This June, Adept Integrated Systems Ltd walked CE Pro Europe through the company's most prestigious and complex install yet. The entire £320,000 ($418,000) project took four years to complete and tripled in budget along the way. It was also the first installation to use Barco's new residential Loki Cinemascope 4K Laser projector for a home theater project.
“The cinema features the first Barco Loki projector which the client has waited patiently for. The projector has the serial number 001!” says Matthew Cupper, MD of UK-based Adept Integrated Systems.
Cupper started Adept in 2007. The company boasts many prestigious clients and has recently been working with clients building holiday homes abroad. This particular project came about when a property developer that Adept had previously worked with supplied a tender specification for a job. Adept was shortlisted for the project and ultimately became the awarded contractor after a project interview with the client.
The 35,000-square-foot property features a sophisticated Savant/KNX based control system featuring a whopping 36 zones of HD video, seven surround sound rooms (not including the main home theater), almost 100 zones of audio, DALI and DMX lighting control, and as much technology that could be crammed into the impressive property.
Barco Loki Is at the Heart of the Home Theater
To complement the quality of the rest of the house, the client instructed Adept to design a superior home theater system to seat his family and guests. This included front row seating featuring four custom-made day beds that seat up to eight people, with the back row made up of a more conventional nine theater seats – custom-made to accommodate a taller client – offering ample seating for a total of 17 people.
Using a Savant control system, Adept worked with brands like Barco Residential, Cal Audio Tech, ATI, DT Screens and Arcam to deliver a discreet Dolby Atmos/DTS:X theater boasting 4K laser projection and digital streaming content via the home’s media sever (the integrator lists Fusion Research as the media server brand, though the photos seem to indicate Kaleidescape at the time of photo shoot).
Being the first ever Loki Cinemascope 4K Laser install (projector supplied by Genesis Technologies), naturally Cupper is brimming with pride.
“The Loki delivers a resolution of 5120x2160px which means it is possibly one of the only projectors that does not need an anamorphic lens to deliver widescreen format, whilst also offering the benefit of not losing pixel quality,” says Cupper.
“Many other products out there either enlarge the pixel with the lens to fill a native 2:40:1 screen or do the same by zooming in with lens shift, which in effect drops around a third of the pixels. This projector also automatically detects which format is playing so will switch between 16:9 3840×2160 and 2:40:1 5120×2160, saving the client the need to select the right picture size. The Loki is also super bright at 6,700 lumens; there is also a 8,500 lumen Media Room version too.”
Complementing the projector is a 180-inch DT Screen, a relative newcomer to the market. “This delivers one of the finest acoustically perforated fabrics the industry has seen and for a fixed screen solution it's also a very competitive price point,” adds Cupper.
Audio from California Audio Technologies speakers and eight subwoofers deliver a powerful audio experience in this Atmos/DTS:X set up room, powered with almost 15,000W of power from ATI digital amplifiers, with Arcam taking care of all of the signalling.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Another feature helping to make this home theater stand out is its curved Manhattan Skyline light box, which Adept created for the client to make a seat at the bar area feel like looking out of a window. The backlit, acoustically perforated, stretched fabric artwork allows the acoustic treatment to perform to the best of its ability while also delivering the aesthetic that the client and the design team requested.
“The most challenging aspect of the project was managing change. During the four year duration, the project tripled in value,” says Cupper. “Many changes were due to the client’s misunderstanding of the original tender brief, but he also wanted to understand [which products] would offer the best performance for any given price point. The client could afford to spend more money, however at some points the additional cost only offered a small gain which was deemed not to be ‘worth’ the investment. It was our job to demonstrate, offer the options and, in the end, allow the client to make the final informed decision. The theater alone came out almost at the price of the original whole-house tender.”
Adept also installed lighting and heating control from KNX, access control and security from Texecom, a 640-zone intruder system and a 100-zone integrated fire alarm from Fike and Siedele.
“A CCTV installation featuring 28 intelligent IP based cameras from Visualint, IP based PIR sensors and IP controlled floodlights led to some complicated programming, with CCTV tracking, guard dogs barking through audio systems and the whole shooting match,” laughs Cupper.
The outdoor section of the project also stands out to to Cupper.
“I am so impressed with the sunken garden,” he says. “We used a James Loudspeakers 109AT70 All Terrain kit which features eight satellite speakers and a subwoofer which was completely hidden in a living wall planted system. The sound coverage and imaging from the speakers is so amazing. For under £8,000 [about $10,000] it was one of the nicest sounding systems I have heard – even on systems that have been four or five times more expensive.”
The team installed custom-made Cal Audio Tech loudspeakers in the pool area. The speakers are built into columns with 12-inch subs in the bases. Four of these monoliths act as full range speakers, with two dual 15-inch subs providing the low end, installed under the pool area seating.
“This project gives the client absolute flexibility to access his music and video, as well as control the mood via light, without having to worry about how and why it works, which is just what the family wanted,” says Cupper.
Equipment List
- Barco Residential Loki Cinemascope
- DT Screens Frontier 180”
- 3 x CAT 500 Custom Speakers
- 6 x CAT 400 Surrounds
- 4 x CAT 200 Atmos
- 4 x CAT S3 Custom Subwoofers
- Arcam AVR860
- ATI AT526NC Amplifier for Surrounds
- ATI AT524NC Amplifier for Heights
- ATI AT543NC Amplifier for LCR
- ATI AT544NC Amplifier for Subs
- QSC QSYS CORE110F DSP for Subwoofer time alignment and EQ
This article originally appeared on CE Pro Europe.
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