How did I install it?
See Home Theater Installation

Introduction

I am very fortunate to have a nice home theater in which to enjoy music and movies. I've always been an audio fan, but at the end of 2004 I got the bug to build a home theater. I spent weeks researching equipment, and many more weeks preparing the room and installing the equipment. I believe I developed the itch around Thanksgiving 2004, and the project was completed Feb 6, 2005. I painstakingly documented the home theater installation process for those who may be interested in how I approached it.

The Equipment

To install the home theater I replaced my nice Carver C-4000 pre-amp, my Carver m1.5t amplifier, and my Magneplanar loudspeakers. It hurt a little to sell this stuff. I'd bought the Carver equipment off eBay in 1999 or so, when it was already over ten years old. I'd always wanted to own Carver equipment of this vintage, and I enjoyed it while I had it. I'll really miss my Magneplanar MMGs, but they had to go because they sounded best with a placement that was just plain incompatible with home theater (in my room, anyway).

So, I sold the electronics and speakers on eBay and searched for replacements. I ended up going with nice mid-priced equipment throughout. At the beginning I was considering low-high-end separates such as Sunfire, Rotel, and NAD. However, due to budgetary constraints, and my personal devotion to getting the best value possible when buying toys, I went with high-low-end (mid-end?) consumer equipment. In the end I purchased Denon for the electronics and PSB loudspeakers for the five main channels. These were excellent choices that I don't regret one tiny bit.

Those interested in the details of the equipment I used should see My Home Theater Equipment.

The Theater

I wasn't going for a full-on home theater. That is, I didn't really care to have theater seating, posters, curtains and the like. I already had a very nice listening room, and I basically wanted the room to look the same as before, but to offer front-projection video as well as great music and movie audio. I feel that I was very successful in reaching my goal.

About the only thing I actually changed about the room itself was the paint. The room had bright white walls, which wouldn't have worked so well for a home theater, so I painted them a warmish grey, and repainted the baseboards and trim to freshen the whole room up. I went to a lot of trouble to hide the surround wiring, as well, which was a major operation documented on my home theater installation page.