Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

For livingroom sound better than in a theatre.
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ACUA
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Location: Tucson Arizona

Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#46 Post by ACUA »

I have completed my home theater and entertainment center system. The table tuba has been completed. By design the subwoofer mouth sits exactly 12” off the wall and the driver opening is 3” off the wall.

I have more low frequency output than I will likely ever use. It’s nice. In hind sight I should have only deployed 8 tweeters per Tlah cabinet.

I could hardly ask for more for what it cost me to build this and the joy I have building the rig worth every second!
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Bryan Cox
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#47 Post by Bryan Cox »

Damn, that's nice! Very ingenuitive way to deploy a sub! 👏
Otop 12 x 4 (Delta Pro 12-450a) 2x melded, 2x straight
Titan 39 x 4 (3012LF) 20" wide

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Tom Smit
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#48 Post by Tom Smit »

+1. Nice stealth mode! Good job!
TomS

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Seth
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#49 Post by Seth »

ACUA, that came out great! Good job man! Very impressive :thumbsup:

I'd be curious to hear a little about how well the rest of the TT build went. Was it a PITA? Go together as planned? If you did another, are there any changes to the process you'd make?
Build in process - 2 WH6, one Alpha 6a loaded, one PRV Audio 6MB250-NDY loaded

Two 2x6 shorty SLA Pro's
One T39, 16", 3012LF loaded
Tall AutoTuba, 20" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421
TruckTuba, 8½" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421

Dale Hammer
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Location: Topeka, Kansas

Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#50 Post by Dale Hammer »

Your system looks great! I'm sure you will enjoy it very much.

ACUA
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Location: Tucson Arizona

Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#51 Post by ACUA »

First off a shout out to Radian, who came by and educated me somewhat regarding home theater receivers. Mine is an old thing, he loaned me a fancy Panasonic unit which allowed me to convert to complete digital in both the amplification and signal chain. This transition from an analog signal to digital really improved the fidelity. He also helped me sort out certain of the phasing with the sub and little things like that. He is a good friend and has a niche for detail.

As far as my Table tuba goes, this came out the most square horn I have built yet, partly because this is the 10th one and partly from the dados. I had to widen the dados to the last panel effectively the side by just about an 1/8in with some minor router adjustment here and there to get it to fit nice. I actually glued the final side panel on before glueing the external panel walls one so something like panel 9-11. Because I was dropping those final external panels between the dadoed grooves of the sides it was easy to do this way. While initially gluing the two sides I clamped the external panels to assist with trueing and figment. Then once the glue had cured I was able to remove the external panels and one by one install and glued them and add the proper bracing. I did use a lot of glue for the extra wide dado of the final side panel but it was easy to test fit everything into the dado groove before actually applying glue so when it came time to glue it was a quick and not to dirty process. Most of the 1/8in oversized dados were split between the panels and the remaining 1/16 gaps easily were filled with PL glue. The process is not fool proof and I had to do some elbow work and router trickery but for me it was worth it. The dados make panel alignment so much easier, I did some dadoing where the internal panels are are 90degree angles and that really helped. I may not dado the final side in future builds to save time but I doubt I will ever not dado the first side as it really really helped me along.

I own an electric hand planer and I did have to shave around 1/32in off some corners to get the sub to fit my shelf structure. This because the absolute square-ness of the two parts was not complimentary. I recommend Ryobi, for the planer it’s only $80.00 us where the competition is like $120-150. Just be sure to true the blade!!! This tool helped me get the wood to fit the steel structure easier as all my tools are hand held
:chainsaw:

If this picture comes through, this is what my wife texted me today about the system!!! :hyper:
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Tom Smit
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#52 Post by Tom Smit »

That's great that your wife loves the system! Kudos! It's good, too, to have a friend like Radian.
TomS

ACUA
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Location: Tucson Arizona

Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#53 Post by ACUA »

I had to unlearn a lot of things when I discovered this forum. I found myself starting from scratch in a lot of ways. Radian happens to live 20 minutes from me, and it has been nice to have had a hand full of quality discussions with him. He has shared some of his builds with me and allowed me to demo his home theater setup in depth. He turned me on to the Yamaha Hand Book as well as other credible literatures. Between this forum and Radian’s mentoring I would claim to actually know a thing or two by this point. Having said that I still find it easy to be schooled between the two.

My craftsmanship has improved and my technical wisdom honed significantly with the support and content of this place. The over all camaraderie is really good, not to mention the quality of product I am able to produce as a result.

My wife and I have started and been operating a hobby mobile dj business for a few years now. We are catering local school dances, small local musical theater plays, many wedding all over Arizona, promotional events for Harley Davidson Tucson, holiday events, etc. Now, I do not claim our operation particularly profitable financially, but we do collect a pay check to attend and be the life of many parties. We have funded some apparel and have enjoyed many a fine meal on this endeavor. All of this made possible, or much more so with the support of everyone here.

My wife and I started to lay the ground work for our home theater system back in October of 2020. Attached is a SketchUp modeling of our living room as we wanted it. We were trying to figure out how to decor the high walls and deal with the highly reverberative nature of the space. We settled on what you see. I built the panels with acoustic padding but cloth covering. The panels can semi easily be removed and different cloth could be affixed for a different styling should we choose. In the end throw pillows were made using the same material as the panels as a cool decor correlation. The clock is a piece I am proud of. It is 5ft in diameter and has to weigh every bit of 90lb. The wood is reclaimed pallets and many large screws into the wall studs.

Shown is also a picture of us with scaffolding painting and laying to ground work for the wall panels. Today just over two years later we seem to have realized our vision, even the couches were purchased to match our initial sketched vision.

I am proud of what we have accomplished and much of the success I accredit to all of you. I think it looks good, we know it sounds good and I get to brag that I built it with my own two PL covered hands.
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Bruce Weldy
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#54 Post by Bruce Weldy »

Well said.

6 - T39 3012LF
4 - OT12 2512
1 - T24
1 - SLA Pro
2 - XF210


"A system with a few knobs set up by someone who knows what they are doing is always better than one with a lot of knobs set up by someone who doesn't."

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Bill Fitzmaurice
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#55 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Needs a larger TV. 8)

You should try having the TV screen quite a bit higher. TV stands are way too low, a carryover from the 1950s console TVs. I have the top edge of mine only a foot below the 8 foot ceiling, and it's a much more comfortable viewing position. You don't have to go that high, but at least another foot higher would be better.

ACUA
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#56 Post by ACUA »

The tv is 55”. When we bought it I really felt like a baller, having upgraded from a 42” unit. The tv stand is 30” tall, three inches higher than our previous set up. In the future we may wall mount the tv up higher, and there is room for a larger unit for sure.

For now it serves a proper object to stair mindlessly into while we are not being productive. I need to buy my own receiver unit before I spring for a larger tv, but someday.
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Tom Smit
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#57 Post by Tom Smit »

Well done on your project! :clap: Nice job on the clock, too.
How did you get your wife to work on the scaffolding? No way would my wife do that...way too high. :lol:
When is your 13th?
TomS

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Bill Fitzmaurice
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#58 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

It looks smaller than that, probably because the room is so large. The last time I had my TV at a traditional height it was a CRT, which fit into a conventional entertainment center. You can see it here: https://billfitzmaurice.info/TLAH.html
When I got my first 42" LCD it wouldn't fit into the hutch, so I put it on top. That was a revelation, as for the first time I was viewing my TV at the same angle as I would the screen in a theater. It also allowed me to see the TV while working on my laptop, sitting in my recliner. That was a major plus for my bad back. Sitting in an upright chair to work on my desktop PC was killing me. Now the desktop collects dust as a backup, and I can work on my laptop for hours on end without bothering my back or missing ESPN.

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Seth
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Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#59 Post by Seth »

Awesome summary and back story. I completely enjoyed the read. :thumbsup:

That's one big ass ceiling fan!
Build in process - 2 WH6, one Alpha 6a loaded, one PRV Audio 6MB250-NDY loaded

Two 2x6 shorty SLA Pro's
One T39, 16", 3012LF loaded
Tall AutoTuba, 20" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421
TruckTuba, 8½" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421

ACUA
Posts: 552
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:21 pm
Location: Tucson Arizona

Re: Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

#60 Post by ACUA »

Home Depot sells the fan, it was in place when we bought the house. It is huge and I love it.

When we were scheming the setup we debated the proper tv height in some detail. Basically I figured level with my eyes from the seated position. Where it is now I have to look only slightly upwards. In hind sight I highly doubt that a foot higher would be any kind of negative. We do consider in the future wall mounting the tv in which case it will go about a foot higher. In our initial planning we considered linking the two sides with a top shelf to fully enclose the tv but for cost and flexibility of future tv configurations we opted for a split part build and open center over the tv.

The scaffolding was cumbersome but way safer than trying to use ladders. Luckily I had access to it as it made the work so much easier. My wife has her flaws, but fear of heights is not one of them. She gets aggressively involved when she knows my lack of detail or patience is going to get in her way, she insisted in doing the masking job before painting, and for good reason too. :noob:
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