Designer:
Barleyman

Project Category:
Home Theater

Project Level:
Intermediate

Project Time:
8-20 Hours

Project Cost:
Under $100

Project Description:
Design, build, and install a small home Theatre room. With the emphasis on small. The room is only 11 X 11, and needs to be used for a quest room if needed. ie air mattress. Note the small homemade A/V rack.

Design Goals:
Simple low cost, but good sounding Home Theatre. But with minimal clutter.

Driver Selection:
Pyle PDMW6, 292- 202, 6 1/2 midrange / woofer

Dayton Audio, 275-045, 1 inch metal dome tweeter

Enclosure Design:
Wall Mount – Left and Right

Center channel is a 18 X 11 X 4 homemade sealed box, using 1 X 4 pine lumber and 1 X 10 pine face. aprox. 0.4 cf.

Enclosure Assembly:
17 inch X 7 inch pine stock. The width was chosen to allow the mounting screws to secure to the wall studs. The back side was primed with foam skid cloth to help seal the unit to the wall.

Crossover Design:
Simple 2nd order Butterworth @ 3000 hz. I chose that point because most musical instruments and voice drop off at 2500 – 3000 hz. I did not want to crossover blow that range. That way the main drive handles 80 % of the sound.

Tips & Tricks:
It always takes longer than you think. Change is good.

I sanded and primed the wood stock with poly before any work was started. This helps with the cutting. I routed the speaker cut-outs before cutting the wood down to the final size. The wall cut-outs were minimized, to allow better installation. a finish coat of poly was added just before installation. The cross-over design was bare minimal. I do not believe in access sound manipulation.

Conclusion:
Great sound for a small in-expensive project. Again the goal was to minimize space, which was the reason for wall mounted speakers. The walls add to the bass and the sound may be a bit bright, because of the tweeter selection, but that is what I like. There is a Sub Woofer on the backside corner for real Theatre performance, or if you need the added bass for normal audio listening.

About the Designer:
I was going to build three of the box speakers, and hang them from the wall. but decided this looked terrible. I had installed this wall design about 8 years ago in another house and the kids ( college ) loved the sound. Plus the wall design adds a little bass to speakers that are lacking a bit on the low end. The sound is good and I use it for regular radio and CD listening all the time. The room could be converted from the A/V use to a regular bedroom in seconds. Leave the wall speakers.

Just remember that projects take time and you just need to suck it up and finish them. Mine appears done for now.

Please note – this was a attic room and there was access to the kick wall from behind for the installation. Also there is ethernet for the TV, along with an outdoor antenna jack for the receiver. The A/V rack was made from standard stock ie 1 X 6 and 1 X 8 pine. It was cut and put together in a couple hours, coated in clear poly. I could not find a small A/V rack, and this design just came about. I call it butcher block simple.

Project Parts List: