February 8, 2005
Every Inch Matters
This theater thing is turning into so many details. Last night, I spent an hour understand which speaker wire I could buy and which I should buy. You must have specially rated wire for in-wall installations. I ended up with some THX-certified 14 AWG Monster Cable. Should be much better than the stuff I about got at The Home Depot.
On to today's business, the screen. The issue is the size of the screen. My objective has been to fill the wall. I wanted the biggest Mario/Halo/NASCAR/etc. experience that I could get. I have had my sight's set on a 119" 16:9 screen from the beginning. Well, today they snapped out all the lines in the basement and I am tight. Here is the 119" drawn in. There are a few inches to play with her and there but it is tight. The boxes on the left, right and below are the in-wall speakers. This is to scale (as close as I can get).
On size down is the 106" screen. More space but you start losing the height cause of the HDTV aspect ratio.
So which screen? Do I attempt the 119"? It is pretty close but I think it would be right in there. Or just go with the safer 106"? The pro of the smaller is that you only lose roughly 6 inches on each side. Kim thinks that is a good deal because it will be a little less enormous when you sit in front of it.
Another option is to go with a screen that allows you to put the speakers right behind the screen -- sort of like IMAX. Then you don't see them at all but the sounds travels through at some 95+% of normal. The screen costs a bit more but it might be nicer looking. I am not sure if that is the way to go or not.
Suggestions? My wife is sick of talking to me about this. "Honey, should I get 16, 14 or 12 AWG wire?" She said something back to me that wasn't very nice.
Tonight I have to research receivers some more and then work on IR repeaters. Joy! On receivers, I am down to 3 brands: Yamaha, Denon, Harmon-Kardon. All are 7.1. All 3 of these have 3 component video inputs which is key for me. Been leaning towards Denon but starting to think Yamaha. This Yamaha line here is one from a specialty store. They carry a better line than places like Best Buy does.
Experts! Help! :)
