Grimani Systems CEDIA 2018 Show Report

Working on another great project with Karl Mautner and Integr8 in China , Anthony Grimani flew to Shanghai to do the final calibration on a world-class home theater. The home is marvelously appointed with the finest materials. Located next to an indoor lap pool, the theater is a fusion of classical and Chinese design form, and is dressed with Cine-Living fabrics. The Triad Cinema Plus speaker package is driven by a set of Theta Dreadnought amps, all controlled by AMX. The system includes a 16 channel Ashly digital audio processor to fine-tune the nine speakers and 12 subwoofers. An awesome dual-stacked Runco  D-113d projector lights up the 180” wide 2.39 screen. Wow! World class! While in China, Tony also met with several AV technology, design and architecture press, including Insider and LP - click the links below to see these articles.   http://www.evolife.cn/html/2014/75365.html   http://dh.yesky.com/hometheater/336/35896836.shtml#top

Last month, we attended The Home Entertainment (T.H.E.) Show in Orange County, California, where we partnered with The Lotus Group who used our Audiophile First Aid Kit (AFAK) to optimize the room for their high-resolution loudspeaker sy stems. Utilizing top-tier components from our Dimension4™ Symphony system, our Audiophile First Aid Kit is a premium-grade acoustical tuning system that improves accuracy, focus, and tonal balance. (click to read product sheet) Joe Cohen at The Lotus Group was happy with the results of our AFAK - as were numerous journalists and reviewers - check out the kudos below!    " The sound was wonderful, with tremendous space and bloom." Robert Harley - The Absolute Sound " Another tip of the hat to The Lotus Group and their stunning performance..." Neil Gader The Absolute Sound Also at T.H.E. Show, Anthony Grimani conducted two seminars on Listening Room Tuning Techniques. Anthony's in-depth courses ...

At 7th Street Media Station in Santa Monica, California, MSR was brought in to help the client convert a large open space into a multi-purpose room. The new room incorporates (1) a voiceover and control space, (2) multichannel mixing and sound production, (3) green-screen soundstage, and (4) a cool hang-out lounge. MSR engineered the solution, created the plans, and supplied a combination of SõN Acoustics and  ZSound Ensemble modules to tune the space for all of its applications. According to Mark Viehas, "The initial listening experience has been remarkable. In a hybrid film editorial /shoot /record and mix room designed to be flexible, spacious and above all comfortable over a long day, Tony has created a sound environment that's spot-on from all angles." ................................................................................................................................... Infinity Custom Systems of San Jose, California chose a Dimension4 ...

Check out Anthony Grimani's column in the May issue of Residential Systems... "I am standing in my backyard in disbelief, looking at the partially complete fence that I asked a contractor to build to keep the ravenous Northern California deer from eating my priceless heirloom tomatoes. These deer are gymnasts. They can jump over a 6-foot fence from a standing position all day long, especially if a salad buffet is open on the other side. My disbelief comes from the fact that the fence ended up being different from what we agreed upon. The contractor had showed me a picture on his iPhone that was exactly what I wanted: a nice, simple fence. What he built was totally different…time to disassemble and start over. What went wrong here? It wasn’t communication. We were clear about what was to be built, and he even proposed the design! The problem was documentation. In my haste to get back to the office to continue designing the world’s top home cinemas, I failed to draw the agr...

Read Anthony Grimani's column in the May issue of Residential Systems... "We need to stop reinventing the wheel where bass is concerned. I’ve met two industry veterans recently who’ve espoused very antiquated ideas as if they were new revelations of “purist” audio. We abandoned these ideas more than 10 years ago because they don’t produce smooth, tight bass for the whole audience. There’s a better way to do it. We don’t use full-range speakers to play bass anymore. We don’t have separate subwoofers for each main channel or the LFE. That’s because in the worst-case scenario, that approach can lead to absolutely no bass in the main seating area of a home cinema because of inherent standing wave resonance issues. Let’s review." > CLICK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE For more info on our products and services, please visit our website .

This is a story that happens time and time again in hundreds of rooms all around the world. It is a tale of terrific audio gear, talented people, good intentions and… terrible sound. In this particular case, Anthony Grimani of MSR Acoustics played the role of the “room doctor,” while a famous music studio played the “patient.” In the wings, a well-known composer waited to hear the outcome. Would he be able to use his new studio composition room? Or would he have to continue using headphones? It all began after composer Guillaume Roussel moved into his new studio space in Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions facility in Santa Monica, California. This facility houses many musicians, composers and sound engineers, each with their own space to create music. Roussel had just purchased more than $10,000 worth of new speakers, amplifiers and subwoofers to go along with his existing digital audio recording workstation, flat screens, keyboard and composing rig. But the problem was th...

I'm here in Dana Point, California, doing phase one audio calibration of a dedicated private cinema in the Emerald Cove neighborhood of this upscale community. This phase is all about initial configuration, testing, and debugging of all the audio components in this 7.1 channel system with eight ceiling-mounted subwoofers.  I'm also finishing up with a basic room tuning equalization and will finesse that after the internal finishing of stretch fabric and drape is completed. This room needed a rather large sliding door along the right wall in order to keep a sense of openness to the space and to reduce anxiety over claustrophobia. A motorized drape with combination of absorptive and diffusing strips will be added in a few weeks. So far so good. Caught a few small mistakes, like L-R channel reversal, polarity of back set of side surround speakers (there are two pairs for soundfield evenness), and the obligatory HDMI configuration and reliability challenges. The integrator...

A few years ago, PMI partnered with Triad to launch three new home theater audio packages for customers desiring complete turnkey design + product solutions. Each package includes a fully engineered design, a set of loudspeakers appropriate for the room, and an acoustical treatment package that takes control of the speaker-room-listener interface.   This project in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia, started off as a PMI/ Triad Cinema Plus project, working with Design Media Group . The brief was to add a room into the upper area of a high-ceilinged condo penthouse - literally hanging from the roof structure! PMI designed the layout of the room architecture and specified the audio/video system. We supported the construction process and calibrated the system in its final stages. "Sonically, this room is quite spectacular, and the client is very happy," says Peter Chakales with Design Media Group. "We recently played a virgin vinyl copy of Steely Dan's ...

by Anthony Grimani Home theater acoustical treatments need to be at least two inches thick, and preferably four inches thick for decent audio quality. Why? Because one-inch materials only treat sounds down to 1 kHz. Everything down below that is freely bouncing around the walls of the room.  For proper audio imaging and articulation, you need to control sound reflections down to at least 500 Hz, and preferably down to 250 Hz. Remember that the Middle A on a piano keyboard is 440 Hz, and you want to go down to that, at least. Just as bad, however, is creating an acoustically "dead" room. It is convenient to go in with one of the franchised stretched fabric wall systems to cover up all of the walls in a theater. They are simple, quick, clean, cost-predictable, but very wrong.  Read more - full article published in Residential Systems Magazine .