Home cinema installation

Before the owner of this home cinema opens the door, he uses the Control4 app on his smartphone to select a specific lighting scene inside. Visitors enter to walls of Matrix- style digital rain, parting at the front to reveal a perspective image with silhouettes of the owner’s own family. A spectacular bar area outside the room shines under the illumination of purple LEDs — but wait, when we walked through a minute ago, wasn’t the bar red?

Instinct Electrical was the company responsible for the installation of lighting, automation and AV equipment throughout this whole home on Sydney’s North Shore, with a Control4 system running C-Bus lighting, Ness security, video distribution, and Sonos for multiroom audio.

But with the home cinema being such a high priority for the owners, Instinct contacted Wavetrain Cinemas to oversee the creation of a suitable venue and performance level that would satisfy the client’s love of the sciencefiction genre. Wavetrain, a design firm that delivers both acoustic and aesthetic design, suggested making the cinema smaller, with the bar separate, then specifying a fully engineered acoustic system with a combination of custom-engineered bass traps and treatments, a ventilated projector ‘hush box’, and acoustic panels, while the entire cinema is sound-isolated from the home using floating flooring products, dampening, and sound isolation doors.

Sonic performance is, of course, at the heart, with Wavetrain planning the room (above) and specifying Cary Audio amplification and Triad speakers to achieve industry-reference sound pressure levels — four subwoofers balance standing waves and deliver an even bass response across the cinema. It’s a stunning result, visually and sonically.

More info: www.wavetrain.com.au