IWC's Cinema Room

Have seen you are both posting on the Acurus thread so hopefully Neil can add some input here.
 
Yes he is, he's the importer of the Acurus brand a well.
 
Hi Guys. Just to make clear DT is a totally separate business with a large manufacturing site in Yorkshire where we do all things projection screen / mounting etc.

As already found these models don’t really heat up that much so it is more a case of redirecting any noise than blocking it out totally. You have already done all the usual bits so you are in the realms of having to spend pretty hard to get much more reduction.
 
Neil, hi you are right the units gets warm at most and I cant feel any airflow around the PJ, just the warm air exiting at the front, where I sit is below the box with no direct line of sounds from the exiting fans, the noise appears to come more from the back where the air enters and some of the fans are pushing the airflow, I added a little more internal sound absorption at internal sides of the internal cover, its now more than quiet enough to just hush a little in the background. Not 100% silent but way less than any PJ I have had before. If I ever notice it in a silent part of a film, I think the next step would be something on the ceiling in front of the projector to reduce reflections off the ceiling

Cinema Room May 2020 8-.jpg
 
Neil, hi you are right the units gets warm at most and I cant feel any airflow around the PJ, just the warm air exiting at the front, where I sit is below the box with no direct line of sounds from the exiting fans, the noise appears to come more from the back where the air enters and some of the fans are pushing the airflow, I added a little more internal sound absorption at internal sides of the internal cover, its now more than quiet enough to just hush a little in the background. Not 100% silent but way less than any PJ I have had before. If I ever notice it in a silent part of a film, I think the next step would be something on the ceiling in front of the projector to reduce reflections off the ceiling

View attachment 1298827

You inspired me to finally do mine properly. Had something temporary up, but now I’ve done something permanent and noticed a big difference in audible noise. It was never really noisy before, but now it’s almost silent to the point I can’t hear it at all whilst a film is on 👍🏻
 
I have been delving in the film cupboard and looking at the electrics, I have a separate ring for the AV kit and a separate line to the PJ as this was relativley easy to configure. As it was only a few hours work (well as always quite a few!) and I have some spare cable and large IEC connectors I decided to have separate lines for the Lumagen and Panasonic, so all 'noisy' video items go back to the consumer unit. All the electrics are 'new' as the house was refurbished in 2016, we have a CU on most floors, the one conveniently placed in the cinema room covers two bedroom floors. I do have the CU cover back on by the way !

So I will have analogue on the ring main and video back to the CU on separate lines. Not sure if I will get an improvement, but at least I had freed up two wall sockets. I miss the lower noise floor of dedicated mains, when I had each unit fed from one MCB in the old install it was a large upgrade on a ring main.
I assumed you were spoilt having a separate line for the PJ, but you're saying that's not as good as you used to have- one MCB for each unit? How many did you have? And when can you tell the difference?
 
I am a big fan of really high quality mains, I only have 3 MCB's to individual items/sockets in the current set up another on a ring for the rest of the sockets.

In the previous installation I have one MCB for each plug using thicker than required cable for each. The upgrade you hear is subtle in some ways and not in others, I heard

  1. Greater bass extension with more control, things seemed weightier and tighter. seemed more dynamic
  2. A real sense of solidity to everything. When I hear systems with really good mains and power supplies this usually comes across, like power supply upgrade on a pre amp, but somehow a bit more fundamental.
  3. A little less of the digital 'hash' that can detract from many systems. Somehow sounds a little more organic and tangible and a greater sense of 'darkness' probably
  4. Less variability with performance
  5. Removes 99.9% of hum
Given the outlay perhaps £1-2k all done and dusted, very much less if you do some of this yourself, its a very well priced upgrade on a high end system. Just use cooker cable or at least 6mm sq and the impedance will be very low. There is a lot of rubbish talked about with cables and mains. I have never heard a mains filter or cleaner I liked, always seemed to reduce dynamics, even if there might have been some other audible benefits (rarely)

If I was building an install not much additional cash. I'd start with separate lines for

  1. Processor
  2. Projector
  3. Anything else digital- Players etc
  4. Power amps
 
Nice. Which model is it, and where from?

Its from John Sankey Mitford Lounger - Sofas - Catalogue
I bought it at a good price from Rossitors a local supplier Rossetti Sofa

I think I paid £2,700 with the chosen fabric. Its really nicely made and has been super so far, I did try a cheaper product from another shop, fortunately they took it back, I was very disappointed. I preferred sitting on my 10 year old Habitat sale sofa !
 
I am a big fan of really high quality mains, I only have 3 MCB's to individual items/sockets in the current set up another on a ring for the rest of the sockets.

In the previous installation I have one MCB for each plug using thicker than required cable for each. The upgrade you hear is subtle in some ways and not in others, I heard

  1. Greater bass extension with more control, things seemed weightier and tighter. seemed more dynamic
  2. A real sense of solidity to everything. When I hear systems with really good mains and power supplies this usually comes across, like power supply upgrade on a pre amp, but somehow a bit more fundamental.
  3. A little less of the digital 'hash' that can detract from many systems. Somehow sounds a little more organic and tangible and a greater sense of 'darkness' probably
  4. Less variability with performance
  5. Removes 99.9% of hum
Given the outlay perhaps £1-2k all done and dusted, very much less if you do some of this yourself, its a very well priced upgrade on a high end system. Just use cooker cable or at least 6mm sq and the impedance will be very low. There is a lot of rubbish talked about with cables and mains. I have never heard a mains filter or cleaner I liked, always seemed to reduce dynamics, even if there might have been some other audible benefits (rarely)

If I was building an install not much additional cash. I'd start with separate lines for

  1. Processor
  2. Projector
  3. Anything else digital- Players etc
  4. Power amps
Thank you. This isn't something I've seen many others post about in their builds.
 
Its from John Sankey Mitford Lounger - Sofas - Catalogue
I bought it at a good price from Rossitors a local supplier Rossetti Sofa

I think I paid £2,700 with the chosen fabric. Its really nicely made and has been super so far, I did try a cheaper product from another shop, fortunately they took it back, I was very disappointed. I preferred sitting on my 10 year old Habitat sale sofa !
It is rather nice. I'm toying with the idea of a 2m sofa which is large for 2, but seats 3 of us, or possibly something that seats all 4 of us. With the 4 seater, I wonder if it's not quite as good when there's just 2 of you, as you're not able to lean on the corners (unless you're social distancing from the Mrs :D )
 
It is rather nice. I'm toying with the idea of a 2m sofa which is large for 2, but seats 3 of us, or possibly something that seats all 4 of us. With the 4 seater, I wonder if it's not quite as good when there's just 2 of you, as you're not able to lean on the corners (unless you're social distancing from the Mrs :D )

It's over 2m internally and 2.4m externally
 
Getting ready for 7.3.0, still trying to locate some suitable wall mounted rears. I did strip and rebuild attempting to tidy the cabling - oh dear longer than required heavyweight mains cables (6mm sq, stage cabling) and home made interconnects weren’t as flexible as I thought. I’m enjoying the recent addition the Acurus ACT4, most but not all dialled in. I’m glad to say I’m spending as much time ordering discs from Amazon as looking on HiFi shark for used Sonus Faber rears of the same era

The sofa is great and seems really tolerant of the odd bit of chocolate and whippet hair !

D3E00166-60D1-4C99-805E-A1CB7E7AB985.jpeg
7B76ADBB-F1A7-4BE2-890F-DF1987DA180B.jpeg
FE816C7C-3B93-4AE6-855B-695CD1BD05AC.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • B721D8F5-D1FD-44DC-AA69-9FD3D34C8A84.jpeg
    B721D8F5-D1FD-44DC-AA69-9FD3D34C8A84.jpeg
    335.8 KB · Views: 45
Nice cable dressing there! You might need to fly out to Tuscany and rummage through the barns of some well heeled Tuscan hifi/home cinema enthusiasts 🧐
 
I love Tuscany, I haven’t been there for years but fell in love with the wine and food of Montalcino, 😬
 
Too right - Brunello wine is lovely. I Iove Italy especially Tuscany, Liguria and around Lake Garda.

Good luck with the speaker search, not an easy one.
 
Well I think I’ve secured a pair of signums 😬 without stands which is ideal I’ll see if I can get a neat set of brackets made up as they have threaded bolt holes on the base

608479A2-80AF-42F4-9D3E-D5249BDB1A01.png
 
Alas the Signums had a problem so still looking, but I have ordered three separate sub amps, to give more headroom to the subs and remove the 19Hz high pass filter and the limited low pass filter, as I have one already for a hifi subwoofer I wanted to see if they sounded better than the internal amps, and they did sound better, so that project is on the go. The BK500's are very meaty amps with huge toroidal power supplies, so that fits in with the large power supply theme of the naim amps.

I have also ordered some GIK acoustic panels for the first point of reflection so all progressing slowly. All the pictures are now backed with acoustic foam as I did have a small amount of reverb, my RT60's are pretty good now but creeping above the 300ms below 400 Hz, so expecting the few additional panels will bring that in line (the bass I will leave as I am pretty happy with how that sounds and acoustic treatment dot he bass is intrusive, physically)

It will be 7.3.0 before xmas :)

L9513851.jpg

L9513856.jpg

IMG_5731.jpg

IMG_5735.jpg
 
I now have 4 GIK panels from the impression series, 50mm thick, initial listening is quite promising, quite a difference but I will need to measure to see what's going on and without any adjustment I think I prefer using the two first point of reflection panels and the rear and not using the second side panel. Interesting to see what's happening across the frequencies.

My centre channel is as shown below (TR60) with no panels, I have yet to measure the impact with panels and do some more experimental listening

L9513868.jpg

L9513867.jpg

Screenshot 2020-09-13 at 19.25.16.png

The quoted absorption for the panels

Screenshot 2020-09-11 at 10.32.30.png
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2020-09-13 at 19.25.16.png
    Screenshot 2020-09-13 at 19.25.16.png
    240 KB · Views: 39
Very interesting (at least to me !) After several A-B's its either just the two panels or the two and the back, all four I don't like as much.

With no panels there is a slight feeling of confusion with peaks and some smearing and you can hear the room getting a little too live on the peaks, but with 4 small panels its just a little dim and lifeless and somehow less dynamic as well, quite noticeable. Regarding measurement the SPL difference are very, very subtle, 0.5db and whilst the RT60 graphs show improvements in some frequencies I could easily believe none would be audible. 20ms -60 ms the more panels the greater the overall reduction. They do work but with a movement from say 420 ms to 380 it isn’t really significant

Listening tests have confirmed a preference for 2 or 3 panels and not 4. I intend to do more listening

4 panels measured better but sounded worse, the only small measurement that was not improved and was seemingly worse was in the sub 100 HZ range.

The logic that managing the first point of reflection will improve performance stacks up. The expectation that over damping will reduce performance also holds true, surprising just how large some of the audible differences are and even more surprising how small the measured differences are

I have usually just experimented with moving furnishings and rugs, and wall hangings and listening. Perhaps not as silly as it sounds

I’ll do some more listening and will settle on two or three panels not 4. I’m happy with the experiment investment and results so far. The graphs in this case aren’t that enlightening though
 
Here is an example of the RT60 curve (top), with 1/3 octave bands for ease of reading, Green is with no panels, red with two and blue with four. For those who don't understand these graphs the frequency is along the bottom and this is showing the estimated time taken to reduce by 60db, if there isn't enough data then this is calculated bu a 20ms or 30ms drop. I'd add the 3 panels but its close to the two. The vertical axis is this delay in ms, seems 300-400 is okay some recommend going below 300ms. You can see some reductions around the 250Hz-5kHz with the panels but interesting they make things slightly worse in the sub 200Hz range. Reducing the delay in bass is hard and I like the bass currently, it doesn't overhang or boom at all, very on point and weighty, I'd be interested in filling the room with bass traps just to see what would happen sonically and measured, but dont have the cash to experiment or space to fit !

I've shown the SPL graphs (bottom two) below but the difference are very, very subtle. This is an un smoothed response over a few hundred Hz in the upper bass range and higher frequencies with a very high resolution scale


Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 08.01.08.png


Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 08.17.39.png


Screenshot 2020-09-23 at 08.20.13.png
 
Last edited:
Interesting seeing what you measured about how this compares to your preference.

A question going back a few posts, regarding your projector hush box.

Is there an air vent pushing air in to that box from above (providing positive pressure)?
 
I have bought a 12v fan to experiment with the intention of enclosing the front of the box further and part sealing the rear. But not experimented yet.

At the moment the back is open and the front, but a lot of sound absorbing foam around as shown. As the LS 10500 runs quite cool and the airflow is from the back to the front it hasn’t affected the running noticeably

After a 2 hour film the case is warm, a lot less warm than the Lumagen and similar possibly cooler than the Acurus so all seems fine to be honest. I suspect it is running warmer than fully open, not sure if the internal fan is working harder, I suspect not as the noise level is low and constant from turn on.

My intention is to see if I can reduce the noise to very near silent, it is very quite now and I rarely notice it
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom