Return to the Home Theatre page.
Some early construction photos...
The screen is held in place with four 4" square columns made out of MDF. These are supported at the floor and ceiling with wooden brackets as seen in the photos below. In the photos with the columns installed, you can see the original color scheme. It actually didn't look as bad in life as it does in photos but... well I think you can see why I changed it. A much deeper red and a much deeper blue with a flat black ceiling may have worked but I still prefer the new color scheme. These photos include the original center speaker which was based on Linear-Phase Symmetric pairs as described by Ulrich Horbach and D.B. (Don)Keele Jr. l Part 1 and Part 2 This is also a constant directive speaker.
The lobby...
The new color scheme uses a flat gray above the chair rails and a deep blue below. I wantd something dark that would not reflect too much light but at the same time not turn the room into a cave. The textured gray paint doesn't create any reflection problems for the screen and it also allows the room to be adequately illuminated when the main lights are on.
The diffraction panels are more cosmetic than anything. They're not exactly ideally located for proper room treatment but I needed to cover up the electrical boxes where the original lights had been mounted on the side wall. I also wanted to have some sort of lighting on the side walls so mounting these slightly off the wall with red LED’s behind them seemed like it would be a good solution. The panels are mounted with magnets so they can be easily removed in the event of an LED string or power supply failure. Dowels on the panels fit into rings on the walls with the magnets holding them together. The magnets came from K&J Magnetics - Strong Neodymium Magnets
The JVC HD1 projector and Prismasonic anamorphic lens is ceiling mounted above the 2nd seating row. I have considered relocating it to the control room at the back of the theatre but that will likely not be done until the projector is upgraded... if then.
The CBT center was originally sitting on stands but now sits on supports mounted to the vertical columns that support the screen. The circular arc makes for difficult cosmetics so at some point in the future this center speaker will be replaced with a DSP curved CBT. The array itself will be physically straight or possibly curved slightly in reverse to match the screen and the necessary delays to create the CBT arc will be done with DSP.