Morley Theater Room Design-Acoustics Forum-Acoustic Fields Forum

As we embark on our new home journey I told the wife I wanted to get a dedicated theater room in with the new house. We finally have a (meager) budget to work with but depending on how much it costs to build a good room we may have to get the house put up and then work on this as money allows. We do love movies and before the pandemic crap would go to the movies at least 2 times a month or more. We watch a lot of movies at home as well. Especially with the new streaming services.

We have a larger family and have family and friends over on a regular basis who also love movies. I know that Dennis has mentioned it’s easier to set the room up for fewer people and don’t try to put more seats in then we will use on a regular basis. We would have 8+ people over for movie night possibly as often as once a week (we already get that many over for dinner 2-3 times a week). I do like keeping our family together like that.

Not sure if these forums allow for pictures but the basics of the room:
Will be located in the basement
Concrete walls on South, East and 1/2 of the North Wall. It MIGHT be possible to concrete in the remaining walls.
One entry door on the West Wall in the Northern Corner
One equipment room on the West Wall in the Southern Corner (dwg shows a sliding door to cover that space over)
Above the room is the mud room, pantry, and part of the kitchen. I don’t know that there is enough noise from those spacers to impact the room and I don’t think we would be bothered by any noise escaping the theater room to those room areas. But if budget allows we can see what can be done.

Approx Dimensions:
9′ Walls Height (I have asked the builder what the challenges would be to increase depth to 12′)
18″ Floor Trusses above (possibly room to put materials into that space instead of simply sheet rocking it in )
19’8″ Long (increased length and removed triangular shape on fwd end of room after discussion with Dennis)
15’3″ Wide (note that there is a stepped transition on the half concrete wall that is on the dwg but we can possibly shift that so the interior dimensions are flush).
The building was planning to build a 2×4 wall system around the room perimeter to both add insulation to the concrete exterior walls as well as something to close out the room with (give easier nail/screw points for sheet rock). 2″ of spray foam plus the remainder of insulation would be spray on Cellulose. Of course since none of the work has been done yet I do have some opportunities to make some inputs on how to do these walls. I won’t have the ability to change length and width and not 100% sure yet on increasing depth of the room though I think that will be possible.

We live in the country so outside noise is a minimal influence. Since the house is yet to be built i can’t get current sound measurements of the room lol.
I don’t know if it is best to set up the seats on the long or short walls? I was thinking that the “front” of the room would be on the eastern concrete wall? Have one set of chairs on the first level, then put risers behind for the second set of seats. Then another set of risers with a bar type seating at the upper level right behind the 2nd set of chairs.

Any inputs that we can use to make this a better room (again without getting crazy budgets) would be great!