Education Home Cinema Renovation - Project Log

Anything new?

 

There has been for a bit actually, but the forum album software was duffed so wasn't able to upload the pics.

It appears things are working again now though.

The LED lighting around the ceiling is mostly sorted out now. I say mostly as the quality of the strips are pretty horrific, and every time you touch them another group seems to form a fault. I'm very much not impressed with the vendor, but live and learn. There's one more group that I've noticed an issue with so need to chop that out and replace with some fresh ones, and hopefully that's the end of it.

Fortunately the through the vendor's horrific administrative abilities I ended up getting way too much strip when they replaced the first faulty one, which I'm using the extra to sort out the problems. I only just got the refund for the faulty PSUs last week, so I consider it interest on that £50-odd

I've put some boards up around the edge of the uppermost bit of the tray, as part of it is ever so slightly visible if you're A) looking for it B) across the other side of the room and C) pretty tall, and looking for it. The strip is then just on some cheap PVC angle bracket that's been stapled up there.



The electronics for the power and control are on the other side of the wall in the AV cupboard. Once the wall is finished off there will be an access hatch to get to these things, and I'll also be powering the Hue strip around the telly off this PSU to make things generally tidier.



My biggest concern was that the ceiling would be, as most ceilings are, of a relatively poor finish and the strip would just highlight this. Turns out I was bang on. You can kind of see some of the imperfections in the photo below, but from some angles - notable from a standing position when you enter the room - it's just terrible.



Fortunately I wasn't too disappointed by this as I more-than-half expected this to be an issue, so already had plans to address it. I'll be getting some flat coving and running it on the ceiling a couple of cm out from the edge of the cornice - instead of the entire ceiling being flooded with light, this will leave a tron-esque strip of light around the edge, which turns out to be a good things since even on minimum brightness the strips are a fair bit brighter than I thought they would be.

 

Tensile membrane?

 

The alcove for the TV looks really, really nice. Super impressed.

 

I recalled your suggestion and I did have give a couple of days consideration for either figuring that out or refinishing the ceiling, but priority number one at this point, ten months in to the job and within spitting distance of the end, is having an easy life, and neither of those are compatible with that.

So tron-strip it is!

Cheers, I obsessed over that quite a bit. Knowing that the backlight would highlight any little imperfection, I made sure there weren't any. (Sadly the builders did not do the same for the ceiling)

The front wall and alcove are all lined, but for the edge instead of wrapping it around, I trimmed it off and used a razor blade to chamfer the paper and subsequently tidy up any imperfection in the paint.

I'm super pleased with the result, even an extreme closeup highlights absolutely nothing but a pristine edge

 

Despite the problems youve pointed out it looks sweet

 

I love it

 

I'm liking the colour in the room! You've done a very good job mate, well executed!

 

Hi. Silently lurking in this great log.

Maybe my brain is tired but what am I looking at?

 

That's the edge of the recess for the TV. The black bit on the right is the TV, and then you've got the wall coming out towards the camera. It's showing the nice, sharp finish.

 

Sooooooo, it's been a while - the second half of last year just kind of disappeared on account of my work getting fairly busy particularly with travel and my Mrs on the home straight of finishing her PhD - both of these things meant my DIY time was otherwise occupied.

Pair that with the fact that the room was functional, if not finished, and out of the way and easy to ignore, and basically nothing has happened for nearly 12 months - until now.

I've missed a fair few action shots along the way, however all of the coving is now up and finished barring filling and painting a few nail holes and joins.



The issue of the tray lighting bringing some fairly shoddy plasterwork on the ceiling front and centre was resolved by a "light dam" just inside the edge of the main vertical coving. The vertical coving was easier to install than I was dreading (probably part of the reason it took so long) despite being at the very very limit of what my mitre saw was able to accommodate - I actually had to tape up the blade guard to cut it, and be extremely careful!

I'm pleased with the mitres, most of them are pretty bang on, with only minor gaps on a couple. Fortunately since they're all internal mitres, hiding the gaps is trivial. The cost of the coving made me light-headed at the time, however it was well worth the expense over cheaper styrofoam or plaster coving as it's very light and easy to cut, install and finish.

I picked up some new fronts a couple weeks ago as well, which are now living in their new home...



I've been after these or the 9NTs for quite a while, as I found I preferred them to all but the CM10s in the latest B&W midrange lineup (and wasn't about to spend on the CM10s for a purely AV setup. The main problem was that availability of the 7/9NTs in black is pretty sparse, and availability of ones with unmolested tweeters is slim to none. I took a punt of a pair on ebay without pics based on the seller claiming they're in good nick, turns out they're absolutely immaculate, so very pleased with the purchase.

Next steps - finishing touches on the coving and then everything above waist height is finished. The small cupboard at the rear of the rooms still needs boxing out and I need to re-solder the sub signal connection - intermittent signal so I think there's a dry joint. The inside of the AV cupboard still needs finishing out as well.

I've set aside a day to work on it on Friday, so hopefully another update at the end of the week

 

That looks sweet!

Moar pics! (when you get the chance)

 

Have to say that looks gorgeous! You're making me want to swap out some of my gear here... must not spend money! Those speakers are droolworthy.

 

When we have a BT movie night?

 

Soooon....

I didn't get quite as much done as I initially planned today... mostly because the Witcher... but have a wild Friday night in planned so hope to get a bit more of the filling around the coving done.

This, however, probably goes some way to explain why LFE was intermittent:



The conductor had broken entirely, and was sometimes making contact, sometimes not. The collar was a little bit loose, so removing and re-inserting clearly twisted it back and forth until it just gave up.

I've made sure it's nice and secure now, though the sub isn't likely to be unplugged any time soon, snipped and re-soldered, and I once again have sub-bass


In other news, I made the switch from Android to iPhone since I installed the Hue lights and at the time just picked the first app from the store that worked (Paletts for Hue), but wasn't entirely happy with it.

I spent a bit of time last night snooping around and have discovered Huemote, which it utterly fantastic and wholeheartedly recommended for anyone using both Hue and iOS - easiest thing in the world to control individual bulbs, groups or scenes, and have set a few up so far.



Why cant the stock Hue app be even half this decent?

 

Did you change the picture location since 2015? Upto 2015 I see the pictures in your posts, in the new, 2016 posts they're gone?

 

As in, you can't see the pics in my last post? They're loading up fine for me, and in the same location as previously - can anyone else confirm?

 

Pics are fine. In your last post I see two; one of a audio connector sheared through and one of a mobile lighting app.

 

As in, I can't see any pictures from 2016, but a few posts above 2015 is fine...srange, must be something on my side.

 

When looking for this thread for some other info (on lightstrips), realised I just kind of stopped updating it three years ago, well before work completed.

So... since then, I did some more stuff, and now this...





Everything planned in the thread has been completed, but there's been some updates since then...

The front wall has been clad in an acoustic felt - the mixed-material front wall (half block/dot/dab, half stud) has resulted over time in a prominent crack between the two methods of construction. I did additional taping and plastering over this but it was only really a patch, and showed through after another year or so. The felt cladding is not only really nice looking, but hides all sins with the construction underneath. The felt also cuts an edge off the reverb, along with a rug that is now on the floor on the first reflection point of the centre (that's made a huge difference for the better)

Atmos speakers have been added into the tray section of the ceiling. This was always an intention when this started years ago when Atmos was one of those "hey, that might be cool one day" things, so the space was already there for it. 6x B&W CCM663 speakers are now overhead. This was part of a pretty big kit update last summer.

Speaking of which, general kit update last summer leaves the loadout as...

Display: Sony 75" XE94 LCD. I originally planned for a 77" OLED, but on viewing the C8, the motion handlind and "pop" of this display in the shop won me over. And it was handily half the price of the 77C8.

AVR: Denon X8500. Initially upgraded to a NAD T777 however had persistent issues with HDMI handshake - nice unit when it worked, but it didn't work enough of the time to put up with it. This prompted me to upgrade to the Denon which betters it in every way.

Fronts: B&W CDM 7NT
Centre: B&W CDM CNT
Rear: B&W CDM 1NT - the front and centre are as they have been for a while, finally upgraded the rears from 601s to match. Arguably overkill, but matching is nice.
Height: 6x B&W CCM-663. Again probably (definitely) overkill for height effects, but I wanted to match the construction of the rest of the speakers.
Bass: Upgrade from the monolith to a SVS SB-13 Ultra. The monolith was great, but this is an order of magnitude better.
Power: I've added an NHT Power2 amp for the fronts, this was a bit of an punt, and in spite of the x8500s clout, made a significant improvement overall.

Sources: Panasonid UB820 4K Disc, Apple TV (used for netflix, itunes, amazon), Shield TV (Plex) and PS4 Pro/VR (gaming only), Bluesound Node2 (Tidal via Roon)

Control: Upgraded from Harmony ultimate to Harmony Elite, for the home control buttons on the remote which are really handy.

Decor:
I had this sort of thing in mind when I started the project, but never quite found what I wanted until fairly recently...



Blurred out in the previous photo on account of that being one on my rightmove listing, as they have appreciated significantly since Stan Lee's passing. Yes after all this work I'm selling the house and starting over