History: Bought my first 27" MTS TV, HiFi VCR and AV receiver in 1989. Ever since I've added and upgraded pieces and parts. Three years ago we built a new house with an unfinished basement laid out with an HT in mind. Building the HT was my motivation for finishing the basement, which took a year doing the work myself. After the basement was finished, the old home theater was already entrenched in the living room and showing its age... so we decided to build the whole thing new...
Design Objective: Build a Front Projection HT system that would provide superior performance for less than the price of a good used car.
Use: 60% DVD movies, 20% HD-Movies, 10% Cable TV & HDTV, and 10% music (including accomodating my daughter's dance parties).
Tech Info:
Screen Width: 96" (16x9) (110" diagonal)+ Pull down 4:3 (7' wide)
Main Seating: 11' from screen, centered; 2nd row, 3' behind
Screen Illumination: All white, contrast at 50/100, 7.6 foot-candles or 10.6 foot-lamberts (reflected), 10% white 10.7 f-c or 15 foot-lamberts.
Viewing Arc: 40 degrees (main seating position, meets SMPTE & THX recommendations, from view distance calculator).
Amplification: Rated power, total for 5.1, 6000 watts (see pro-amp page)
Peak SPL: 124dBa @40Hz verified with SPL meter