This might be one of our favorite home theaters yet, featuring JBL and Sony home theater components! When this family set out in search of their dream home a few years ago, one of their main goals was to find a home with enough space to build the front-projection-based home theater of their dreams. They specifically searched for a home with a rectangular-shaped unfinished area (preferably over the garage) that would allow them to customize every detail of the room. With a son reaching his teenage years, they wanted to make sure they would have a space mature enough for the entire family to enjoy together, including an adjacent billiards & gaming room.

These homeowners worked with Audio Advice several years ago to help build out a Dolby Atmos surround sound system in their living room, and that system made the move from their previous home, but they had to compromise on speaker placement to align the floorplan with the aesthetic of their new space. While the media room system still sounded incredible, having the TV over the fireplace and the compromised speaker placement due to the open floorplan did not allow for the immersive experience they desired.

Once the family got settled into their new home, they contacted Audio Advice again to get started on their new home theater. After playing around with our free 3D home theater design tool, they met with a system designer to finalize their line drawings and renderings, talk through the foundational and construction considerations to accommodate their goals, and select the perfect products for full immersion.

These homeowners truly love to experience the audio & sound effects of movies and they did not want to compromise on any aspect of the audio quality — all decisions were made with function over form.

Sound

JBL Synthesis High-Performance Home Theater Speakers

This was our first theater to have the latest JBL Synthesis SCL speakers which provide amazing dynamics for their cost. They can produce the full effect of an explosion or reveal the subtle emotions of a whisper. All of the models chosen use the exact same version of JBL’s patented D2 compression tweeter with their HDI waveguide. The SLC-6, SCL-7, and SCL-8 also use the exact same 5.25” aluminum woofers. This combination gave us an incredibly seamless surround sound experience with identical speaker drivers all around. The new design of the SCL-7 waveguide allowed us to take the surround speakers and completely cover all of the listening areas as well. We’re excited to be the exclusive online dealer for these great new JBL Synthesis speakers.

In-Wall Subs

Due to the size constraints of the room, we chose JBL Synthesis in-wall subwoofers with their two largest SSW-3 Dual 10" In-Wall Subwoofers on the front wall and two SSW-4 Dual 8" In-Wall Subwoofers in the back of the room. By using 4 subwoofers, we made the bass extremely even across all the seats. The front subs use dual 10” woofers in a sealed enclosure that is 5 ½ feet tall! When coupled with the JBL Synthesis power amps, these completely fill up the room with a very impactful bass.

Acoustics & Sound Isolation

Another main concern for this homeowner was noise isolation & keeping the sound contained to the theater room with minimal bleed to other areas of the house. Having the room located over the garage certainly helped, but all of the walls, floor, riser, and ceiling were packed full of Rockwool insulation to greatly reduce sound contamination. The rear wall where the room connects to the house also has additional layers of plywood behind the drywall to further cut down on the amount of sound bleeding into the bonus room. Audio Advice worked directly with Vicoustic engineers to conduct an acoustic study of the room to determine where any potential issues may arise and designed the placement of different acoustic treatments to keep reflections down without making the room sound overly damped like many basic acoustic treatments can do.

Video

Sony VPL-VW715ES 4K HDR Home Theater Projector

With its great picture and the ability to project widescreen using its lens memory feature, this new Sony projector was a perfect choice. It matches up beautifully with the selected screen size and delivers more than enough output for wonderful HDR content.

The unfinished room contained an existing window that resided on the wall where the homeowners wanted to place the screen. Since completely eliminating the window would change the aesthetic of the exterior of the home, we chose to completely cover the window & build a false wall that would provide enough depth to both hide the window and provide room for the in-wall speakers and subs.

Stewart Filmscreen 130” Acoustically Transparent Wall Screen Deluxe

For the true movie theater effect, an acoustically transparent screen was mounted in front of the speakers to allow the sound to come right out of the screen with perfect audio. Stewart’s latest G4 StudioTek 130 material was used with their patented micro-perf technology.

Rack Placement

The customers wanted the equipment to be located in the adjacent bonus room to cut down on heat and noise while saving space in the theater room itself. However, they did not want the placement of the equipment to look like an afterthought, so we wanted to find a way to integrate the rack into the design of the bar. To achieve the desired design aesthetic, we chose a Strong Signature Series rack that features a smoked glass door. Once they knew the dimensions of the rack, they custom-designed the bar to make everything look cohesive and to make sure that there was still plenty of ventilation to keep all of the equipment cool.

Home Theater Lighting & Control

Control4 allowed us to control all of the components from one simple remote and from iPads and iPhones. This allows the homeowner to pause a movie, and the video will stop and the lights will automatically turn up.

High-performance DID fixtures from DMF were used because of their super high color rendering index and their ability to seamlessly dim down to any level while holding their color temperature.

Billiard Room

The customer wanted the ability to bring what is playing in the theater into the adjoining billiards room. To achieve this, we connected a 55” Sony X800H TV to the JBL processor’s zone 2 output. This allows for any of the theater sources to be used with this TV and the audio to play through the in-ceiling speakers. The TV can either mirror what is being played in the theater or use one of the other sources to play independently, so if someone is watching a show on the Apple TV in the theater, the XBOX or PS5 can still be used in the billiards room. Running the zone 2 audio through a Sonos Amp also allows for music playback on any music streaming source without needing to power up the entire rack.

Gaming Nook

This area was made for the kids! The customer wanted a place for their son to be able to hang out with friends and play video games or watch TV while also still having great sound. The JBL HDI series was the obvious choice here as they share the same compression driver technology that is found in the theater and fit perfectly on the entertainment center. The gray oak finish also just looks stunning against the dark accent wall. They chose to run this gaming area separate from the main system and use it to connect up all of their legacy video game systems. There is a Wii, PS2, and even a Super Nintendo! The TV was hung using an articulating mount so that it can be viewable from the billiards room if there are multiple sporting events going on at the same time.

We were just as delighted as the homeowners to put together the space of their dreams, ready for any Super Bowl party, family movie night, or video gaming session they throw its way!

At Audio Advice, we've been designing and installing high-performance home theaters & smart home systems for our customers in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina, and surrounding areas for decades. In fact, we've delivered more custom theaters than anyone in the Southeast! We are now offering Home Theater Design no matter where you live in the United States! If you are interested in a custom home theater or upgrading your current system, give us a call at 888.899.8776, chat with us, or stop by our Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina showrooms. We can't wait to help you build your ultimate home theater!