SirMaster's Apartment Home Theater.

SirMaster

2[H]4U
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Nov 8, 2010
Messages
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I saw a few other people posting their theaters and lots of nice discussions so I figured I would post mine and maybe it would help some people see what can be done in an apartment.

Here is an overview of the main system to get some scale. The screen itself is custom made by me. Corner to corner in 16:9 it is 136" It is constructed out of a wood frame with metal legs to support it. The screen is blackout cloth stretched and stapled to the frame and painted. Finally, I tacked some black felt cloth to the wall and velcroed a thin compacted cardboard black frame to the edged to give the screen a nice sharp frame finish and make it look more like a TV.
I really think this was a great way to go as the materials for this construction only cost me about $100.

Screen.jpg


Straight%20Screen.jpg


Here is an overview of the seating area and the rest of the room.

Seating.jpg


Next we move onto the simple electronics console. I decided to custom build this table to make it fit the way I wanted. This is also cheaper than buying a table from say IKEA. It houses my AV Receiver and my Xbox 360. I also built a custom bracket into the table to hold my AV receiver and the very heavy HDMI cables that come out the back so they don’t pull on the plugs on my receiver. You can see this in the second image.

Electronics.jpg


AV%20Bracket.jpg


Here is a shot of the AV Receiver. It is a Denon AVR-1910 model.
http://usa.denon.com/US/Product/Pag...roductId=2ec7bce2-006e-4124-ba0e-3aac5d9b13af

Receiver.jpg


Here is a shot of the projector itself. I built this custom post and mounting bracket to hold it in place because they don’t really make anything that would work in an apartment. You can’t really attach heavy things to the walls or ceiling so this works by using springs to put pressure on the post and hold it between the floor and ceiling. It also gives a nice place to run the big HDMI cable down. The projector is a Mitsubishi HC3800 1080p DLP projector.
http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/bu/projectors/products/home/hc3800_features.html

Projector.jpg


Now onto the audio system. I put this system together myself and here are a few shots of the different components. The 5 speakers are from Axiom Audio and the subwoofer is from Paradigm. Here are the models:
Fronts:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/m22.html
Center:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/vp100.html
Rears:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/qs4.html
Subwoofer:
http://www.paradigm.com/products/products-by-series/pdr-subwoofers/pdr-100
For the rear speakers, I built some custom stands from PVC, wood, and a weight. I wanted them to be above the couch so everyone in the seating area could hear them but since they were so high, I needed to tilt them down a bit. I think they turned out great. Building them myself saved a ton of money and parts came to $10 for them. It also gave me a nice place to run the cable through.

Left%20Speaker.jpg


Right-Sub.jpg


Center%20Speaker.jpg


Rear1.jpg


Rear2.jpg


Here you can see the bottom of the rear stand and also some cabling I have running into my bedroom. I have an HDMI cable, an ethernet cable, and also a USB cable running into my bedroom. The HDMI and USB are for my Desktop. I use my PC to play movies and video games and I have the USB cable running to a powered USB hub which is located beneath the couch. This is useful to plug in anything that I am using at the time such as a microphone or game controller/joystick or even my iPhone.
I also have a wireless dongle plugged into the hub and have a wireless keyboard and mouse always out in the living room so I can completely control my Desktop from there.

Cabling.jpg


So there you have it! This creation was my hobby for a few months after i had moved in as I had been slowly acquiring all the parts and testing out and building pieces to get everything just the way I like it. I hope you enjoyed my walkthrough and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about anything I put up here.

Full-resolution images can be easily found here:
http://people.msoe.edu/~oldroydn/HomeTheater/
 
Last edited:
Wow, that was quite a cool read/look :). I have a few questions I'll ask once I'm not falling asleep at my keyboard.... :D!
 
I have screen envy. I should built a bigger screen now that I don't have to worry about having it hang across windows or anything. I used those exact side tables as speaker stands in my last apartment too.
 
Nice $20 WalMart end-tables for front speaker stands. I use the $20 shelf in the same style for an AV rack. :D
 
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