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Very BIG Room? Music and Home Theatre Challenge

Could anyone please comment on issues that come to mind when setting up audio and home theatre in a big, barn like room?

I have been asked by a friend for some advice on a soon to be renovated "great room" which will be converted from a barn that was attached to their house.

Therefore, the new room will connect with the kitchen and extend to approximately 25' wide by 60' long with 14-15 foot ceilings.

The walls are made of stone and the floor is hardwood.

At the far end of the room, there will be a new chimney and fireplace installed, and the only brief I have so far is that will do lots of entertaining in this room, have a bar, and approximately 3 different seating areas within the room, and would consider a large projection or display device over the new fireplace.

The room is naturally pretty dark, which I hope will help with the video aspect.

As a Magneplanar fan, I would like to recommend 3.6s and all the Maggie surround sound speakers, but I need to learn more about their tastes and preferences.

I do know my friend loves to watch football and tennis, so I am also thinking HDTV in a big screen format.

But any ideas for such a project would be greatly appreciated.
cwlondon
hifi111
35 posts
 
Movie Theatres sound like crap period...............I had to put my boots on to read some of these posts. LOL
audiooracle
387 posts
 

A couple of bits of information to help you. I am an industry professional with over tweenty years of experience.

1: Planners can not work in a room of this size unless they are gigantic and really expenisve.

2: You must control slap echo and other room anomolies but using acoustical control devices, RGP, Echo Buster, Skylines, Carpeting, underlaying ASC tube traps, etc.

3: The other possiblity is to make the room smaller and more acoustically managable by building a partion wall.

4: You can throw money at the problem and use speakers capable of filling up a large room and which generate prodigous bass response. Check out Escalante Designs Freemont: 93 db sensitive, handles 1,000 watts, bass down to 18hz these are marvelous speakers built by the famous designer Terry Budge, who was the man behind Wilson's most famous designs. These speakers are $15,000.00 but will easily compete with speakers costs much, much more!
cdwallace
216 posts
 
IMO, depending on the budget, I suggest two companies. Meridian 568.2 or 861 and Blue Sky Sky System One or Big Blues. Its a combo that will truely shock you.
mitch4t's avatar
mitch4t
1,609 posts
 
Find a pair of Infinity Kappa 9 speakers as your front mains. They will give you enough bass to fill that room. They can be had for about $1500 per pair. Better yet, if you can find two pair of them to run front and rear, you'll be in for a real treat. Each speaker has two 12 inch woofers that emit serious bass if your amps have the muscle to drive them. They are also excellent speakers for two channel music if you feed a good amp and preamp to them. They are very dynamic.

I have a room your size with 20 foot ceilings.... the Kappas will serve you well. They are also very beautiful speakers.
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