Music and Movie Heaven - Leeds, Yorkshire
This centre piece of this beatifull home is the stunning lounge room, with refernce level arcam and B&W audio compoenents and a 50" plasma screen which transforms into a very high performance cinema at the touch of a button.
The client required an attractive family TV area that could seamlessly transform into a high performance home cinema room at the touch of a button. The client also requested that the home cinema projector could be enjoyed at any time of the day, regardless of the light conditions outside.
In conjunction with the main lounge cinema area, very high quality music was required through the home with an adjoining music room having the main music focus.
Transformation from TV room to 7 foot projection cinema
In order to transform the room from lounge, to home cinema room a variety of technologies were used. A 7 foot Screen Research electric projector screen was housed in the ceiling, completely out of sight. The projector was also hidden in a drop down Future Automation projector lift that descends from the ceiling to conceal the projection system when the room was in TV mode. Finally an automated black out blind was specified at the back of the room that drops in time with the projector, screen and curtain to allow perfect darkness to enjoy a movie at any time of day.
Automated curtains separate the open plan room
The home cinema room itself is part of a large open plan living space featuring the kitchen, dining room, music room and cinema. For watching movies it was necessary to screen the cinema room space off to block out light, and prevent the sound from travelling through to the other room spaces. At the touch of a button, the music room and home cinema room area are separated using an automated curtain track that blocks out the light from the cinema screen and also has huge acoustic benefits for the music room and cinema improving the sound quality dramatically.
High end Linn music room
The music room also shares the open plan living space with the home cinema room. The client requested the very best sound quality available, and also required a pair of speakers that would suit the design of the room. A pair of Linn Artikulat speakers were specified, after a trip to the manufacturers Glasgow show room with a Linn Klimax pre-amplifier and DAC to produce the very best audiophile quality from the digital output of the Squeezebox music system. The automated curtain and thick heavy rug significantly improves the acoustic properties of the room, given the otherwise hard surfaces in the room. The quality produced by the Linn Artikulat speakers is breathtaking and represents the pinnacle of audiophile quality.
Music Source and Multi Room Music
The Logitech Squeeze box system controlled via the clients iPad's and iPhones was used to browse a huge lossless audio collection from a network storage drive on the houses gigabit home network which allows all 10 rooms in the house to receive the very best quality of music without compression or loss over long cable lengths. To this end all music players were discretely located within the rooms bespoke cabinetry with digital audio from the music players then sent to local DAC's (digital to audio convertors) from JAV audio which then fed in to Rotel amplification and B&W , Linn and Anthony Gallos speakers to deliver the best possible quality.
Dependent on the style and use of the room in ceiling, wall mounted and freestanding speakers were used and allow independent access in each room or simple linking for parties to deliver the same music tracks throughout the whole house simultaneously.
HD video system
A completely separate high definition video system was installed to ensure the integrity of the music system was unaffected. Via any of the 5 TV screens in the house the client and his family can select and watch either of 3x Sky HD boxes, Apple TV, Blu-Ray video or the interlinked CCTV system completely independently.
All control of the audio system is via simple to use Universal Remote control which are custom programmed for very simple but incredibly effective operation of the system which anyone in the family or guest can pick up and use without instruction.
The client's verdict
As part of very early design brief, the client was adamant that the room should be a family room, and therefore needed to be "family friendly". Designing and specifying the correct control system and interface was key to achieving this. As the client's wife quotes "I was worried at the start that with all this technology that I wouldn't be able to use it. However, I was so impressed that you’ve made everything so simple. Browsing and selecting music via our iPhones is amazing and the remotes that you provided are great for the kids as they just get on and use the rooms like they had a normal TV. The cinema room is always full of kids and the seating design works really well as we can all enjoy the room at the same time!".
