Oprah and the Obamas

In a recent Christmas special, Oprah asked the Obamas how the children liked living in the White House. The president's answer was "the kids love the movie theater."

Good answer, kids. Pictured is the White House home theater (and wow is it RED!).

Deland theater update

The Deland theater pictured prior is finally finished. We installed basic acoustic panels to the front and side walls to improve the sound quality. Acoustic treatment is the easiest and most cost effective way to improve the sound in any room.

In this theater, we coordinated with the owner as to the color and size of the panels and then glued them to the walls. It was a simple process that made everyth

ing sound better!

The overall cost of the acoustics and installation was about 10% of the total electronics budget, but the impact on the quality was at least 30% better. Dialog is now more intelligible, pans and audio steering are more dramatic and the soundfield is more distinct.

Often overlooked, acoustical treatment can turn an average home theater into a great one!

Storch Fixes Theater

We were recently called in to fix the theater pictured. The theater is a good design: it includes acoustical treatment, high end electronics, control of the lighting, a good remote control and comfortable seating. This sounds like the right stuff, so what then could be the problem?

The system looked and sounded horrible and was difficult to operate. The company responsible for the original installation must have stopped when they heard sound and saw a picture. In the course of our diagnosis we found that the surround processor had never been set up, the video projector was set to a very dim output mode, the main power amplifier was never hooked up to turn off and was always very hot, and the remote control was not easy to use nor did it include modes for all of the equipment.

After completely rewiring the system and relocating some components to better locations (the DVD player was so close to the inside top of the cabinet that it was next to impossible to load a disc), we calibrated the system using precision instruments. After we set the processor and projector to the correct modes and calibrated them with our test gear, we ran a set of reference audio and video clips that allowed us dial in the last 10% by using our most precise instruments - our experienced eyes and ears. Lastly, we reprogrammed the remote control to function more easily and intuitively.

The system now performs as it should and delivers the picture and sound quality the owner always envisioned.

Deland project theater almost complete

Pictured is the theater for the Deland project, shown prior at the rough construction stage. This theater features a 90 inch wide acoustically transparent video screen with the left, center and right speakers behind the screen. This is the optimum location for the speakers as they are: 1. positioned at ear level and; 2. allow the sound to match perfectly the onscreen picture and action.

A roll out equipment rack is hidden in the closet left of the screen with the components controlled via a radio frequency remote control. The vent above the door hides a thermostatically controlled fan that draws heat away from the electronics.

The last step will be to install custom fabric wrapped acoustic panels on the walls to absorb the side wall reflections.

In addition to the theater, Storch installed speakers throughout the house, outside and at the boat dock.

Performance Theater

This intimate theater, built on the second floor of a Winter Park home, features a seven foot wide screen with full digital surround sound and discreet, inwall and inceiling speakers.  Because of space limitations and the minimalist interior design, the subwoofers, typically hidden in cabinets or behind furniture, were installed flush in the ceiling.

Winter Park Home-the photos you didn't see

This home was recently featured in Winter Park Home magazine.  There were lots of great shots but none of the entertainment systems.  it was a great article and showed a lot of the fantastic detail work performed by many of the team at Phil Kean Designs.  Part of our contribution was the home theater shown above.

Karaoke Theater Gets an Update

This theater was originally designed about 16 years ago.  At the time it was state-of-the-art and featured a laser disc player (12 inch-remember those?) with a wired microphone for karoake. It also had a large CRT video projector hanging from the ceiling.

It fell into disuse by the owners because of multiple equipment failures and by the fact that the remote controls were as numerous as they were hard to use.

Storch Entertainment was called in to update the equipment and to provide an easy to use remote control.  We replaced the laser disc with a BluRay DVD player, changed the projector to a high resolution (1920x1080 - 2 million pixel) video projector, replaced the wired karaoke microphones with wireless units, and added inceiling rear surround speakers.

Lastly, we programmed a remote control to allow one-touch control of all of the electronics and the lighting (including the disco lights on rear of projector box).  The transformation took about 30 hours and made this room fun for the owners once again.