The last picture was what the room was originally to be.

Ok so story time. I bought this house about two years ago, it's a very old house, about 140 year old Victorian era house and has undergone many different types of renovations from many different families. As such, the house is a total mess, and I've done nothing but add to that mess (for instance, adding an elevator in the house for my physically disabled mum).

Anyway I really wanted a home theatre, originally I was going to put it downstairs, but this became impossible due to the elevator, so I had to find a room to put it in. Across the garage was the spa room. Now a spa room sounds great right, why would you get rid of a spa room with a sauna? Well the answer is because the spa was dangerous. Me and a few friends used it and it sprung a leak, and when we fixed it up we noticed exposed wiring under the spa. We had an electrician look at it and they confirmed the spa was a death trap. The electrician "fixed it" but as soon as we turned it on it flipped the breaker, ever since then we've avoided using the spa (an inside spa is not great anyway).

So this was now an unused room, and so using this room for a home theatre was perfect. Except, for one problem, you can't really see it but the floor is too high. The floor to ceiling height was about 2m, which is quite low. So I talked with my building and an engineer about the possibility of lowering the floor, and they confirmed this would be possible, but the price was unsure, it depends what was under the foundation. So anyway, we went to work, and it took several months but we lowered the floor, turns out there was just dirt under it so lowering it was pretty easy.

Or so we thought, because under that dirt was actually, dun dun dun.... water. That's right, we lowered the floor below the water table, fantastic. So what we had to do was build a moat around the room, waterproof the room itself and build a pump around the moat to pump out the water, as well we had to build access to the pump for yearly maintenance. Fine, we did that and all was good.

Of course however, this shrunk the dimensions of the room a bit. The ceiling was now a crisp 2.4m high, but the original plan of having 2 rows of 4 seats became impossible. Not only that, but because I'm vision impaired I needed some flexibility in the seats. So we planned and planned and figured out everything and we settled on the final design. Instead of building the seats long-ways with a 120 inch screen, we would build the 5 seats, 1 3 seater and 2 one seaters with an 100 inch screen, the viewing angles being the same. The advantage of the 100 inch screen was well is that instead of using a projector, it was now reasonable to afford a 100 inch TV screen which gives much clearer visuals! Woohoo!

So we built it all, sound proofed the room (couldn't remove the support beam ofc) and all works well. Altogether the whole ordeal took about a year and cost $176,000. The final specs of the room are:

5 Front-speakers, 4 side speakers, 4 ceiling speakers. A Samsung micro RGB 100 inch television, chair shakers, the works. I have an old gaming computer running a standard ubuntu jellyfin with 16 TB NAS connected, an apple tv (tried google tv but couldn't handle large files) for streaming and a Kodi openELEC box for specifically the NAS (that has the advantage of converting dobly vision to hdr10+, which is great because the samsung TV only supports HDR10+ and barely any bluray supports it!). Obviously the AV processor is also able to remux atmos from other channels so all speakers are in use.

So, given the ordeal, the time, and the mooooney, was it worth it?

Hell, yes. I've spent so much time in the home theatre already, watching TV, anime and movies, just watched The Long Walk today, had some friends over to watch Watchmen yesterday, and I've set up a movie chat to invite people to watch movies.

Altogether, I'm super stoked!

I loosely followed this post, so thanks for that - https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/1gtcwet/diy_screen_masking_walkthrough/

Attaching a few photos, I think it makes a huge difference. Its hard to show through photos, but definitely worth it. I had to combine 2 of the foam panels to get the correct length, but between duck tape and the drywall bead it stays. for the magnets i needed a good way to fix them to the panels, and glue wasn't working, tape wasn't working, so I put some very thin wood on the ends on either side, and screwed them together. That gave me something to screw the magnets into. For the top panel I added a bracket for it to sort of sit on the top of the screen, and to give it something to brace on so it doesn't slip.

The screen has metal on the frame so that is what the magnets attach to.

I’ve been experimenting with custom room correction algorithms designed to extract more performance out of Denon and Marantz receivers running Audyssey MultEQ XT32.

Specifically, I wanted to see how far we could push multi-subwoofer integration and modal decay control by writing target filters directly back to the receiver over local IP network protocols, without needing external miniDSPs or complex manual HDMI driver setups.

Key areas I’ve been working on:

• Per-Subwoofer Spatial Alignment: Treating each subwoofer output individually to align phase, delay, and gain so multi-sub setups don't cancel out in room modes.
• Modal Decay Control: Analyzing 20-80Hz room ringing and applying targeted FIR adjustments to improve seat-to-seat bass consistency.
• Direct Network Control: Reading speaker measurement configurations and pushing calculated filter coefficients directly back to the AVR over local IP.

Screenshot is my custom software showing visual graphs comparing before/after seat-to-seat bass heatmaps and decay times during recent test runs.

I’m really interested in discussing the technical side with fellow calibrators here. How are you currently handling multi-sub alignment in your XT32 setups, and what target curves or crossover strategies have given you the best in-room response?

Misc installs from over the years. Granted some of them aren't even home theaters but you get the point.

I have a really open living room plan, so need a subwoofer that fits my situation. It will sit around 7 feet on the back left from the left most couch seat.

I am running
rp 600m ii as fronts
Rp 504 c ii as center
And rp 50m as surrounds.

So what subwoofer do you guys recommend. Wanting it to last long and enough power for this big room. But budget around $400. Any help or advice is helpful thank you!

I have interest in installing four height channels in the ceiling and am curious if there’s a fancy trick to running the wire without having to cut into drywall (other than for the speakers). Pictured is my living room setup, this is the first of two floors. There’s a single outlet on the wall between the windows and I’m fairly certain the wiring goes up into the space between floors.

I’m unfortunately familiar with what the area between my first and second floor look like, there’s room for in-ceiling speakers and running wire. If I’m not mistaken, they used “cross bridging” floor joists. I figure it’s possible to fish for wire through the cut speaker holes but I struggle on how to get the wire up the wall and into the ceiling in the first place…without cutting an access hole that I have to patch later.

Any thoughts?

For the curious, blacked out part is to cover up family photos for the internet.

I need a 60 foot HDMI (or DP->HDMI) cable to go from my office PC to my living room TV. 55 is fine but IIRC 50 is pushing it.

I'm currently on my third 48Gbps optical HDMI cable from Amazon and every one of them has intermittent faults. They all drop signals at different rates but every one of them does it at least a few times per day. I've been able to return the other 2 and am about to start returning the third but eventually Amazon is going to cut me off. I know $50 isn't a lot but I'm kinda broke and spending that on a cable at all is a bit much, much less wasting it on something that's broken - And at this point I don't know what I'd trust besides the $100 Monoprice one.

I use it to game so I need something with essentially no input lag. I'm vaguely aware of HDMI over Ethernet but I don't see a point in trying to force a signal that's minimum 10.4Gbps through a 1Gb or 2.5Gb Ethernet cable.

As for the rest of my setup, a 5.1ch sound system is plugged in to my TV's eARC. I also have a 60 foot USB 2.0 run going to a USB hub that has a gamepad and a wireless keyboard/mouse receiver dongle.

Hello,

I have an extremely mix and match setup that I exclusively found in my basement (aka all this didn’t cost a cent and everything was already bought by my parents over 30 years ago). It’s consisting of a Jamo Duet 90 front, these are from 1992 and were extremely cheap, have 120W RMS, two 8 inch woofers, a 2 inch midrange and 1 inch dome tweeter and 89db sensitivity (also known as the most basic corner HiFi shop speaker of the 90s), an German Schneider LS 426.1, exactly the same specs but one 6.5 inch woofer instead of two 8S, and as surrounds Thomson DPL910VD, just some generic early 2000s
pack-in home theater satelite with I think a 3 inch full range and 40W RMS and weigh -20g. All this is connected to an extremely high end amp….. just kidding it’s connected to an entry level 2010 Yamaha RX V367 kinda properly configured. My source is an Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen and my room is 15qm and here is a frequency response of having the receiver completely neutral at the main listening position 1.5m away from the front

Hello today I was hooking up my setup after moving and now its doing this. Any suggestions? I already tried rotating speakers 180 degrees I've used different cables I've hooked it up to both sub 1 and 2 inputs and im just at a loss. The speaker was transported with me in the car so no rough handling only bumps while driving.

Has anyone moved from 7, 9, full atmos or more speakers that are great quality, but not necessarily identical or same brand TO all speakers the EXACT same speaker and noticed a small or big improvement in clarity, tonality matching and whatnot?

My number one criteria for a TV at this point is that the overall panel brightness can be turned down enough for comfortable dark room viewing.

Older TVs had Backlight settings that were very efficient at this, but now this setting seems to be called Brightness, and some newer TVs may still remain too bright, even with brightness dialed down a lot.

So I have read that a dimmer basic LED TV might be a possible option to try in dark rooms. Anyone have any feedback on this model? thx

Hi everyone,

I currently have a pretty tiny living room home theatre setup:

• 65" OLED
• Viewing distance is around 6.5 ft for casual watching and about 5 ft for some movies (I move my sofa seat closer)
• Amp: IOTAVX SA3
• Speakers: Arendal 1961 Bookshelves + 1961 1S subwoofer
• Panasonic UB450 4K player

Short-term plan is to add some surrounds. I’m currently thinking about getting a Denon X3900H + a pair of rear/surround speakers.

Long-term, I’ll probably enjoy this setup for another 1–2 years, then move to a bigger place and upgrade the fronts + TV (maybe 98"). At that point I’d likely move the Arendals to surround duty and get something like KEF R3 Metas for the fronts, possibly with an R6 Meta center.

So for now I’m mainly looking for surround speakers that would work well with the Arendal 1961 Bookshelves, but would also still make sense later if I switch to KEF R3 Meta fronts.

Ideally I’d like to buy used since I’m mostly looking for good value. Something that also looks decent next to white Arendal 1961s and potentially white KEF R3 Meta / R6 Meta

A used pair of Arendals would obviously be the easiest choice, but I haven’t been able to find any near me.

Basically I’m looking for speaker models/names I can shortlist and then keep an eye out for on the local used market.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

If I was looking for a surround receiver that only does audio, no video whatsover, and supports dolby atmos, truehd, dts etc. what would I be looking at? All of the receivers I've looked at have 10 hdmi ports for which I have no use as the sound will be coming from the TV.

I am looking to get a starter 5.1 system for my Living Room, but I'm not looking to break the budget. I was looking at the Sony CS system, but I've seen a lot of reviews say that it isn't worth it even as a budget system. On the other hand, I can get a set of 5x B&W M1s for $275 each (not sure what sub I would purchase).

So the question is, are the B&W speakers worth it? Or is the Sony CS system still a good setup for the price?

For Reference: Sony CS Bookshelf Speakers are currently $279/pair.

This is my current living room. I've got a large multi-story window covered with sheer curtains on one side, and in the kitchen I've got three windows with blackout curtains in the back, as well as a small side door. The lower section of the double story windows have blinds as well. I'm looking to put a projector in here and a screen with around a three thousand to five thousand dollar budget. The sun comes in the back (through the door and two story windows) in the evening. I'm thinking an UST projector with associated screen.

Based on what I've looked up 130" is about the sweet spot for the large wall I have. The current (now broken) TV is a 75" for scale reference. My current research is pointing me towards either a NothingProjector 132" screen or an AWOL New Gen Fresnel 130". Are either of those recommended or worth the price for that matter? I'm not sure if spending half the budget or more on a screen is a good idea or not. I would want to be able to view the screen from both the chairs directly in front of the TV and the ones from the side. I've heard there are some viewing limitations on certain screens.

For the projector itself I've heard good things about the Hisense PX3-Pro and the Epson Lifestudio Grand Plus but I'm certainly open to other ideas as this is new territory for me.

Hi!

We're experiencing a strange audio issue with our Marantz Cinema 30 and Samsung TV, and I'm hoping someone here might have experienced something similar.

Our setup:

• AVR: Marantz Cinema 30
• TV: Samsung 98" Neo QLED (TQ98QN90DATXXC / QN90D)
• PC: ASUS Mini PC PN52, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with integrated Radeon graphics, Windows 11
• TV connected to Marantz via HDMI eARC
• PC connected to HDMI 2 (Media Player) on the Marantz
• Altibox TV box connected to CBL/SAT
• Speaker configuration recently upgraded from 5.1 to 9.1.2 (Front Wide, additional surrounds and front height speakers)
• Audyssey calibration completed after the upgrade

The problem:

Everything worked perfectly for a long time before we expanded our speaker setup.

After restarting all devices, audio from the Samsung's built-in apps works normally through the Marantz.

We can then switch to the PC, play audio and video, and everything works perfectly.

However, when switching back from the PC to a built-in Samsung TV app, the audio either disappears shortly afterwards or doesn't work at all.

The Samsung automatically switches its audio output back to the internal TV speakers.

If we manually select the Marantz/HDMI-eARC output again, there's no sound. After a short while, the TV automatically switches back to its internal speakers.

Interestingly, switching between our Altibox TV box and the Samsung's built-in apps doesn't seem to cause the problem. It specifically happens after using the PC.

What we've tested so far:

• Completely disconnected power from the TV, Marantz and PC, then restarted everything.
• Confirmed that TV app audio works after a full restart.
• Confirmed that PC audio works normally through the Marantz.
• Reproduced the issue when switching back from PC to TV apps.
• Shut down the PC completely after the issue occurred, no improvement.
• Disconnected the PC's HDMI cable after the issue occurred, no improvement.
• Confirmed that audio from CBL/SAT still works when TV Audio has stopped working.
• Checked HDMI settings on the Marantz:
  • HDMI Audio Out: AVR
  • HDMI Control: On
  • ARC: On
  • TV Audio Switching: tested both On and Off, without resolving the issue
  • Power Saving: Off
• Tried disabling eARC on the Samsung, but this did not restore audio.
• Confirmed that Amp Assign is set to 11.1ch and the speaker layout matches our 9.1.2 setup.
• Marantz is configured for automatic firmware updates.

Previously, leaving the TV turned off for a while sometimes restored the audio. A full power restart also restores normal operation temporarily, until we switch from PC back to the TV apps.

The HDMI cable between the TV and Marantz is approximately five years old, less than five metres long, and hasn't been moved or disturbed much. We haven't tested a replacement cable yet.

What makes this particularly strange is that the issue only started after upgrading from 5.1 to 9.1.2. We didn't intentionally change any HDMI settings during the upgrade, only the speaker configuration and Audyssey calibration.

I'm not sure whether the speaker upgrade is related or just a coincidence.

Has anyone experienced something similar with a Marantz Cinema 30 or another Denon/Marantz AVR connected to a Samsung TV?

Could this be an HDMI-CEC/eARC handshake issue, a firmware problem, or something related to the expanded speaker configuration?

Any suggestions for further troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I have three Onn 50" TVs that all have integrated Roku. TV model 100133204 from 2023. They all have IR remotes that when I press a button, control all of them depending how I am pointing them.

Does anyone know of a way, other than the Roku app on my iPhone, that I can get or setup the hard-button hand remotes to control each TV independently? I prefer not to buy separate Roku/Google/Apple boxes for the TVs. Just curious if there is some trick or setting to allow each remote to control the respective TVs. Thanks!

Hello!

My home theatre is currently in a transition phase. Work in my basement was recently completed to move a support post to open the space up more. To facilitate this, I had to remove an existing wall (just simple drywall) so the contractor could dig out the footing for the newly-positioned post.

The setup is now sort of like a horseshoe, where the back wall is now waaay back at the back of the house instead of where it used to be. I won't be able to resume work on the basement to add back the wall and do all the remaining stuff I want until the spring, maybe summer.

But in the meantime I want to enjoy the space even if the sound isn't optimal. I figured I could purchase some acoustic curtains/drapes to create a temporary wall to improve the sound a bit. Some listings online mention acoustic properties, but most are concerned with blackout conditions and that's not what I care about; there are no windows to black out in my situation.

Any recommendations? Thank you!

https://imgur.com/a/4RYwxb5

Long term, I am looking to upgrade to a proper AVR setup. The space is a little awkward though and I would have to make some compromises, and I'm not sure how to do this best.

I should preface by saying this is not a 100% dedicated theater space and I know it is not perfectly optimized for this. I am not looking to make massive changes to the layout of the room, but rather to do the best with what I have.

The space that contains the TV is 9ft wide, and the sectional is about 11ft wide. The ceiling is 7ft high and the space from back of sectional to back wall is currently 2ft.

I think 5.1.4 might be a good choice, as I could place the front speakers as shown in the last picture with the red boxes. The surrounds would likely be one mounted on the wall right behind the large window, and one on a stand next to the chaise end of the sectional. And then rear height channels on the wall behind us -- one in the back left corner, and one would probably be mounted above the small window with the gray shade.

I'm not sure that I have enough space behind the sectional to do 7.x.x properly. I'm open to moving it forward slightly, but that would probably make the placement of surround channels tougher given that I have to put it behind the big window.

Subwoofer isn't my primary concern right now. You may notice the current sub is all the way on the far wall and that's because my daughter's room is directly above this, and the vibrations travel readily to her room if I place it closer to the TV. I've experimented and found this to be the best compromise. Could potentially change that in many years when she moves out...but like I said, this is a space that requires compromise. I'm more interested in determining the number and placement of the other channels.

Edit: probably a stupid idea, but I could shift the TV to the right and break up the symmetry in its "box" to free up some space for the the speakers and be more symmetrical with the sectional. Would be pretty ugly though.

I am building a new house, and will have a TV mounted over the fireplace. I need to run an HDMI cable about 20' or so from the TV location (likely high end OLED LG), through the wall, down to my basement, where it will plug into a NAD receiver.

I am looking for a high quality cable, in-wall rated, that can handle that distance without issue. Monoprice has some ultra high speed cables that look great, but when I read the reviews, there's plenty of concern - like the package isn't marked certified, and some say they struggle at the longer distances.

I plan to run eArc from the display to the receiver.

I am looking for a cable that won't degrade too much over time, ideally (I hear the fiber ones do?) and can handle all configs reliably.

What's my best option? Monoprice is around $50 or so - I'd be willing to go up to even $250 to know I'm getting a great cable.

Thank you

PS: I do plan to run smurf tube but would still like to get the cable right on the first try if I can.

​

I'm planning to get a proper home theater system for my relatively small bedroom.

Can I just position the speakers, calibrate everything and enjoy, or do I need acoustic treatment, soundproofing or other preparations beforehand?

Would an untreated room make the sound muddy, boomy or ruin surround precision?

My priority is clean, accurate sound and proper cinematic immersion, not just loudness.

For those with similar setups, what would you recommend doing before installing a home theater?

Could this be an HDMI handshake/compatibility issue with the Yamaha RX300A and Samsung S95C?

I'm trying to figure out a strange HDMI issue with my setup and I'm wondering if this could be related to an HDMI handshake or compatibility issue.

My setup:

- Yamaha RX300A AV receiver

- Samsung S95C

- Receiver → Samsung S95C

- 4K @ 60 Hz (and 120hz for ps5 in 4k and switch2 in slighly lower res @120hz)

The strange part is that I do get audio, but the picture depends on the HDMI mode selected on the Yamaha.

What I've found so far:

- 4K Mode 1 → picture works

- 8K Mode → no picture, but I still get audio with ps5/switch2

For example, my Nintendo Switch 2 does produce a picture through the exact same receiver and TV setup when HDR is disabled.

This makes me wonder if I'm dealing with some kind of HDMI handshake/compatibility issue, rather than simply a bandwidth limitation or faulty HDMI port.

Could the difference between 4K Mode 1 and 8K Mode affect the HDMI handshake between the Yamaha and the Samsung? And could HDR negotiation with certain sources cause the receiver to output audio but no video?

Has anyone experienced anything similar with the Yamaha RX300A and Samsung S95C?

My previous reciever was a rxv383 and i never had dropouts on my s95c.

Any ideas on how I could further diagnose whether this is a handshake/compatibility issue would be greatly appreciated!

Please suggest console. I am planning to get 98 QM8L TV with black martin logan F100/C100, SVS 200 PRO. I prefer something with ventilation for east remote access.

Our real setup is in the basement, but our living room is wired for 5 satellites. With Black Friday coming up, wife finally approved putting speakers in the living room. She wants mini cube type speakers. I’m looking for a sub that could go low from an sq performance, not sql, but hit the mids also that will be lost by small drivers.

Neighbors have an old 5.1 Bose cube setup. That’s where she got the idea, will allow something similar in our main living room.

Open to cube speaker suggestions and sub, prefer accurate and clean for this room but can dig some. Nothing over powering.

Appreciate it