# DIY Home Theater



## Se7en (Mar 28, 2007)

I stumbled across this DIY home system and although the guy is working with a pretty open budget, I am really impressed with the amount of work he's doing so I thought I would share.


Personally designed and built, 3 identical front channels 
3 way , 9 ft 4 inch line sources configured with a horizontal d'appolito array. Each tower contains the following drivers; 24 scan speak 7 inch kevlar cone mid bass drivers each in their own sealed baffle. 4 
Bohlander Graebner rd-50 planar mid range drivers operating in a dipolar configuration, and 40 panasonic eas 10 th-400a leaf tweeters, 30 facing to the front and 10 facing rearward,wired out of phase for dipolar radiation 










Personally designed and built, Sub woofer towers 
The two mirror image sub towers EACH contain 8- 15 in high excursion, metal cone drivers sourced from tc sounds. a krell fpb 600 is used to drive each tower with 4 woofers driven by each side of the amplifiers. the sub towers handle all the information below 60 hz for the 3 front and 4 surround towers. The 60 hz crossover frequency and 24 db slope is provided by the krell hts 7.1 processor. 




















Personally designed and built Four- 7ft,4in surround towers, 
These mirror image line sources each contain 6 scan speak 8 inch kevlar cone bass drivers operating from 60 to 500 hz thru a krell kbx xover @12 bd per octave. 6 scan speak 5 in kevlar cone mid drivers operating from 500 to 3500 hz @ 12 bd per octave. 6 scan speak revelator tweeters from 3500 hz and up @ 12 db per octave- passive xover between the mids and tweeters. a fpb 300 drives each tower thru a krell kbx xover. all drivers are mounted in their separate sealed enclosures. The mirror image baffles are hi gloss black cast polymer weighing 175 lbs and were manufactured by the author. 




























Builder/Owner Comments on the system:

7.1 - Not exactly off the rack
how does one go about assembling a system that can qualify to be listed in the category,"ALL OUT ASSAULT." One way is to read up on a few years of "recommended components" lists from the high end magazines and venture out, with a fat wallet, to visit a few premium audio salons. By just BUYING the top products on the lists, you'll certainly make the audio salons happy , and hopefully, even you may be satisfied by owning the best money can buy. Having years of personal experience in owning many types of excellent audio gear adds a level of surety that only experience can add. Going through this process often enough, you may come to the conclusion that you may never get "THE MIXTURE " that you've been looking for. As the saying goes,"If you want it done right, do it yourself". There is also a saying that tells us, "Do what you do best ,and leave the rest to others." Time has also taught me the importance of another saying, "Do what you think is best." This submission i am presenting is based on preferences I have developed since I built my first piece of audio gear back in 1955 . Back then you could build just about everything in the audio chain yourself. Technology is just a bit more complicated in this day and age, but nevertheless, I feel the possibility still exists to build what you cannot buy, at least in the field of loudspeakers. The following system concepts are those I adhered to when i decided to start this project . Now to begin.-- Restraints of size, cost , or time would not enter into the equation. The room should always comes first, and mine did. Determine the size room you want, and design it along sound acoustic principles. Electronics; Having owned solid state amps for 20 years, along with the power requirements of the system i had in mind , there was no other choice . Solid state ,discrete topology, pure Class A analogue design throughout the entire audio chain. Crossovers; electronic crossovers were employed throughout due to the flexibility needed in designing and building a loudspeaker system that might sail into uncharted waters. All 7 channels would be bass restricted below 60 hz, via the processor , with the subs handling everything below. Electronic equalization; multichannel parametrics operating below 300 hz would be employed on all 8 channels to augment the reduction or elimination of low frequency room resonances not fully addressed by the use of acoustic panels , traps, and diffusers. Loudspeaker design; 3 front towers, identical 9 ft - 4 inch line sources in a horizontal D'Appolito array, four side and rear surround towers, 7 ft- 4 inch line sources in left and right mirror image configuration. Drivers; 15 inch metal cone -high excursion drivers for the subs. Front channels; 7 inch kevlar cone dynamics for mid bass, planar dipole for the midrange, leaf tweeters for the dipole highs. Surround towers; 8 inch kevlar cone drivers for the mid bass, 5 1/2 kevlar cones for the midrange, Revelator domes for the highs. All dynamic drivers, except for the subs, sourced from the same manufacturer to maintain a coherent sonic sign, ature. Drivers and electronics identical to the four surround towers would be in place when processing becomes available for the rear center channel, an 8.1 system configuration. All the dynamic drivers within the system to be in their own separate, sealed enclosures. Baffles for all the dynamic drivers, except the subs , to be either 1 1/2 or 2 inch thick high gloss, black, cast polymer. [ The amount of time I logged from start to finish for construction of the loudspeakers only, amounted to a bit over 5400 man hours spread over 3 years of time. ] Interconnects; XLR type balanced cables used exclusively from the processor through to the 12 stereo amplifiers that are used to drive the 7.1 system; after all, balanced interconnects are what's used to record everything we listen to. Fine tuning of acoustic treatment and and installation of the decorative woodwork trim in the room would be performed after ETF measurements were taken when the complete system was in place , and up and running. At this point in time, both the trim and acoustic treatment are being completed. Upgrades; The 135 inch, widescreen formatted, Stewart electroscreen is to be replaced with a 155 inch, letterbox formatted, Microperf with side electromasking. The Sanyo PLV 70 will then be replaced with a Runco or Vidikron projector with the Cinewide and Autoscope lens features. The last upgrade will be more enjoyment and less work.

Here's the original link:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vaslt&1135958151


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## JAX (Jun 2, 2006)

I am speechless....thats awesom


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## kappa546 (Apr 11, 2005)

ridiculous overkill. i'm ridiculously jelous.


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## Se7en (Mar 28, 2007)

I suspect he has more invested in persian rugs than most of us have in our entire systems.

I hope he posts more images as he goes. I suspect he'll treat the hell out of that room too.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Se7en said:


> and although the guy is working with a pretty open budget.......


Understatement of 2007 riiiat thar


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Geez, would HATE to see that guys power bill... I guess considering how much he spent on the system he would really have no problem with a high electric bill, but still, thats gonna add up...


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## Diru (May 23, 2006)

AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, grasshopper

them there towers are most likely in the 97db @ 1 watt @ 1 meter, and wouldn't take anypower at all to get up, what he has got there will take ones face clean off.

funny , for his system to meet THX levels would need no more then about 10watts x 7 ch`s and maybe 20 watts to each sub tower.


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## guitarsail (Oct 12, 2007)

Diru said:


> AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, grasshopper
> 
> them there towers are most likely in the 97db @ 1 watt @ 1 meter, and wouldn't take anypower at all to get up, what he has got there will take ones face clean off.
> 
> funny , for his system to meet THX levels would need no more then about 10watts x 7 ch`s and maybe 20 watts to each sub tower.


I thought my 4 way custom built PA system we used to use outdoors for 2000+ people was overkill in my theatre....this is ridiculous. BUT I have horns! hehehe


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## Inferno333 (Mar 29, 2006)

Buh...Buh...Buh...No form words...Guuuhhh...


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