BESPOKE HOME CINEMAS AND DBM TURN UNUSED GARAGE INTO A FAMILY CINEMA ROOM
Bespoke Home Cinemas and DbM once again partnered to work on a project that saw the team utilise Meridian and Trinnov to turn an unused garage into a six-seater cinema room.
As a longstanding Bespoke Home Cinemas client, this was the second cinema room that the integrator would build for them. The team originally created a retractable ‘stealth’ cinema in the lounge of the client’s previous home; it was always his dream to have a dedicated cinema as a personal retreat from his stressful job.
Eight years passed, and the client wanted a cinema installed into his new six-bedroom family home in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Bespoke Home Cinemas had recently designed a state-of-the-art demonstration space, which features products from the DbM portfolio, including Meridian and Trinnov.
“When looking to create a new cinema demonstration space, we researched many brands,” explains Gifford Malcolm, Director at Bespoke Homes Cinemas. “Meridian has always been a brand we’ve followed and admired from afar. We were provided with several in-depth demonstrations at their UK showroom, as well as a factory tour - which turned our heads. The dedicated demonstration spaces, listening rooms, and the impressive technology built on-site, along with what goes on behind the scenes in the factory, contributed to our decision to choose this brand. The dedicated team looked after us from the early design discussions to selecting the right products to demonstrate, making us feel we were in good hands. It was without question that Meridian was going to be our top choice.”
With this new showroom in place, the integrator invited the client to experience the cinema room. Having enjoyed the demo, his mind was made up and he said, ‘I’ll take everything you have in here!’
Bespoke Home Cinemas was shown the space in the family home, which turned out to be a triple garage with a structural dividing wall that couldn’t be removed. However, the team was able to utilise the entire space by building the cinema within two-thirds of the space and adding a separate home office in the remaining third.
The whole area was stripped back, and the sloping floor was built up with a screed and floating insulated floor. Bespoke Home Cinemas then studded out the entire area to conceal existing services and filled all walls with ROCKWOOL RW3 and double 'dB Boarding' for sound insulation.
The client wanted only one row of seats so that the audio would be focused on this row. He wanted the room to be designed to specifically achieve accurate audio clarity without ‘chasing the numbers’ on channel count.
Having selected the products from the Bespoke Home Cinemas showroom, it meant that the cinema was a 5.2.2 set-up featuring three Meridian DSP750 in-wall loudspeakers for the left, centre and right channels, two Meridian DSP520.2 in-wall loudspeakers for the surround channels and two Meridian DSP320.2 in-ceiling loudspeakers to provide the Atmos height channels. The room also included two Meridian DSW600 subwoofers.
“DSP loudspeakers have multiple benefits from massively enhanced audio fidelity, amazing dynamics even at lower volumes and also in hugely reduced rack space,” adds Gifford. “From a fidelity perspective, the DSP750 loudspeakers are hugely efficient. They deliver massive power at 500W per speaker and have infinite control over each drive unit as they have a dedicated power amp for each driver built into the speaker housing. This gives the client an exciting, dynamic, detailed and life-like experience with zero fatigue and amazing immersion. It allows us to deliver incredible fidelity and thunderous low-frequency response without masking any of the fine details.”
The entire room was fabric wrapped to conceal speakers and to provide acoustic treatment for a clean linear effect. This was further enhanced with numerous zones of DMX controlled lighting.
An awkward nib at the rear of the room was utilised to form a comms room, with access to the room via a ‘hidden’ door within the rear Accupanel diffuser wall. The comms room features a Meridian 271 Theatre Controller and a Trinnov Altitude16 Audio Processor.
The whole project took just six weeks to complete, which included the extensive building work that was undertaken to convert the garage to habitable rooms.
The room is used daily, and the client has enjoyed building up an extensive collection of classic and cult films from the 80’s and 90’s on his Kaleidescape server.
Before
After
“The client was thrilled to see the finished room,” comments Gifford Malcolm, Director at Bespoke Home Cinemas. “They were highly impressed with the transformation and how quickly it all came together with minimal disruption. They praised our dedicated team for managing the entire project, making it much less stressful without involving other trades. Each day, we had to keep the clients away from the space as they were eager to see the daily progress. When we finally unveiled the room, it exceeded their expectations, they couldn’t have been any happier.”
Equipment List
- 3x Meridian DSP750 (LCR Speakers)
- 2x Meridian DSW600 (Subwoofers)
- 2x Meridian DSP520.2 (Surrounds)
- 2x Meridian DSP320.2 (Atmos)
- Meridian 271 Theatre Controller
- Trinnov Altitude16 Audio Processor
Bespoke Home Cinemas, visit www.bespokehomecinemas.co.uk
For more information about DbM services and distributed products, contact us.