Building a Home Theater Room

The more dedicated circuits/lines you incorporate, the better potential sonic and video benefits you'll get.

But the greatest benefit of dedicated circuits/lines is still for the 2-channel equipment as previously stated above.

-IMO

Thanks for the input, one more question about the dedicated circuit/lines. Given my HT room will have 4 walls, I plan to put all my electronics except my DLP projector at the front of the room. If I add 2 more circuits up front and one in the ceiling for my projector, would this cover me for a 7 channel system?

QZ, you would be amazed at the sonic improvements when having one dedicated line per component does. The amplifier should have it's own 20 amp dedicated line, while the cd player and preamp should have their own 15 amp circuits/lines.

The cd player needs it's own line because of the digital noise it injects back into the wall. If your preamp and/or amp share the same circuit/lines, then they will be infected with this digital noise and your sonics simply will not have quite the pristine sound they may be capable of.

The amplifier needs it own circuit/line to provide enough dedicated power for those dynamic passages. Especially if you have a high-current drawing amplifier. Sharing this circuit with even a 36 watt consuming pre-amp may be just enough to flatten the macro-dynamics enough to strip away the life of the presentation.

Everything else can share lines, but to maximize your minimums, these three components should have their own circuits/lines.

And since you are building from scratch, it should cost you about $100 bucks to do so.

-IMO

I have only 1 small window in this bonus room. This window will have shutters. In addition, I plan to put a entertainment center in front of the window. This will eliminate all possible light into the room. Making the room smaller on the sides should not be a problem, I have knee walls that are 5 ft high which should eliminate the parrell wall issues. Forgive me on the extra dedicated circuit lines, but why do you need more than two. If you dedicate one for video and one for audio, would this be enough? Finally, I have the every room in the house with structured wire (CAT 5). In the bonus room, I have multiple TV cable and phone lines for my TiVo.

Also, should I do anything to the floor?

I don't think I can add anything more, but sound proof as best as you can (afford) from the house. I would highly recommend running CAT 5 in this room before the dry wall goes up. That would provide a lot of expandability in terms of home automation. You can tweak with sound panels once the room is finished and you can get your gear set up.

I am also building a HT/LR . I am looking into soundproofing the room with special doors, there is even special sheet rock to sound proof the room(quietsolution.com). My room has to look like a living room but still have the best sonic properties. Sound proofing will expand the use of the HT / stereo sessions in the early AM and late night!

You might entertain the following:

o Add 3 more dedicated 15 amp circuits/lines. You can never have enough.

o Keep windows on sides and back walls to absolute minimum.

o Install wood beams across the ceiling that are parallel to the speaker fronts. Perhaps even going from the ceiling to the floor in those same locations.

o Ensure that the side-walls are none-parallel to each other. In other words, the highest parts of the sides walls could be 3 or 4 inches closer to the center of the room than the lowest parts of the sidewall.

o Making the room a little more rectangular than it's current proposed demensions. Perhaps a 15 x 20 room would work a bit better.

-IMO