Best Home Theaters, Silver and Bronze, $25,000-$75,000

Silver Winner: Acoustical Solution Answers Aesthetic Request Too

This spectacular looking theater shows the importance of following standards and meeting customer challenges is something custom integrators address on a worldwide basis, as with this customer in China. With an emphasis on its 7.2.4-channel sound system that centers on Dynaudio loudspeakers, SentimentHiFi delivered a theater room that also adhered to CEDIA standards and met tight deadlines, according to CEO GuangYu Feng.

“At the very beginning, we recommended the Dynaudio custom system to the client and we told him: When you invest in a Dynaudio custom system, you’re investing in a hi-fi system with heritage … 40 years of audio expertise, harnessing the same core technology, craftsmanship and fanatical attention to detail,” Feng recalls.

SentimentHiFi followed industry standards “from start to finish” in constructing the theater, Feng says, but one challenge was also meeting the owner’s modern décor aesthetic wishes while balancing with quality acoustic design. Not only that, but doing so within a timeframe of just two weeks to complete the project.

Sentiment managed to redesign the sonic footprint and create acoustical treatments for the theater that included rebuilding the partition wall and installing a shock-absorbing wall to reduce noise. To ensure that the audio system, as well as the projection system that includes BenQ projection, perform reliably and optimally, SentimentHiFi equipped the gear with Furman voltage regulators that provide clean and efficient independent power supply to connected devices. Savant controls offer simplified management of the theater room A/V.

 

Systems & Equipment

• Savant controls
• Dynaudio, Syzygy speakers and subwoofers
• BenQ projector
• United Screen projection screen
• Integra amplification
• Morpheus Blu-ray player
• Furman power management
• D-BOX seating

 

Bronze Winner:  ‘Contemporary Classic’ Leans on Close Collaboration

This gorgeous theater room is a prime example of the combined efforts among theater designer, tech systems designer/installer and tech enthusiast client that had a pretty good sense of what he envisioned for a “contemporary classic” space to entertain friends, family and especially grandchildren, says Lifestyle Solutions president Behzad Sarwar.

Lifestyle Solutions handled the design and build-out, while collaborating with its partners at Custom Works on the A/V design and installation. “Our client did a lot of research and knew exactly what he wanted in the A/V system,” Sarwar says. “We worked closely with our client to produce the perfect color scheme and room layout.”

Just as important to the A/V experience was implementing sound isolation, which in this case meant walls and ceiling were all insulated and decoupled using two layers of sheetrock sandwiching a layer of Green Glue, Sarwar explains. The entire room was acoustically treated with fabric covering the top half of the walls.

“Stone work on the columns and front wall was an afterthought, but worked out well with the color scheme,” Sarwar adds. Trim work was done to match existing trim in the house. Meanwhile, Lifestyle Solutions resolved a significant challenge by concealing two doors near the screen wall with fabric wrapping and trim to make them appear seamless with the walls. Of course, the gear itself is no slouch, featuring a whopping 160-inch Screen Innovations Zero Edge screen, Epson laser projector and Klipsch THX Dolby Atmos speaker system.

 

Systems & Equipment

• Screen Innovations projection screen
  Epson projector
  Yamaha preamp and amplification
  Klipsch THX speakers and subwoofers
  URC controls
  Oppo Blu-ray player
  SnapAV rack
  Liberty wiring
  Palliser seating