Skip to main content

Whimsical Showcase Cinema

This refined high-quality Orange County, California, dedicated home cinema features full-on sound isolation, carefully engineered AV, acoustics, ventilation and noise control, along with an interior style that matches a modern-whimsical interior décor in the rest of the artistically conceived house.
 

The homeowner is a fan of high-quality products, but couldn’t tolerate any level of product failure or control system uncertainties, so the project had to yield a dedicated home cinema room with high quality sound and picture, proper sound privacy, carefully crafted esthetics standards, and ease of use.

The original framing scheme in this basement room tied the wood structures to the joists of the ceiling system. We had to rebuild the framing to isolate it from the joists, in order to reach the requisite sound isolation. The traffic flow and ergonomics required a rework of the doorway, and the size and location of the equipment closet on back right of room.

The original ventilation duct passages were very undersized and ran in tight quarters. We had to re-engineer the duct passages in order to get enough air in and out of the room, while ensuring very low background noise.

A network of wood pilaster with backlit corner lights provide the panache while a full dress of stretched fabric conceals the loudspeakers, acoustical treatments, and all the wiring that drives signals through the AV system.
 


The sound levels had to reach 105dB per channel while not being heard in the great room above. The dialog intelligibility and signal clarity needed to be top level. A Triad Gold 9 speaker and 4 subwoofer sound system creates the immersive sonic experience at all of the seats of this two-row cinema. An HD projector lights up the 140-inch screen to high-resolution cinematic brightness levels. An ten Fortress-brand seats invite the customers and their guest to come in, sit down and enjoy a visceral movie experience.

The picture illumination needed to be around 20 Ft/Lamberts. The picture resolution and clarity needed to match the highest level of HD 1080P ratings.

All products were carefully engineered and chosen for optimal integration of value, quality, and reliability. Simplicity of operation was also key to client satisfaction so advanced and careful system automation programming was key!

The client rewarded the design, construction and AV team's efforts by stating "It's the room we use the most in the house; it is great!"


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

PMI and Audio Images Sweep CEDIA's 2013 Electronic Lifestyle Awards

PMI and integrator Audio Images won five of the top awards for Home Theater Technical Design excellence at this year’s CEDIA Electronic Lifestyles® Awards, more than any other company in this year’s Home Theater category! Winning the Best Overall Home Theater and a Gold Technical Design award (in the $1M & up category) was an opulent theater that is part of a drop-dead gorgeous entertainment wing of an extravagant estate in Irvine, California. In addition to a state-of-the-art home theater, the entertainment wing includes a pizzeria, nightclub, and vintage arcade. A monumental project like this needed an equally monumental team which included TK Theaters (designer) and SH Acoustics (engineering design). This project was also featured on HGTV’s “Million Dollar Rooms” where Theo Kalomirakis gave a personal tour of this amazing space. Click to read the full story on this project.  Click here to see the HGTV video. Winning a Gold Technical Design award (in the $251-350k

Fun Room Details

In Deep Thank you for reading the high level article, now we will go into a detailed explanation of this project. This blog expands on the details from the " Home Theater Has Come Out of the Cave " article. The integration firm responsible for building this masterpiece is  Audio Images  of Tustin California. Our designs and engineering is only as good as the implementation and AudioImages came through on every detail. The Room Shell The physical issues that needed to be dealt with to accomplish these goals dictated a few design solutions: Sound Isolation The room had to be decoupled from the Great Room that is located directly above it. This prevents the sound leakage from disturbing the adults. Decoupling loosely means to build resilient wall and floor-ceiling structures with little to no connections to the house’s framing structures. The purpose is to limit every contact point that could mechanically transfer sound energy and interfere with daily use

THE GRIMANI FILES: Bringing Life to a Comatose Home Theater

This client was referred to us by the integrator, who completed this installation about 10 years ago. The room was a dedicated three-row home theater in an upscale neighborhood of Detroit. All the gear was state-of-the-art for its time - from the studio-grade speakers, to the professional HD video projection system. But the surround decoder finally gave up the ghost after several years of faithful service. The client heard that Dolby Atmos® was the latest thing, so he sourced a new processor. He expected it to be an automatic upgrade, but wasn’t aware that he also needed to add speakers for the Top and Wide locations. At any rate, it was time to install, configure, and tune the system for the new processor. I took the job and carved out two days - right before Christmas - for a quick jaunt from my temperate San Francisco Bay Area home to frigid Detroit. (Who doesn't like a little cold for the holidays?) While planning the trip, I found out that the system didn’t include any

Performance Media Industries, Ltd.

61 Galli Drive, Suite B. Novato, CA 94949, USA
[T] (415) 883-1476
[F] (415) 883-8147