bank account!