COMPANY FOCUS: CONNECTED DISTRIBUTION
GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS ‘A CINEMA IN THE HOME’, NOT A HOME CINEMA Connected Distribution’s product director, Mike Bonnette, explains the difference and why the launch of the Aurea brand in the UK changes the home cinema landscape.
Designing speakers for cinemas is a wholly
Aurea is the domestic brand created by
different game to designing speakers for Hi-Fi
LW Speakers in 2015. But when we say
and home cinemas. In Hi-Fi and traditional
‘domestic’ don’t think about the usual on-wall
home cinema it’s about precision, accuracy,
or in-wall speakers sold by CI manufacturers
clarity and that indefinable thing, musicality. In
and distributors – these are scaled down
cinemas it’s about precision, accuracy, clarity,
(although in some cases not by much) versions
wide dispersion, intelligibility in the near-field
of the cinema speakers that deliver the same
and higher sound pressure levels. Cinema sound is very different from music reproduction as the soundtrack contains dialogue that tells the story, as well as music and special effects, and spans a vast frequency range, meaning the speakers have to work hard. It’s something that Luis Wassman, founder of Madrid based LW Speakers, one of the world’s foremost suppliers of loudspeakers to the commercial cinema sector, knows only too well. He is a cinema industry legend, whose career started with the manufacture and supply of 35mm film projectors. In the early 1990s, when Dolby systems started to appear in cinemas, Luis diversified into speaker design to service the growing need for better quality audio systems to complete the package of projection and sound. He’s been designing and supplying
quality and dispersion characteristics of movie soundtrack reproduction as the LW Speakers products deliver in cinemas. When we met with Luis he was very careful to point out that Aurea speakers are not home cinema speakers, but are ‘cinema speakers for the home’. What
Aurea
has
achieved
with
its
residential products is the goal of ‘intelligibility in the near-field’ in the same way it did for commercial cinema, allowing home users to experience their movies sounding like they do ‘at the movies’. This is the game changer for the install industry – now you can provide a truly genuine cinema experience in the home for your discerning clients. The Aurea range is vast, covering every eventuality for home installation, from the diminutive neo range of compact enclosures that are perfect for media rooms (but also
speakers to the likes of BFI Imax, London;
adhere to the cinema design principles), up to
Odeon Leicester Square; and ten screens,
the almost professional sized Aurea 26 screen
including two Dolby Atmos and one Imax, at the
system and Aurea 21 Sub with its 21” bass
Odeon Milton Keynes; and hundreds of other
driver. These larger models are available with or
venues around the world ever since.
without built-in amplification and DSP control.
56 OCTOBER 2022
Perhaps more commonly installed in domestic settings are the Aurea In-Wall range, which are designed to fit in standard stud walls, behind acoustically transparent screens or fabric walls. If you came to EI Live, it’s this system that you experienced in our Dolby Atmos/DTS-X demonstrations, so you’ll know what it’s capable of. Several specialist ceiling mounted co-axial speakers and wedge-shaped surround speakers complete the line-up. And the ability mix and match all the models in the Aurea range without compromising tonality or dispersion, makes it hugely versatile and suitable for all installations. The amplification is key also to achieving that cinema sound experience in the home. Under the Aurea brand a complete suite of amplification products is available, which are identical to the amplifiers supplied to the commercial cinemas by LW. These range from two-channel to 16 channel models with up to 12,000 watts in diminutive 2U chassis and prices that won’t blow your mind. And, to achieve the perfect performance characteristics, a dedicated DSP processor is available, enabling each speaker and the entire system to be configured to the cinema industry response curve. And, once again, this is the same system used in the cinemas - not a domestic system like the ones you can find in home cinema processors. We’re stocking demonstration products from across the ranges to enable you to experience the speakers for yourselves. Customer installations will be manufactured to order and we will be offering on-site DSP configuration assistance to ensure the perfect ‘Cinema In The Home’ results. Take a look at Aurea and see for yourself how you can give your customers a true cinema sound experience in the home. connecteddistribution.com aureabylw.com
/Essentialinstall
@Install_mag
essentialinstall.com
