Kyle's Home Theater

Welcome to my little Home Theater page. If you scroll down, you can see some more pics of my system. There are also some links at the bottom of this page to other great H/T and speaker building related sites.

Equipment list: (yeah, I know, nothing fancy)

RCA 32" T.V.

Kenwood VR-307 Dolby Digital amp

Pioneer DV-333 DVD player

Some old Sony VCR (who cares about the model #, it's VHS :)

Center, Main and Surround speakers: All handmade using Vifa drivers

Subwoofer #1: Also handmade, using a 15" DVC woofer from Parts Express (the link for this site is at the bottom of the page)

Subwoofer #2: Handmade, using a 12" Shiva from Adire Audio and a KG5230 amp

Pictures

(click thumbnails to see full size image)

A shot of my center channel speaker. The enclosure was built and designed by me. I got the drivers and crossover from an online speaker components store called Madisound (link at bottom of page). I would highly recommend stopping by their site if you plan on building your own speakers. They have some great components at good prices. For the money I spent on this speaker, i'm very happy with its performance.

Here is a close-up of the birch veneer I used on my new mains. Damn i'm good.

A picture of my right main, which is also homemade. These were just completed recently and they replace my old mains. You can see a picture of one of my old mains if you scroll down a bit. These speakers use Vifa drivers as with all the rest of my speakers. Unfortunately, all I can say right now is that they look better than they sound. This is probably because of my crappy amp and room problems.  I had them in a different room with another amp and they sounded much better, so I don't think it is the speaker that is at fault.

Here is a close-up shot of the drivers used on my new mains.

Here is a close-up shot of the 3" port used on my right main.

This is a pic of my left main and my subwoofer. If you don't build speakers or are just not into that kind of thing, this sub probably looks pretty odd (it's not a conventional box, it's a cylinder). The design is basically a cylindrical concrete former (usually called "sonotube" or "formatube") with some end caps made of a type of wood called "MDF" or "medite" that are cut into circles the diameter of the tube and fitted into the bottom and top. The woofer is mounted into the bottom end cap and some holes are cut for the ports on the top end cap. Then the end caps are painted and a black fabric sock is placed over the tube. There are many different variations of this design and this is just a very basic explanation of how they are made. I have provided a link to a website (Pat Sun's page) at the bottom that describes in VERY good detail how you can easily make one of these for a very reasonable cost. Oh, and by the way, this thing sounds incredibly good with both movies and music. You can e-mail me if you have any more questions about my sub.

A close-up of the base-plate I put on my subwoofer.

A better view of the top of my sub. This pic shows the three 4" ports that are used in this design.

A nice shot of my right surround. As with all my speakers, this one has been built by me. I also made those beautiful stands in my wood shop class at high school. They were a pain to make, but they look great and match my speakers.

Another shot showing the back of the right surround.

Here is a shot of my old right main. These have recently been replaced but I thought you might want to see a picture of them. They use components from MCM electronics and they don't sound all that bad compared to my new mains.

Here is a shot of my second sub. This one was built before the other one. It uses a 12" driver called the "Shiva" from a place called Adire Audio. You can pick one of these drivers up for about $125. The sub is an SBB4 alignment that is about 3.4 cu.ft. tuned to 22hz. It sounds very good for both movies and music. It is powered by a 300 watt (@4ohms) amp, the KG5230. Placing the sub this close to the couch really makes it vibrate, no need for bass-shakers.

Just a shot of the sub and the left surround behind it.

A closer look at the port and the base-plate I put on this sub.

A shot of the KG-5230 amp mounted on the back of the sub.

Here is a shot form the dining room. My living room opens up to the staircase (below the shot), the hall way (to the right of the frame) and the dining room as well.

My DVD player remote, H/T receiver remote and a DVD rental sitting on my end table.

And what the hell, i'll add in a couple pics of my dog, Zoey. She is a pure bred lab and is about a year and a half old. Awww, she's so cute.

Another shot of Zoey just sitting around, being cute.

Okay, I think i'm getting a little off topic here, but I thought i'd include this picture that was taken at a lake nearby my house, in beautiful British Columbia where I live. 

Links

Madisound   |   Parts Express   |   The Home Theater Forum   |   Adire Audio   |

Audio Innovation (lots of DIY projects)   |   Speaker City   |   Audio Mobile inc

SV Subwoofers   |  Pat Sun's DIY subwoofer page (contains a great sonosub

project)   |   Secrets of Home Theater HiFi   |   Stryke Audio 

Email me

The address is kyleg@cranberrylane.com   and ask questions about my setup