Barrel Speakers Have Arrived!

Here are a few photos of our new line of Barrel Speakers we just installed yesterday.
These “Basso” subwoofers and “Festa” outdoor monitors were custom finished in “Rustic Walnut” to match the surrounding wood work. Barrel Speakers are a brilliant idea and look gorgeous, they have definitely arrived!

Double Feature

What do you do when you have a Media Room downstairs, but you like to entertain on the main floor of your house? Logically, you remodel your Living Room to turn it into a secondary Media Room. The major problem with living rooms and projection systems is ambient light. That’s where Screen Innovations comes in with their vast screen materials and mounting options. Black Diamond material is the perfect solution for rooms with a lot of light and still having a vibrant image. And the Zero Edge Pro with RGB lighting gives a clean elegant finish.

Because this room will have high traffic, we wanted the speakers and equipment to be out of the way. The Middle Atlantic Essex audio rack housing all of the electronics and networking for the house is hidden in the hallway closet. For speakers, there are three Focal 300LCR6’s for the fronts, four Focal 300IW6 for the surrounds, four Focal 300ICW8 for Atoms, and four JL Audio Dominion 10’s for subwoofers. The front stereo speakers and stereo subwoofers are powered from Marantz’s PM8006 stereo integrated. The rest of the surround sound is powered by Marantz’s SR8012 flagship Audio Video Receiver. Araknis Networking is making sure everything and everyone is connected. Total Control 2.0 from Universal Remote Control Inc. is making everything easy to control from anywhere in the house.

The second part of this system design was what to do for a projector. We already had a good projector downstairs and needed a new one upstairs. So we moved the existing JVC RS57 projector upstairs and installed a new JVC RS3000 8K projector downstairs. The picture improvement on the new projector is amazing. And with 8K e-shift, all of your media is crystal clear.

JVC Laser Projector

Laser PEW PEW!

Recently, one of our great customers decided it was time to upgrade his projector in the Media Room. After considering all the options he decided to go with the JVC DLA-RS4500 Native 4K Laser Light D-ILA Projector. With 20,000 hours of illumination at high power, replacing bulbs are a thing of the past. The output of 3,000 Lumens helps make the images pop off the Screen Innovation Slate Motorized Screen, even with ambient room lighting. And as always, JVC has the best native contrast ratios, giving the best possible black levels. And because this projector uses a laser, its dynamic contrast ratio is infinity : 1! The overall image quality delivered is purely spectacular.

Incredible Remodel

We recently wrapped up an extensive audio/video system for one of our best customer’s newly remodeled home. Making all of the equipment hidden was an important requirement for this house. This is achieved by hiding all of electronics in the downstairs Media Room cabinets. Including the Marantz receivers, Kaleidescape Movie Server, Roku Ultras, Sooloos, and Pakedge networking. All of the speakers are in-wall mounted, including the JL Audio subwoofer in the living room.

The video for the living room and master bedroom are done with Samsung’s The Frame TVs with custom dark wood matching bezels, allowing the TVs to look like art pieces when not in use.

URC’s Total Control keypads and remotes are installed throughout, but you can always control the system with your phone or tablet.

Focal 300 Series in-wall speakers are throughout the whole house adding to the fun factor.

For the Media Room, a pairing of JVC and Screen Innovations bring the movie off the wall. The full Dolby Atmos system is running through a Marantz AV8805, AnthemAV A Series amplifiers, Focal IW1002BE speakers, and two JL Audio Fathom F113 subwoofers. Let’s just say, this room rocks! We are really happy with how this house came together, hope you are too.

Outdoor Media Center

This has definitely been one of my all time favorite projects. Good friends and clients decided to add to their beautiful home some outdoor entertainment. It was a bit of a challenge as we didn’t want the screen and speaker system to distract from their beautiful view or their custom built fireplace.

So we brainstormed and came up with the idea to install a motorized swing hinge for a 65″ Samsung flat screen TV. We also installed 5 of the new Focal in-ceiling 300ICW8 speakers. For the Bass, we used an Episode outdoor subwoofer which was hidden inside the firebox.

All the other electronics are housed in the adjacent living room entertainment cabinet. The new Marantz’s New SR 7013  was used along with Kaleidescape’s Strato ULTRA HD movie and concert digital library system. To automate the system we installed URC’s new MX-990 universal remote.

This system sounds so good and certainly has that “James Bond” affect when you see the TV magically come out of the ceiling.

Thanks to you two again for allowing us to work with you all these years. It just keeps getting better.

Jim Lee