Project -A world-class luxury Home Theatre setup

Mehernosh K Pervez, Sound Decisions

By: Mehernosh K Pervez, Sound Decisions

The client’s vision:

Well-travelled and exposed to the top-notch private home theatre rooms all over the world, the client was looking for an Indian company that could create a world-class home theatre experience in his private space. His brief was clear, he wanted a minimum of 15-to-17-seater luxury theatre amidst his double-height living room, yet unobtrusive. Also, he didn’t want the projector and the screen to be visible when not in use. Primarily, the client’s father enjoys watching movies and hence his son wanted to create a world-class experience solely for him. The basic idea was, why go to a commercial theatre when you can make it happen in the comfort of your own home and with much better video and audio experience than you could ever get from a commercial cinema set-up.

Our analysis:

The room was quite challenging with 23 ft high ceilings. The screen was approximately 44 ft from the seating, so not many speaker brands can achieve great quality sound from such a distance. Therefore we used “Legacy Audio” custom-designed speakers for this, along with the Barco LOKI 4K high brightness laser projector, one of the best in the world. This was driven by a “Storm audio” processor and Parasound power amplifiers. Since the client wanted nothing but the best, we aimed to achieve it by integrating these brands. And it stood true to its performance!!

Scope of work:

Since the main home theatre room was a part of the double-height living area with a “dress circle” type seating, it was important that the LOS (Line of Sight) of the seating was perfect and that all the seats had a clear view of the screen. So, we had to make sure that the seating steppers were properly calculated and designed well. Apart from the same, because of the double-height ceiling, the acoustics were a huge challenge and had to be well taken care of in advance. Proper acoustical isolation had to be achieved and planned before the outer aesthetic finish would come up.

Cutting through the stumbling blocks:

The biggest challenge was the double-height ceiling which needed serious acoustical treatment. Therefore, we had to make sure that the front LCR Speakers fire into the seating space but not scatter around the living area and reverberate. The speakers were cantilevered in the air on structural isolation pads tuned to 7Hz to avoid making the building structure a secondary source. The acoustics were achieved through anti-vibration hangers and clips. The framework on the wall was clad with ply and plasterboards, combined with mass loaded vinyl to achieve the required isolation parameters. All the walls were treated with 112 mm of acoustic floor pads and mass using a mass loaded vinyl system. The ceiling had deep inverted beams so the LF (Low Frequency) traps have been incorporated in the ceiling treatment scheme below the isolation ceiling. The challenge was to bring in a system that has a full range with maximum directivity control to avoid splay horizontally and vertically. For this, we used the Legacy audio “Double Helix” system that was carefully designed to direct energy forward and reduce energy in the horizontal and vertical planes due to highly reflective marble, stainless steel and glass finishes. The double helix system uses dipolar waveguide steering, interference technology and horn loading to achieve this challenge while keeping the phase relation between the drivers accurate to the degree.

Overall experience:

“We always believe that the best AV designs are achieved when your client has immense faith in you and gives you a free hand and that is what we had. We are extremely relieved and happy to be able to deliver a stunning and yet almost “invisible” and immersive home theatre experience. Also, we strongly believe that nothing comes close to your client’s satisfaction and the smile that you see on their families faces when the job is completed”, says

Devices integrated:

1. Legacy Audio 2000 Watts custom active speakers – 9.2.4 2. Barco – Loki – High brightness 4K laser projector. 3. 22ft wide custom “Art Deco” screen from Screen Research 4. Storm Audio AV processing. 5. Parasound power amplifiers. 6. Oppo Blue ray DVD player. 7. Cube Cinema Server. (For

Watching Latest movies on the same date of release) 8. Vogel In-ceiling projector lift. 9. Sonos Music Streamer 10. Control 4 Automation system 11. Moovia Luxury seating

Mehernosh K Pervez, Audio/Video Consultant and Founder, Sound Decisions, Mumbai. He quotes from the client’s feedback, received on text, “Hi Mehernosh, just wanted to inform you that I was watching a movie in the Home Theatre. I can undoubtedly rate this as one of the best in the world. It was, indeed, a good job”.

Final takeaway:

“In the past 28 years of my business, we have been privileged to have done many such extreme highend theatre rooms and there is always something challenging and interesting in all spaces that we design. But what remains constant is the client’s faith in our decisions and our ability to make this happen for them. Their trust in us is our biggest moral responsibility and we always make sure that we live up to those standards they expect from us”, concludes Pervez.