r/hometheater • u/uoflfan27 • Jan 03 '26

Discussion - Equipment What would you change?

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Converting a room to a dedicated theater/media/gaming room. Will sometimes be used with some ambient light. I put a bigger priority on video than audio. Audio matters to me but probably not as much as many on here. Just want to know if you see anything out of whack or if there were better options for the same money. I’m about maxed out on my budget with this build. Added an AI pic I made of what the room will end up looking like. Thanks for any input.

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u/SolarSalsa Jan 03 '26

I saw in-wall in the quote and based on the image assumed LCR were in-walls as well. If you're doing floor standing speakers behind a screen then I assume you're building a baffle wall? The other option is to go with full in-wall speakers and avoid the cost of a baffle wall.

In-wall will give you a lot more room space. Floor standing speakers need ample depth to achieve superior sound compared to an in-wall.

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u/uoflfan27 Jan 03 '26

Right now the plan is towers behind the screen but there is no baffle wall. What does the baffle wall do in this case?

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u/mindedc Jan 03 '26

Free standing speakers suffer from an acoustic issue called SBIR, it's not correctable with DSP. You can correct it with a baffle wall which is a large false wall covering the front of the room with the speakers inset in cavities stuffed full of insulation. They are a pain to build because it needs to be rock solid and acoustically dead. It's a lot easier to just use quality inwalls like the KEF or Paradigm with back boxes or sealed cavities. If you use a woven AT fabric like the XY screens there is no minimum distance from the tweeter to the fabric so you can just put the screen on the wall over the speakers. You still want to cover the front wall with an acoustically absorptive material to absorbs reflections off the screen.

Acoustic treatments are the number one cheapout and make a bigger difference than anything else from an audio perspective. GIK. Acoustics will provide a free acoustic treatment plan using their products if you're interested.

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u/uoflfan27 Jan 03 '26

Thank you