Big rooms aren’t always the easiest places to install whompin’ home theater systems. Just consider this $250,000-plus project in Indiana. It’s 17 feet wide, and about 40 feet long, and has high ceilings.

The length of the room posed some challenges for a video projector, requiring a long “throw” of 18 feet. To accommodate this, custom electronics installer Tri-Phase Technologies used a Runco VX-2c three-chip DLP projector. “It’s a very powerful projector. We couldn’t have gone with anything smaller for that throw distance,” says Ian Bryant of Tri-Phase. “The three-chip helps with the quality when stretching out an image that large.”

A spacious theater such as this presents audio issues as well, especially with its high ceilings. Sound can bounce around and take a bit longer to get to the listerners’ ears, so Tri-Phase brought in acoustics expects and theater design company Acoustic Innovations.

The theater room is actually an Acoustic Innovations design and uses the company’s fabric to cover sonically reflective and absorptive panels that bounce the sound in some places and absorb them in others to achieve just the right balance.

Sound quality is also enhanced by the Crestron DAP8-RC audio processor, which contains equalization for the 7.2-channel Triad speaker system. Three Triad Platinum speakers are in front, the left and right channels flank the screen behind fabric and above 18-inch Triad Platinum subwoofers, and the center channel is concealed above the 123-inch Stewart Filmscreen motorized roll-down and masking screen. Four Triad Silver in-ceiling dipole speakers are used for surround channels, with the two in back cranked because they’re positioned behind the projector bulkhead. The speakers are powered by a Crestron CNAMPX-7x200-watt-per-channel amp.

The equipment is located in a rack in a nearby room, along with an Escient DVDM-1000 DVD management system and a 400-disc Sony mega-changer. The Escient system displays the movies titles on screen for easy access. But the homeowners don’t have to traipse to another space and load a DVD every time they want to watch something new. A Denon DVD player in the back of the room is available is available to play rental discs.

That’s not the only entertainment in this space. The homeowners had Tri-Phase carve out an ample stage area—with about five feet behind the curtains and screen—for their young children to perform plays and skits. Special lights for their performances are turned on by a STAGE LIGHTS button on the Crestron touchpanel.

Acoustic Innovations provided the home theater chairs, and did work on the cabinets and starfield as well.

About the Author:
Steven Castle - Contributing Writer

Steven Castle is a writer, editor, and humorist who recently completed Filthy Rich Things, a savage satire on our thirst for success and wealth. He is presently expanding his magazine work by writing more about alternative energy sources and green building.