• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

Motorized Acoustically Transparent Screen

H

House72

Well-known member
Hello All

I am trying to find a contractor who can build a baffle wall and do my HT and it seems they are not available for a reasonable amount of time. I am solid to do speaker wiring etc but not skilled in a baffle wall build. If I install 3 Procella P8s on the wall and use a motorized acoustically transparent screen, will that affect the sound quality compared to building a baffle wall?

Cheers
 
Out of curiosity, why are you considering a motorized screen? I use one in my theater, because I have a large bookcase on the front wall, and it definitely makes screen masking more challenging. If you use a fixed screen, then screen masking is comparatively straightforward.

My theater sounds fantastic, but Keith Yates designed the acoustics, including treatments of the bookcase... They would have preferred to do a baffle wall, but they made it work.
 
MikeKobb said:
Out of curiosity, why are you considering a motorized screen? I use one in my theater, because I have a large bookcase on the front wall, and it definitely makes screen masking more challenging. If you use a fixed screen, then screen masking is comparatively straightforward.

My theater sounds fantastic, but Keith Yates designed the acoustics, including treatments of the bookcase... They would have preferred to do a baffle wall, but they made it work.
Click to expand...
Few reasons - Baffle wall build means I find a contractor who will do this. Finding one in the current scenario seems tough. Second, the Baffle wall makes the room permanent in some ways, and would love the flexibility of keeping it as a media room and not a theater room. Third, if I ever change speakers it may be relatively easy compared to a baffle wall.
 
I certainly understand the flexibility factor. For years I had a motorized screen that dropped in front of a plasma (remember those) so that I could have viewing in that room that worked well with daylight or room lights. But that was not an AT screen. One consideration with AT screens is that you want to be sure that enough light won't pass through the screen to reflect off of something behind and cause a visible glint. I see this occasionally at commercial cinemas, actually. My screen is a Screen Research woven screen, and it has a second, black AT layer that drops behind the screen to prevent this.

Leaving that issue aside, you can certainly have a fixed screen without having a full-blown engineered baffle wall. When you said you were looking for a contractor, I assumed you were looking for a specialist who could build an engineered baffle wall. Is the issue just that you can't find any kind of contractor at the moment, even one who could do something relatively straightforward?

Anyway, I wish I had a better answer for you regarding how the sound would be affected by wall-mounting the speakers without going to a full baffle wall. I know that there are changes to the sound going from freestanding to wall mounted to baffle wall, but I'm fuzzy on the details. I'm sure somebody else here will chime in on that! Good luck.
 
MikeKobb said:
I certainly understand the flexibility factor. For years I had a motorized screen that dropped in front of a plasma (remember those) so that I could have viewing in that room that worked well with daylight or room lights. But that was not an AT screen. One consideration with AT screens is that you want to be sure that enough light won't pass through the screen to reflect off of something behind and cause a visible glint. I see this occasionally at commercial cinemas, actually. My screen is a Screen Research woven screen, and it has a second, black AT layer that drops behind the screen to prevent this.

Leaving that issue aside, you can certainly have a fixed screen without having a full-blown engineered baffle wall. When you said you were looking for a contractor, I assumed you were looking for a specialist who could build an engineered baffle wall. Is the issue just that you can't find any kind of contractor at the moment, even one who could do something relatively straightforward?

Anyway, I wish I had a better answer for you regarding how the sound would be affected by wall-mounting the speakers without going to a full baffle wall. I know that there are changes to the sound going from freestanding to wall mounted to baffle wall, but I'm fuzzy on the details. I'm sure somebody else here will chime in on that! Good luck.
Click to expand...
I really love your response and the help.

I was only thinking of a full-blown engineered baffle wall. I was not aware of anything else other than that. I have an excellent carpenter/handyman who can do this if he has some help with a diagram. I am trying to see if any designer would give me the design (I will pay obviously) and use this friend of mine to build.
 
I’m not sure how much help this is as I don’t have a motorized screen, or at least not one that drops from the ceiling (which I believe is what you are referring to?), but I am happy to explain my theater and the challenges faced in case it provides some ideas.

My theater is a combined bedroom/office that sits immediately next to the family room, primary bedroom, and hallway for the secondary bedrooms. My wife and kids go to bed much earlier (I’ve always been a night owl) so it was important that any sound moving to other rooms was extremely limited. This was achieved by adding hat channels and double drywall with green glue to all walls and the ceiling along with a 330 pound sound-proof door and acoustic sub-flooring.

One concern I had before getting to the drywall step was with the front wall and the full-range in-wall LCR speakers I planned to install. I was afraid that their sound would escape into the family room (and potentially the rest of the house) so I chose to build a baffle wall in front of the existing family room wall (I went with about a 2 inch gap between the walls).

First, I covered the old wall in plywood and then built the baffle wall, before Insulating in between and installing the in-walls (in the baffle wall with the hat channel/double drywall combo). In front of those speakers is a Seymour AT fixed-width motorized screen (it has a motor for the top masking and another for the bottom) that is permanently attached to that baffle wall.

In the 2+ years since I finished up work, there is rarely any sound that transfers to other parts of the house (only a little LFE on occasion). And myself being the most critical listener, I have been extremely pleased with the audio quality. Ultimately, I ended up with a 7.1.4 configuration that I thoroughly enjoy for movies, but I also have a Rega turntable that gets listened to often in stereo and the L/R behind the AT screen really does sound great.

Hoping this provided a little insight
Andy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Andy, sounds like we used the same door! 14 layers, 350 pounds, when closed a rubber seal extends out of the door edges to completely seal it from the outside. I can't hear my kids playing on pinball machines right outside the door, it really works well. The room walls are isolated similar to what you describe, can't hear the theater anywhere in the house, even at reference levels, allows me to watch at midnight without bothering anyone's sleep!

Jim
 
@andy

Thanks for the experience. I am not too worried about the sound leakage as this will be on the 4th floor from the top and only other room in the floor is a guest bedroom.

I will try and see if I can find some literature on step by step build of baffle wall.
 
cinelife said:
Andy, sounds like we used the same door! 14 layers, 350 pounds, when closed a rubber seal extends out of the door edges to completely seal it from the outside. I can't hear my kids playing on pinball machines right outside the door, it really works well. The room walls are isolated similar to what you describe, can't hear the theater anywhere in the house, even at reference levels, allows me to watch at midnight without bothering anyone's sleep!

Jim
Click to expand...

Hey Jim, if it is not the same, it sure sounds similar. It is the type of door used in professional music studios and like you described, has rubber seals all around it. A heavy son of a gun and a pain to install, but we’ll worth it.

Andy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Yes Sir, that sounds like it. As you know, isn't cheap, but well worth it.

Jim
 
I did some reading on this subject today.

As I am not looking to really sound proof the room to do a baffle roughly the steps to follow will be:

1. Use 2X4 and frame the entire wall in which baffle wall is to be built.
2. Stuff this space with some kind of acoustic absorbing materials (not sure what this will be).
3. Use two solid MDF boards 1.5 inches thick at least and attach it to the wood frame.
4. Cover the boards with black colored fiberglass.
5. Cut 3 holes in the board exact size of the LCR and two holes for sub woofers in the bottom asymmetrical to the screen center and equidistant from the two side walls. Keep the whole as tight as possible.
6. Build some kind of a slab for the speakers to be firmly placed and cover any gaps with fiberglass material.
7. Seal all edges and paint the edges.
8. Attach AT screen to the baffle wall.

Is this all to it or am I making this too simple and stupid.

Cheers

Raj
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top