Small but perfectly formed JBL home cinema

[Brainstorm]

Well what have I, been up to over these past 18 months.

Well a new home and a pet cat called Sooty.

It took a while to partly get the flat sorted out and its still in slow process at decorating.

New kitchen new bathroom…so what about the entertainment living room!

Well I’ll post the past doings up to the present its going to be a long thread!!!




Small but perfectly formed.




The new JBL home cinema


After trying two rooms for the JBL home cinema I found the one with the longest length to be a troublesome type and so I have settled on a smaller room.


One was the (chimney breast) that stuck out mid way in the room, by (18” depth) by (61” width), so I decided to abandon the room with the 15 foot length and go with a more easier room that will still need a few basic modifications done to it.

Flooring

I plan to make a secondary floor for the (JBL home cinema) to help with vibrations from LCR surrounds, sub bass extension and LFE.1.

Bass is fairly neutral due to the concrete flooring I guess, less (boom), just a natural sounding tone, unlike the last place, where it was a bit bass heavy at the back.

What you see here is only temporarily, this will nether be placed at the back of room around summertime, when I have the budget to buy a few professional 19” racks, Samson, studio racks.



Room’s dimensions are

Length 11 feet10”

Width 10 feet 9”

Height 7 feet 7”

Yeah that’s small and I plan to shorten the height by has much as (2 ½ inches) with (2x2 timbre) and (15mm MDF or other) for the top part of the flooring. It shouldn’t cost no more than £80.00 the MDF will be the costly part of the material but not as much as the timbre beams as I only need around 6 or 7 spaced out evenly, over its length.

JBL control 1 fall in stand to attention!

Here’s my surround arsenal of battle troops ready to provide all the trills and spills on the surround channels.











JBL control 5 I must say sound better in a room with concrete flooring, this helps to eliminate rattles and buzzing sounds! Not to mention sub bass and LFE.1 frequencies.



Its kinder difficult to get a wide angle of the front because of the field of depth, the camera can only see what it can see, I can get very tight angles, but the sides are cropped off a bit.

Rubber matting

Now this would be great to place underneath the (timbre beams) or more rather the timber beams placed on top to add a little extra isolation.

Door

Door to the JBL home cinema room, will hath to be switched around to opened in the opposite direction, due to the raised flooring.

Platform

Horizontal platform for the front loudspeakers LCR will be placed 1” above the TV monitor and angled downwards, the length of the platform will extend the room’s width, depth of the platform will be the same as the JBL 4645 sub 18” to keep it flush.

Surrounds?

That is the question, what am I to do with 10 JBL control 1, now I can still place these on the sidewalls and rear wall and a few on the ceiling. I’m thinking I can set:

x2 for sidewall
x2 for centre back surround
x4 for height surround when available

And that’s pushing it, not quite to the original plan as I hoped and planed for, which was x16 I think?

Anyway all this, will be done over the course of the summertime no rush and there is a slim budget, as I have to mange other priorities that kinder remain on the top, but there will be a slow transformation.

Window

There’s only one in the JBL home cinema that will be blocked up with two layers of MDF cut to size. First off I’ll place a window blind in front, to give the illusion on the outside that I have the blinds closed for privacy, which isn’t far from the truth.

First layer of MDF will have a small bit of timber placed around the outside, then attached to the (window frame) securely. Next I’ll place a thin layer of (rock wool) inside it securely. Last off the second layer of MDF will be screwed to the other piece. This should reduce the traffic noise, as too what sound pressure level I have no data on this as for now, I’ll hath to wait until I get around to doing it.

I’ll take RTA readings with SPL db level metre, for a few hours note the average and the install the frame, after which I can take more readings and see if there’s been a reduced noise level, as the traffic around here is noisy during the night. Also there’s an airport nearby, Hurn international, with a few jets taking off and approaching as well.

The roof, now there’s nothing I can do about the roof, I think its (sound) so there’s no need to look that, unless I can hear (heavy rainfall) but since I’ve been here, I haven’t noticed it, with the past rainfall.

Additional absorption DIY

(Bass tarps) is out of the question, by the time I’ve stuck those in the room, I won’t have room to swing a cat around! So adsorption panels placed on the wall surfaces will suffice to add further adsorption.

(Rock wool) will be used for the panels, a soft layer placed onto a thin layer of MDF along with a (colourful fabric) for cosmetic appearance.

Interior decorative lighting system

Neon lighting will be the theme a basic red green and blue placed around the room in a hoarse shoe configuration that will be concealed near to the ceilings curve.

This will have a computerized controller when turned on will cycle though a sequence, on delay, dimming one colour and fading in the next colour, and so on.

12 volt neon is the simplest, the same type that is used for cars.

I don’t even have a seat to sit on, I’m sat here typing, sat on a JBL HT-1F and two pillows and my backside fills buggered LOL

[Brainstorm]

Some projects didn’t quite take off as planned due to finances but there’s always another day to try.


I’ve placed a Blue Neon light behind the sofa for chilling cool colour, in the mean time.

[Brainstorm]

LOL I guess Kevin O’Connell knows how to apply the right amount of low end to, buzz the audience. This had me starching my head for a few minutes? I was looking at the right-hand side JBL control 5 while the sub bass extension was extending the low end from LCRS. The tone was down at around 40Hz.





The JBL control 5 wasn’t at fault, so where in the hell is coming from? I then muted all directional channels and LFE.1 leaving only the sub bass extension playing the low end from LCRS, and I could still hear this elusive buzzing sound, now this starting to get personal.



After standing back and looking at the front, I then twigged onto where it was coming from, the (vent). As I approached it and while playing back the same sequence, over and over again, I placed my finger on the plastic vent cover, and like magic it disappeared.



Well now all I need is something to place between the vent flaps to prevent the moving parts vibrating or buzzing. I cut a small piece of cardboard and folded it, and then placed it between one of the vent gaps, and then played the scene over again.



Sigh, well that’s more like it yeah. So you just never can tell what is vibrating or buzzing In that special JBL room of yours and a little quick thinking can solve it in the simplest of ways. Now starman can hum and rumble without the buzzing.

[Brainstorm]

I was kinder thinking about the surround issue this afternoon on where to place all those JBL control 1 surrounds? I’m kinder feeling adventurous this evening and thou I’d like to go with plan A and place them along the wall surfaces, that option is still widely open.

I’m thinking I can still buy a few more JBL control 1 later on and place them on the side and rear wall. Combination and configuration layout of the surrounds can be as follows.

Option 1 Three on each side with four placed on the back part of the ceiling area.
Option 2 four on each side with two placed on the back part of ceiling area.

How will it sound in relation to the film, as some sound images hath to make sense. It wouldn’t make sense to me if I heard the Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber coming from slightly above me from the centre back, would it?



Okay since I haven’t played that film here as of yet, I’ll play the sound bite moment in sort jiffy, and see where I stand with surround placement and with a stroke of wit and luck, I might be able to get them fitted to the ceiling before the clock strikes 12, otherwise I’ll turn into a pumpkin.

Just kidding rushing results in injurers occurring, and I need to take this a step at a time, otherwise, I might end back up where I started from.

I’ll place one on the back part of the ceiling to start with and note the differences with Star Wars episode 2 Attack of the Clones.

Water sprinkler effect! There’s another cool film that has some good film mixing, Hollowman where the sound starts off at centre front then moves outwards with nice centre back moment that gets the attention! Water is trickling all around you with droplets of water landing on the solid floors in the underground facility.

Let’s go to work

[Brainstorm]

Here is an update as you can see that is one JBL control 1 so far fitted to the back part of the ceiling area, I’ve marked out where I want them on the back part with masking tape and using a blue pencil, to outline the JBL speaker support fitting, and the holes for the screws.

Now once I’ve gotten them all fitted which should be sometime very late. Also I have some (cable ducting) not sure if can get the cables concealed within it, by to night, but I’ll cut some up and use liquid nails to attach it to the ceiling, and corners.

I must say it does kinder work, as you can see; I’m kinder looking back, while one eye still focusing on the front screen action. I’ve only got the surrounds playing at the present time, with Star Wars episode 2 Attack of the Clones, while all the LCR and .1 are in mute mode.

Anyway back to the JBL control 1 surrounds installation.

Well I need to take a slight break due to heath, wares my arms out it does, gravity is a ***** on the arms, but it feels good. Who knows I might even sweat a few ounces of my bodyweight.



As you can see there are now three JBL control 1 fitted, so far so good on the sound, as I mellow with Star Wars episode 2 Attack of Clones. Note the two (centre back surrounds) and the first (left side ceiling surround) I only have 7 more to fit.


Oh, there's just one other thing.

I was jumping ahead of myself with the cable, wow I’m sweating on the back of the head here. I meant to say, the racks that I’ll be buying around summertime, or maybe sooner, summer the very least, well if the racks are going at the back, then I’d hath to fit the cable ducting last.

[Brainstorm]

Two angles showing the surround view and it does kinder look unsightly, even I can admit to that. Looks like an interior decorating issue for a later date, with the light turned off I hardly notice it.

How does it sound so far? I ran a pink noise test to confirm that the tone was equal, via the Pioneer VSP-200 a few adjustments on the Marantz 1030 with a slight increase on volume.

All the surrounds are (wired in series) I’ll fit the last two up in the daytime, because now I’m shattered and need some sleep, it took around 1 hour to fit two surrounds at a time, I’ve viewed over a few best sound moments updates on how that sounded later on.

[Brainstorm]

[Brainstorm]

Well its all about trial and error so if I can fork out for an electric drill next week, I’m get some timber to place over the (rear and sidewalls) to easily fit the speaker brackets, rather then drilling 40 holes in the walls, I can get around this with three holes max per sidewall and four on the back wall to hold small thin piece of timber.

Horizontal placement would give me the maximum head turning affect that I’m looking for. Where they are at present is all wrong, and like I said its trial and error. However it worked in the cinema at UCI, maybe not to the fullest for stereo surround films, I remember Jurassic park in dts was major disappointment, because all that was done at the time was re-plugging of the surrounds, that have been used for monaural effects with Dolby stereo A and SR type soundtracks.

Later they fitted a new batch of surrounds, to the sidewalls and rear wall.

Anyway I plan to fit the surround fixing bracket at height of 67” and then angle the surrounds downwards.

So in the worlds of the Blues Brothers…

[Brainstorm]

Well in the past 20 minutes I’ve removed the side JBL control 1 and I’ll stick them close to the sidewalls along with the centre back surround directional channels, until I get a sodden drill.

I must say I hate heights, I’m terrified of heights, standing a stool that slightly wobbles scares me to bits.

Oh well that’s 5 hours wasted last night that I won’t get back LOL.

I’ve got The X-Files fight the future (1999) playing at the moment as soon as I get the last two JBL control 1 down I’ll try a new experiment, just for temporary use that is, until I get a sodden drill.

[Brainstorm]

Brought an electrical drill this morning from Wilkinson’s and a few pieces of 2x1 from Columbia timber yard.



Has you can see I’ve drilled and filled the hole with liquid nails and tapped in the wall plug, by around tomorrow the liquid nails would have hardened.





Screwed up and secured. Well that’s the back part done, I’ve got two sides to do next, and oh that’s going to be fun.



One JBL control 1 fitted. The wooden beam makes it easier to place the mounting bracket to the wood, rather than drilling dozens of holes into the wall.





Tightening up the nut, then it will be fitted to the mounting bracket and secularly tightened up.

[Brainstorm]

Yes I plan to hind the loudspeaker cable in some cable ducting that I’ll place above the wooden beam. Anyway I’ve got two more to do this afternoon and I’m very limited on screws for the wooden beam, but not for mounting the JBL control 1, plenty of that size to go around.

[Brainstorm]

Due to one of the sidewalls I’ve had to put of the final assembly of the JBL Control 1 surrounds to the left-hand-sidewall till tomorrow morning when I can re-drill new holes.

The rear wall and right-hand-sidewall is okay, all was going smoothly and I was egger to drill new holes around 5:30pm this evening, but I thought I’d delay it till the morning.

More pictures to follow tomorrow.

I’m also thinking about getting long board for the front LCR, a platform that will allow the JBL control 5 to sit on. This will reduce close contact vibration with the TV with centre channel, and even thou the TV is sitting on top of the mighty huge JBL sub, colour remains intact, due to the large magnet structure, stock of luck I would say.

[Brainstorm]

I couldn’t resist taken a few pictures, I’ve just fixed the JBL Control 1 right-hand-sidewall surrounds only moments ago.

[Brainstorm]

This phase of sidewall and rear wall installation is now complete and I like it. Next is to attach the cable ducting to tidy up the loudspeaker cables that powers the surrounds.





Since the idea or concept is still going to be “small” and since I started a comment in the room mode calculations thread, I thought I’d post the images here. Now you can see I have a (chimney breast) its 61” wide or 5 feet 1” if that helps. Now you can see a window on the side wall, that’s got to be blocked off with MDF.

You can also see the gap where the (chimney breast) ends. Now that needs to be addressed with some timber and MDF to make it one whole length. This now narrows the width of the middle part of the room by 8 feet 11” or 107” if that helps.

The back part of the room I wont touch I’ll leave it open has is, it’s the main front area with the matching JBL control 5 LCR that worries me, because of the opening at the front.

But surly the bass at the back of the room along with a few mid range and few high frequencies might have issues, but no worse than some cinemas that’ I’ve seen where there is a slight odd shape in one or two parts of it.

I want to get this done right given the slim poor man’s budget I’m on, even if this takes a year, I want to get the shape done right, or near within small degree.

Note the main window, now that really needs to be blocked up with a few layers of MDF to reduced as much audible traffic sound and other sound from the outside. I don’t care the window needs to be blocked.

First I’ll stick window blinds on the inside to give it the impression I’ve got the window blinds closed. Then layer it with MDF to reduce the sound level, as much as possible.

[Brainstorm]

Matters have now increased to critical; I don’t know how to get around the left-hand-sidewall, which has the JBL control 1 surround placement. I’ve noticed if I where to place a JBL control 1 towards the or near the door, and no the door isn’t the issue, it’s the distance between the chimney breast, and the 18 ½ in slight depth.

Now I’d ether hath to power the JBL control 1 on the left-hand-sidewall with a stereo amplifier, rather then using it the other way around this way I can EQ the differences between the one that sticks out slight and the one that doesn’t.

That now means I’d have to buy at least 4 more Alesis RA300 and one RA500 for sub bass. Oh this is going to be slow very slow, I doubt this will be finished till next year??

[Brainstorm]

Got it I’ve been keeping my mind active tonight, and I’ve hatched out this idea around the door entrance.

By placing some timbre to the walls and extending a short length across the door area, with MDF maybe something different to make it look as if its part of the room.

Rack placement everything except the amplifiers, those will be placed in the bedroom.

So I’ll might be able to fit a professional rack 19”, you know one of those Samson racks, into the space and with the flush look should look neat, hopefully.




Still pending on buy the racks at the present time!

[Brainstorm]

Well, well my, my, my this took a bit of searching around this morning a few miss and hits and then I was pointed into the direction of [Studio Spares] UK where they have different framing.

I’ve ordered x2 24U framing and nuts screws and washes and plastic washers to isolate it from the framing. That should do it now, but I still need to get timbre and [MDF sheet a thin type] to place around the whole assembly to give it a flash and pucker look.

24U framing L rack
http://www.studiospares.com/Product.aspx?code=900076

[Brainstorm]

Still in the middle of deal with some cinema seats that where going to tossed into the skip but deal hasn’t gone though yet.

[Brainstorm]

24U Racking plate framing

Well its turned up but I think I need two more of the same for the back don’t I, providing of course I want to use rack trays that slide outwards. I’ve been viewing the studio spares catalogue that arrived early this morning and saw the cost of rack trays around £22.00 pounds that isn’t too bad providing I, don’t go nuts and buy a whole bunch of sliding trays or I can then just buy a normal tray.

Other than that I’m pleased with the look of the racking plates, very pleased. In the meantime I’ll keep the racking plates in the cardboard tube safely until I’ve got the timber frame fitted up along with flash virtual piece of thin MDF boarding.

[Brainstorm]

Slightly changed room’s while being parked directly on top adjacent bedrooms.

My new neighbour said it was vibrating the concrete floor two floors below! Well at least I know it’s performing like it’s suppose to. I think that must have been Crimson Tide (PCM) dts 5.1 THX laserdisc.

So I hope the new room will minimize the low end to small degree.

I’ve applied cable truncking along, above the picture framing around the room to conceal the loudspeaker cables for the surrounds.



The surrounds are all, wired in series.

Later on I’ll fit the front panel of the cable truncking, onto the fitting.







I need to really block the windows up to reduce outside sound and stray light from disruption.











The room is bit lively with slight reverb that needs to be dealt with. It’s kinder hard to tell if the sub bass extension is deeper or more controlled than the other room.


LFE.1 I haven’t tested it out, yet. I’m running, laserdisc transfer DVD-RW Star Trek the Motion Picture (1979) Dolby stereo 44 which as surfactant bass and sub bass lows.


The fronts LCR seem to be performing with good stereo front and dialogue panning is smooth over a narrow (7 feet 6”) to the present listening position, which is 9 feet.


Seating is placed within the sidewall surrounds which are placed high up at (6 feet 7”). The angle is as step as they can go; I’d guess its slightly less than 45°.


The angle of the surrounds is 55” to the listener’s ears.


Also haven’t tried out stereo surrounds with centre back as of yet, maybe later on. Then I can see how well it images around the room, while the monaural matrix surrounds give good envelopment when “Veger’s” lighting thunders around, Enterprise.


Has Enterprise goes though an opening into another part of Veger complex, its accompanied by a nice smooth low end on the JBL 4645 that is in SW re-mix which sends all the low end to subwoofer output.


I normal have this in the OFF setting that only comes active with LFE.1 (Dolby / dts 5.1) sources.

I still have four more JBL control 1 fitted to the ceiling in the other room that need to be taken down and fitted somewhere into the large room.

[Brainstorm]

[Brainstorm]

[Brainstorm]

Changed the fronts LCR back with a mixture of JBL control 5 and control 1 as to with the crossover frequency.

LCR
LF 40Hz Butterworth 18db 521Hz Butterworth 18db

LCR
Mid range to high
510Hz no crossover filter used on the highs leave that to the THX re-eq to address that part.

The control 1 will sound loud on the mid to high range.

[Brainstorm]

Just finished fitting the remaining other JBL control 1 to the ceiling for matrix height surround as well as working with monaural surround. How that works is with the Pioneer VSP-200 other matrix functions called (Simulated and Studio) modes that work with sidewall surrounds when in this mode.

Simulated provides a bit involvement with the opening of “InnerSpace” (1987) as the liqueur is pored into glass and rather having it on left and right sidewall surrounds I can place a little bend overheard that works quite will.

Studio mode presents a lesser watery liqueur sound as that is mostly on left and right sidewall arrays.

Dolby stereo Pro-Logic even lesser in this mode as the sound is directed to the centre back surrounds as it would appear the surrounds are monaural.

Drilled into the ceiling with small pilot-holes to make the task easier and then mounted the brackets and attached the JBL control 1 up and tightened up the screw. Anyway I tidy up the dangling cables from the ceiling with cable trunking and need to get a few more lengths of it to finish it up as I ran out, its only £1.98p for 2.4m length, so what the heck.

[Brainstorm]

Repositioned the arrangement of the JBL control 1 by placing some timbre slightly ahead by 18” re-spaced them out a bit and mirrored the difference on the opposite side redid the EQ and there’s a noticeable difference in bass mid and high range, that’s encompassed around the ears, rather than that common lose hole in the bucket sound that most home cinema users have.

Screwed up some timbre that took around 10 minutes piloted the holes with electric drill to make it easier to screw the back bracket to the timber. Re-wired the series of the cables to the surrounds, took bath because I was sweating like pig, came back in finished off a few more surrounds then settled down and relaxed with the surrounds only to see what else need attention.

Standing up and walking around it remains stable and uniform, just the way I want it. also I’ve removed the height surrounds only until I get another set of JBL control 1 as the other two are positioned on the sides around the seating area and slightly ahead of it as well.

The bridge sequence on the opening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has wonderful ambient low end rumble that doesn’t draw attention to the surrounding JBL control 1, certain levels change in the pitch of the Enterprise’s engines and when captain Kirk enters the bridge simulator, is heard with metallic like sound a few pressure hydraulic sounds are heard as well.