Building Home Theater in India

HOW I BUILT MY HOME THEATER IN INDIA

Well to begin with I never planned to have a home theater in my house, never dared to have it in existing house atleast.

In continuation of my previous blog Hafele vs Hettich (http://manusharma002.blogspot.com/2016/12/hafele-vs-hettich.html) this is during the time I was renovating my house.

So I had this room lying vacant since 10 years on the second floor of my house. This was of the size 12 feet wide by 23 feet long. (*It is better to have a rectangle size for a home theater). The room had around three windows of size 4feet by 6feet which had to be closed so that the sound doesn’t leaks out.

 So first thing I did was I locked the windows permanently from inside and stuffed the windows with lot of thermal wool, which I was told was good sound absorber (*One can also use Glass Wool). Then I had plywood nailed and packed the whole window. So this was the first level. Then I had the designing part done on the wall with plywood again sandwich with thermal wool so that it absorbs the sound. That meant now I had a plain wall on that the thermal wool and the again a plywood. Thermal wool come cheap if you hunt at the right place I got it at a local market at 1/10^th the cost coated by an acoustic firm. So hunt it right.

The height of my wall was about 9 feet so I divided the in 6 parts the first part being 2 feet and second 1 foot. In the bigger portion (2Feet part) I got small holes drilled in the plywood so that the sound could absorb and the 1foot was left with laminate so that sound could reflect to maintain the balance of the sound in the room. I then had 2inch foam on the 2feet portion with decorative cloth for attraction.

The false ceiling was made from gyproc which is a very renowned brand in this field and makes some solid stuff.  The flooring was marble on which I got thick wall to wall carpeting done so it could absorb the sound. Some say false ceiling will crack due to heavy sound and woofer effect so go for wood top. But I am using it since 2year now and there is no crack as of now. Just get the fitting right.

Now coming to the speaker part, I researched a lot on this there are over 100 brands. But this mainly depends on your budget and choice. I had researched on Focal, JBL, Yamaha, bose, sony, B&O, B&W and Klipsch as far as I remember.

I selected the Klipsch Speaker set (Reference Series RP 280F) which is a very well known brand for home theater. I visited their experience center located in Bangalore and was pretty impressed with their quality and range.They also had Jamo speaker but I found them to be too sharp and noisy. So the I selected the speaker bargained and I got a very good deal on the RP series.

I got a 5.1.2 with atmos, as most of the new movies comes with Dolby atmos. So to not miss out on the latest I installed two atmos speaker in the ceiling.  For the amplifier I selected a Dennon which doesn’t disappoint either. So on the speaker part I had 2 Tower Speaker, 1 Center Speaker, 2 side Speaker, 2 Atmos for the ceiling and 1 Woofer. 

For the projector I chose a benq w1070+ projector which is 3d and suits the budget. If you want to watch a 3D movie you need a 3D projector as well as a 3D Blu ray player. I bought a Panasonic 3D blu ray smart player which we can be used to play 3d movie and connects to the internet through wifi so we can use YouTube Netflix.  Do remember to take active 3D glasses which sync with your projector. Else you wont get that effect of 3D movies.

The wiring for the sides and atmos speaker was done with Finolex oxygen speaker cables, but for the main, Center Speaker and the Woofer I chose profigold cable they  makes one of the finest quality cables. I chose a Profigold HDMI which is a bit costly but as it was a onetime investment and something very difficult to change again I went for the best. The sub woofer cable was also of Profigold.

For the seating I got a huge sofa cum bed made of plywood and foam from the  local carpenter which could be converted to a 6 seater sofa or one huge bed. I was of the opinion that as I had less place putting home theater chair will eat a lot of space.  Hettich Franke fitting was used for the same. In order to avoid leakage of sound from the door I got a gasket foam tape which reduced the leakage from door gaps by about 60% in my case. Over all the sound leakage was just 10%-15% which was pretty normal.

This is how I build my home theater in the least cost possible with all the jugaad. Drop me with your queries if any I would be happy to help.

Please find the pictures below: