Skip to main content

Award-Winning PMI Project is More Than Skin Deep


One of our more complex projects has recently been recognized with several prestigious industry awards: the 2011 CEDIA Lifestyle Award for Home Theaters Bronze Level VII, Best Documentation, People’s Home Theater, and more recently the 2012 Electronic House Bronze Award in the Best Home Theater category ($15k+). While on the surface this project has all the beauty and glamour to win these awards, what you don’t see is all the engineering, creativity, problem-solving, and hard work that went into making it a brilliant success.

Nestled just outside the western foothills of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County is the quietly posh community of Hidden Hills. Its beautiful and peaceful ambiance make it an example of small town Southern California living at its finest. The project was brought to us by one of SoCal’s premier integrators, DSI Entertainment, and was a remodel from what was originally an ill-conceived home theater with a bar and a large sliding glass window. We were faced with a variety of structural and design challenges. Read on to learn about five of those challenges and the solutions that we provided.
 
Challenge #1: Along most of the left wall of the room was a large sliding window that looked out on a side garden. The homeowners wanted to keep the window open when the theater was not in use so we set out to design a solution that would control the acoustical reflections off such a huge piece of glass, as well as eliminate the light interference from outside. We devised a large sliding acoustical and blackout panel that was aesthetically integrated into the décor of the room.
Challenge #2: The room had an integrated bar that interfered with the noise control and acoustical character of the room, so we separated the bar from the theater space, and created an entrance atrium. This was the second step toward improving the acoustical envelop of the space.

Challenge #3: The original ergonomic layout of the room was inadequate for proper access to the equipment room and for seat locations relative to room standing wave resonances. Working with Portabella Interior Design, we redesigned, reorganized, and rebuilt the risers and the pathway to the equipment room, concealing the projector in a soffit hush box in the bathroom behind the screening room! We also added a coffered ceiling that also contains acoustical materials to complement the acoustical control on the side and back walls of the room. 
ORIGINAL SPACE LAYOUT
RE-DESIGNED SPACE LAYOUT
Challenge #4: We replaced original and incompetent sound system with a super-dynamic JBL Synthesis system with dual side speakers, quad subwoofers (two on the front baffle wall, and two concealed under the riser).




Challenge #5: We rebuilt the walls, floor, and ceiling for sound isolation to the living spaces above and lateral to the room. Isolation schemes included rubber bushing shock-mounted wall structures, dense rockwool insulation, carefully controlled ventilation silencing, and vibration control plumbing clamps.



To create a superior audio experience, we selected a Dimension4 Sonata acoustical tuning system from MSR Acoustics, which was custom-fitted for the room requirements. The total scheme included turning the riser into a giant Helmholtz perforated bass trap.





A massive PMI 2.0 acoustically-transparent screen rounded out the video display system so that the client can get the biggest and brightest picture in all conditions of resolution and aspect ratio.


Through a collaborative partnership of PMI, DSI Entertainment, Portabella Design, and an enthusiastic homeowner, we delivered on the promise of a stunning room with razor sharp picture and dynamic sound, without even a hint of visible technology. Integration mission accomplished!



Comments

  1. Tony, nice article. Was great to relive the experience, however harrowing it was at times! -Fehmers-

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

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