Nick the Slick's Simply Efficient Room

[Nick The Slick]

Decided to remove the pics from this thread as it's much easier to just update my gallery if people want to see it. I just went for the barebones, function over form look for right now until I can get into a place with a larger space that I can begin to decorate and stylize to make it more comfortable and homey. Until then I think this will keep me satisfied

List of Gear:

Elite Screens 84" CineGray SilverFrame Series Screen
BenQ W1070 Projector
Polk Audio - Monitor 70 Series II Mains, CS2 Series II Center, Monitor 30 Series II surrounds
Dayton Audio custom 2.0 cu. ft. sealed subwoofer w/ Titanic MKIII 12" driver
Onkyo TX-NR818
Crown XLS 1500 Power amp for mains
Dayton Audio SA240 Subwoofer amp
Furman PL-8C power conditioner
Customer built computer:
-Intel Core i7 4770k CPU @ 4.5 GHz
-AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition @ 1050 MHz Core, 1500 MHz RAM
-8GB DDR3 RAM @ 2000 MHz
-LG Black model WH14NS40 BD drive
-Asus Z87-Pro Motherboard
-SeaSonic SS-750KM3 Power Supply
-Custom Water Cooling Loop

[talstarone]

Truly outstanding job. Love the detail and time youve taken to get the most from your setup.
Im a huge Polk fan so really diggin the speakers.

Excellent job and excellent room.

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by talstarone

Truly outstanding job. Love the detail and time youve taken to get the most from your setup.
Im a huge Polk fan so really diggin the speakers.

Excellent job and excellent room.

Yeah .........

Great job with the treatments and welcome to the gallery threads

[Billy13]

I too am a Polk fan Good job on your system, and welcome to the threads

[Nick The Slick]

Thanks guys! It's definitely been a journey. I'm glad people like the Polk's, I've come to really love them. I've seen them go through such a transformation. From being in a terrible room and only powered by my old Yamaha RX-V667, to now being in a properly treated room, properly calibrated, and being pumped 300wpc. The difference is incredible and makes me feel like I stole these things ($500 for the entire 5.0 set, that's half of what some people spend on 1 speaker!).

[rpatt]

Good job. It's amazing what room treatments can do. What does your REW system consist of?

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by rpatt

Good job. It's amazing what room treatments can do. What does your REW system consist of?

Yeah ...........

[Johan1981]

Great looking setup, I love the quest for technical perfection. I know the feeling and am always on the lookout for new ways to improve anything if there is a new thing around the block.

When watching movies in a darkened room you do not see anything else but the movie, so, the slick decoration is not a must if you ask me. You probably only look at it 1% of your time
I never really cared for that part of my home theater until I bought a special projector screen which was just too nice to look at to leave the rest messy

I hope you enjoy your theater as much as you can! In the end, we all make our home theaters to be able to watch movies as good as we can.

[Nick The Slick]

Originally Posted by rpatt

Good job. It's amazing what room treatments can do. What does your REW system consist of?

What do you mean? I use the Audyssey mic that came with my Onkyo plugged into my motherboards mic in jack. From there it's HDMI out to the receiver. The loopback for sound card calibration was created by simply using the front L/R pre-outs of the receiver and connecting them to the mic in (so it goes REW->HDMI->receiver->pre-outs->mic-in->REW) and letting REW do it's thing. During measurements I put the mic on an old camcorder tripod my dad had lying around. Hope that answers your question.

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

What do you mean? I use the Audyssey mic that came with my Onkyo plugged into my motherboards mic in jack. From there it's HDMI out to the receiver. The loopback for sound card calibration was created by simply using the front L/R pre-outs of the receiver and connecting them to the mic in (so it goes REW->HDMI->receiver->pre-outs->mic-in->REW) and letting REW do it's thing. During measurements I put the mic on an old camcorder tripod my dad had lying around. Hope that answers your question.

Interesting setup .............

I'm using Dayton's Omni-Mic system .........

[spaceape]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

What do you mean? I use the Audyssey mic that came with my Onkyo plugged into my motherboards mic in jack. From there it's HDMI out to the receiver. The loopback for sound card calibration was created by simply using the front L/R pre-outs of the receiver and connecting them to the mic in (so it goes REW->HDMI->receiver->pre-outs->mic-in->REW) and letting REW do it's thing. During measurements I put the mic on an old camcorder tripod my dad had lying around. Hope that answers your question.

Great HT Nick.

If your computer has a line in use that instead because the mic in has more noise. But if not at least disable the mic boost.

REW Cabling and Connection Basics

Important notes:
You will require a soundcard with a line-in and a line-out jack.

Both the Radio Shack and Galaxy CM-140 output a mono line-level signal. (note, we recommend the Galaxy meter for full range measurements. The Radio Shack meter is not suitable for full range, although it can be used up to ~3000Hz with no problems for testing subwoofers. Here's a fairly good article on the Radio Shack meters).

A microphone input (mic-in) on a soundcard is not suitable (many laptops only have mic-in).



LAPTOP Note:
If your laptop is limited to a mic-in port with no line-in, then you'll require an external USB soundcard. There are basically two flavors of external USB soundcards.

One type contain an internal microphone preamp(s) with phantom power for condenser mics (such as the ECM8000 or EMM-6). The popular manufacturers of these type are Tascam, EM-U, and M-Audio. The connection diagram for these soundcards is shown at the bottom of the page, but be sure to read through this entire article first.

The second type do not contain a microphone preamp, and have analog line-in and line-out only. The interconnects for this type are the same as for an internal PC soundcard.

Guidelines for posting your REW graphs:

Please Read: Getting Graphs Ready To Post

Please Read: Posting A Graph

If you have saved your mdat files there's no need to remeasure.

[rpatt]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

What do you mean? I use the Audyssey mic that came with my Onkyo plugged into my motherboards mic in jack. From there it's HDMI out to the receiver. The loopback for sound card calibration was created by simply using the front L/R pre-outs of the receiver and connecting them to the mic in (so it goes REW->HDMI->receiver->pre-outs->mic-in->REW) and letting REW do it's thing. During measurements I put the mic on an old camcorder tripod my dad had lying around. Hope that answers your question.

Originally Posted by spaceape

Great HT Nick.

If your computer has a line in use that instead because the mic in has more noise. But if not at least disable the mic boost.

REW Cabling and Connection Basics



Guidelines for posting your REW graphs:

Please Read: Getting Graphs Ready To Post

Please Read: Posting A Graph

If you have saved your mdat files there's no need to remeasure.

Thanks for the information guys. I've been wanting to try something like that.

[spaceape]

Originally Posted by rpatt

Thanks for the information guys. I've been wanting to try something like that.

That great.

If you need a video tutorial just search for something like "room eq wizard" on youtube.

[Nick The Slick]

No line input since all I'm dealing with is the integrated sound card on my motherboard, so I'm stuck with the mic in. I'll try to take another measurement with the mic boost defeated (have been measuring with +10dB) and set my graphs up according to that link.

Question about the mic input though. Could that be old information? Does it only apply to low end stuff or does it apply to all mic inputs in general? I ask this because maybe this just refers to cheap inputs found on laptops and such, just wondering if me having a mid/high end motherboard (well, mid/high end in it's time) made any difference? Could it also be because the writer of that post was using SPL meters which only have line level outputs (unlike the audyssey mic I'm using which has a regular 3.5mm jack)? I'm just wondering why it makes such a big difference (I know you said because of noise, but like I asked, could a higher end sound card/input make that point moot?)

[Nick The Slick]

I have updated my graphs to reflect spaceape's suggestions. The only one that I could actually remeasure was the Audyssey On With Acoustic Treatment graphs, the others have just had the axis modified.

[spaceape]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

No line input since all I'm dealing with is the integrated sound card on my motherboard, so I'm stuck with the mic in. I'll try to take another measurement with the mic boost defeated (have been measuring with +10dB) and set my graphs up according to that link.

Question about the mic input though. Could that be old information? Does it only apply to low end stuff or does it apply to all mic inputs in general? I ask this because maybe this just refers to cheap inputs found on laptops and such, just wondering if me having a mid/high end motherboard (well, mid/high end in it's time) made any difference? Could it also be because the writer of that post was using SPL meters which only have line level outputs (unlike the audyssey mic I'm using which has a regular 3.5mm jack)? I'm just wondering why it makes such a big difference (I know you said because of noise, but like I asked, could a higher end sound card/input make that point moot?)

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

I have updated my graphs to reflect spaceape's suggestions. The only one that I could actually remeasure was the Audyssey On With Acoustic Treatment graphs, the others have just had the axis modified.

Im not totally sure mate as i didn't write it. But the general consensus seem to be that microphone input are a bad option. They don't write why.. I only guessed the point about more noise in the input as that would make sense. The micboost thing is also something im guessing, together with keeping all effects disabled and the sampling rate at the standard 44khz/16bit as in the REW program.

I think onboard inputs whether by laptop or stationary pc is really the worst quality way to do it. The better option would be to either get a good dedicated soundcard or even better an external one with phantom power. Then you can also use the latter for use with a better omni directional mic if you someday get the fancy to upgrade your mic.

[Nick The Slick]

Originally Posted by spaceape

Im not totally sure mate as i didn't write it. But the general consensus seem to be that microphone input are a bad option. They don't write why.. I only guessed the point about more noise in the input as that would make sense. The micboost thing is also something im guessing, together with keeping all effects disabled and the sampling rate at the standard 44khz/16bit as in the REW program.

I think onboard inputs whether by laptop or stationary pc is really the worst quality way to do it. The better option would be to either get a good dedicated soundcard or even better an external one with phantom power. Then you can also use that for a better directional mic if you get the fancy to upgrade your mic sometime later on.

Gotcha, didn't mean to bombard you there. I was just curious because it seems to measure fine with the mic input, but i'm no expert so I may think it's fine and it's all wrong haha, and like you said he never elaborated as to why. Oh well, at least now I know how to make it the best with what I've got, which works for me~

Edit: Na, I'm not all that serious about it. I just make the measurements basically for my peace of mind, to know that it's making a difference. I think what I have is adequate enough for that. And BTW, the sound card is calibrated, that's what that black dotted line is on my graphs. If there were any flaws or signal degradation due to the sound card, wouldn't that calibration solve that? Or at the very least show it in the measurement? Just curious, not sure if you know.

[spaceape]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

Gotcha, didn't mean to bombard you there. I was just curious because it seems to measure fine with the mic input, but i'm no expert so I may think it's fine and it's all wrong haha, and like you said he never elaborated as to why. Oh well, at least now I know how to make it the best with what I've got, which works for me~

Edit: Na, I'm not all that serious about it. I just make the measurements basically for my peace of mind, to know that it's making a difference. I think what I have is adequate enough for that. And BTW, the sound card is calibrated, that's what that black dotted line is on my graphs. If there were any flaws or signal degradation due to the sound card, wouldn't that calibration solve that? Or at the very least show it in the measurement? Just curious, not sure if you know.

That's fine.

Calibration i think is really only to make sure you input and output levels are identical. If your calibration graph is pretty flat i think you'll be fine.

You can play around with the decay time parameters inside of REW as well as making a dedicated 15hz-200hz graph for just the subwoofer frequencies.

When i do it i try and get the decay time parameters from the graph as low as possible without cutting much off the waterfall (~300ms looks to be your setting).

Good luck enjoying your home theater.

[Nick The Slick]

Originally Posted by spaceape

That's fine.

Calibration i think is really only to make sure you input and output levels are identical. If your calibration graph is pretty flat i think you'll be fine.

You can play around with the decay time parameters inside of REW as well as making a dedicated 15hz-200hz graph for just the subwoofer frequencies.

When i do it i try and get the decay time parameters from the graph as low as possible without cutting much off the waterfall (~300ms looks to be your setting).

Good luck enjoying your home theater.

Gotcha, really do appreciate the input. No issues on that last note though, I enjoy every second of this!

[HAMP]

Cool, you made a thread, now I can really chat with you about an idea for a rack in your closet.

I was thinking about a rack you build inside your closet. Have it high enough to accomidate your equipment, but low enough to where you can still hang things in the closet.

While the rack inside the closet, I was thinking you make where you could pull out each shelf, like a drawer.

But then I remembered you like the front plates on a rack, so I was thinking if you were able to pull the whole shelf out like a drawer, this way it will look neat in the front and able to work with the wires in the rear.


Here is somewhat of the idea I am thinking of:
All Done! 025.jpg

I think the hardest part will be framing the closet.