Random Ranting (150) · Gadgets & Tech (15) · Anime & Otaku (11) · Watches & Horology (43) · Movies & TV (6) · Photography (3)


Ads

Latest Posts Recent Comments Comrades


My blog is worth $4,516.32.
How much is your blog worth?


Designing the Home Theatre, 2006

Introduction

I initially began working on this project in 2005, but it was all sparked off by my Mom sometime during summer ‘05. One morning she woke me up saying there was a sale for some large screen TVs (and to her a TV is a TV) but once we got to the showroom, there it was – the 42” Plasma by LG. It had everything you’d really want – DVI, 2x component, 2x composite and RGB inputs. It did sport a large price tag at the time, $5000 but the best part was, if we got it the same day, we’d get $1000 off ;)

The same money today will get you something in the 50″+ range with 1080p and tons of HDMI/HDCP interfaces - still this Plasma has served me well ever since.

After snagging this, I left for my final year at University and after getting settled in I started planning my Home Theatre (henceforth, “HT”) during my spare time and after reading many reviews I had my heart set on the Denon AVR-3805. The fantastic review from Audioholics also helped me make up my mind when selecting this.

I drew up a preliminary list of what I wanted,

Please note that all power ratings are RMS values, not instantaneous.

…but at the same time I was drooling over the DM604 S3s – they were gorgeous sporting a 3-way vented design with two aluminum bass drivers. So I decided to take this system one step further – future expansion compliant!

To the list I added,

There was a reason why I chose these separate power amplifiers. To start off, the 3805 is only capable of 120W per output and the centre speaker is rated at 150W - so therefore I went with the RB1070 which would allow me to truly bi-amp the centre speaker (ie. a dedicated mono-block for the HF and LF) boasting 260W if needed.

Choosing the RB1080 was a no-brainer - it would allow my to directly swap in a set of DM604 S3s in the future whenever I feel like it.

I end up spending the better part of the next year purchasing and bringing these back home with me, and now after graduating I had my Home Theatre complete but I had a lot more issues to address.

Cabling

This was a tricky area, and I believe I spent close to 1/6th of the budget (when I say budget, of the total damage in the end hehe) on cabling alone. My take on this was, why buy cutting edge equipment, spend a lot on shipping, UPSes etc and invest in cheap cables?

Therefore, I picked up all the cabling from QED but I wanted my front speakers bi-wired and happened across a deal for 2x 3m of Nordost Solar Winds for £200. These cables tend to go for £100/m retail, and the set I got are in brilliant nick so I ended up trading an iPod for ‘em as the second hand value is ~£200.

The Room

For the moment, this was being setup in what used to be my childhood bed room. Furnishing was the first task at hand, so I ended up purchasing a custom designed Mahogany cabinet to store DVDs from Mahogany Masterpieces. I also picked up a Teak sofa and Teak console table from Raux Brothers, and later on another two Mahogany cupboards to store our books. This was finally finished off with a Teak coffee table and some thick curtains from Barefoot.

Power, Glorious Power!

Sri Lanka is well known for our shoddy mains power. It maybe 240vrms (~340pk-pk) but it’s the ‘worst’ quality of power ever, not to mention the ‘anytime’ power cuts. I checked out the possibility of designing my own 1:1 isolation transformers and was shocked at the cost of the torroids alone. Each torroid costs as much as a commercial grade UPS with 3 years warranty.

These were picked up as follows,

The loop for my room was on a 5A breaker, which was upgraded to a 16A breaker, and I also installed 5 spot lights, with three lighting up the wall above the Plasma and two lighting up the rear of the room. These were wired to Vortex iR-learning dimmer switches, which allows me to control the lights from the 3850 remote ^^

DVD-3910

Another glowing review of this unit from Audioholics helped me make my mind up. Not only does this allow me to enjoy SACDs over Denon Link (3rd Ed) but it decodes DVDs with such finesse, that you really got to see them to believe.

This unit normally retails with the older version of DLink but after flashing it as Region Free it was also upgraded to the 3rd edition.

Apple Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7Ghz

I purchased this computer with a lot in mind, and one was to hook it up to the Plasma over DVI. For this purpose I picked up a high quality QED cable (7m) and a DVI<->ADC adaptor, which allows me to have the Plasma appear as the second display of the G5, giving me a desktop resolution of 1920×1080 (Plasma) + 1920×1200 (Apple Cinema HD Display 23-inch widescreen).

As for feeding audio from the G5, I installed a M-Audio Revolutions 7.1 sound card which features a coaxial connector, and this is linked to the receiver over a 10m coaxial cable.

Final Integration

Another Riello 1KVA UPS powers my G5 and all the electronics close to the sofa including the ADSL modem/router and an Apple Airport Express, that provides WiFi across the house, as boosted by other units as needed.

Images

The complete project log is located here.

In November 2006 I purchased a pair of DM604 S3s,

Related Posts & Articles

4 Comments »

  1. Firestarta said,

    November 19, 2006 @ 0:50

    Very nice :P

  2. Blog posts relating to solar power unit | said,

    January 7, 2007 @ 2:03

    [...] bsodmike.com » Designing the Home Theatre, 2006helped me make up my mind when selecting this. Please note that all power ratings are RMS values… further ? future expansion compliant! There was a reason why I chose these separate power… of Nordost Solar Winds for ??200. These cables tend to go for ??100/m retail, and the set I got… and some thick curtains from Barefoot. Sri Lanka is well known for our shoddy mains power. It maybe 240vrms (~340pk-pk) but it s the quality of power ever, not to mention the power cuts. I checked out [...]

  3. Val said,

    February 8, 2007 @ 19:15

    can i come live with u michael… and sip martinis and watch movies everyday :)

  4. bsodmike.com » Display Cabinet and Collection Update… said,

    September 7, 2007 @ 23:38

    [...] This is another cabinet I have in my Home Theater, and here is another box that holds 4 watches and 12 pairs of cuff-links etc., [...]

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment


Google Search


RSS/Meta

RSS 2.0
Atom
Admin

Articles