VUnderground Theater Movement - January 2004 - page 2
With a clean slate, the client hired Hansen to work with his architect to craft a room that would be a modern high-end theater with classic Hollywood stylings. Hansen took the challenge to heart and started working with an acoustician to create room dimensions that would be optimal for the theater, which would also serve as both a video-based home theater and a stage for the client’s child actor son to perform and practice his craft for family and friends in the audience. Hansen suggested adding risers to the theater, because they had the height to be able to pull it off and it would dramatically improve the sightlines for all of the guests.
Hansen and the client brought in Theo Kalomirakis to design the Old World Hollywood look for the theater in a way that would acoustically be optimized for home theater sound. Kalomirakis’ theaters are typically very ornate and this theater is a classic example of his design style. You’ll note the use of exotic woods and ornate lighting fixtures, paired with lush, sonically absorptive fabrics, which make for a lively and accurate-sounding home theater. The dramatic themes from the theater also transition into the billiard room which opens up into a beautiful, temperature controlled wine cellar. A signature design cue for Kalomirakis is a candy counter. This theater comes complete with one, adorned with classic Coca-Cola memorabilia, as well as awards and trophies won by the client’s son.
 The equipment used in the system was the pinnacle of high-end home theater in the early 1990s, including a combination of JBL Synthesis 2 and Synthesis 3 speakers, installed behind a nine-foot 4:3 perforated Stewart Filmscreen. Tremendous effort was made to not just start with a great-sounding room, but to also then to tune it to the client’s tastes, using exact speaker placement as well as EQ by Symetrix. The electronics used were Proceed, which have been updated a few times in the past 10 years to keep the latest software running on the units. Support from a manufacturer is not always first in the minds of theater consumers, but it is an important issue. Harman, the parent company behind Proceed (now merged into Mark Levinson) brand, has been very good about providing their clients with ways to upgrade their electronics in cost-effective manners that allow theaters to stay relevant years after the checks for pricey electronics are cut. Source components are almost all from Sony or Sony ES, including the DVD player, an S-VHS deck and a DSS receiver.
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