Any who know me well know my love of a good home theater. I had an ad-hoc one in a townhouse years ago: remember the single Lazy-Z-Boy recliner in the middle of the living room perfectly centered on a 100” screen? I came much closer to a dedicated theater in a house in Fort Collins, CO that the prior owners intended as such, but never added any equipment. The room was too small in every dimension, but at least it had zero windows and proved very enjoyable. I even re-used my entire 5.1 speaker system (from the townhouse) I bought in 1997!
Since we’re building a new house from scratch, I can now go nuts. Much like with Whole Home Audio, our home builder offers a turn key home theater. You literally don’t have to lift a finger upon move in. Just start watching movies. But of course I can’t go the easy route! As an avid audiophile/videophile I enjoy researching and installing equipment almost as much as using it. The dealer offered option is quite basic. You get a 7.1 system with ok speakers, with an ok amp and an ok video projector. No substitutions. And you pay through the teeth. For less money I can get more theater, albeit with considerable elbow grease.
The home theater room itself will be a fully enclosed and dedicated space that measures 18’(W)x27’(L)x’9’(H). I know I’ll have two rows of seating, I don’t yet know if I’ll go with 3 or 4 seats per row. There is enough space in the back to install floor cabinets for storage underneath and food on top for game day. We worked with the home builder to add three separate 20 AMP circuits for the room. One circuit is just for the equipment cabinet and the other two circuits are for the subwoofers.
Paradigm In Wall Speaker
Luckily our AV dealer, Audio Buys, very nicely agreed to install four quality in-wall speakers in the surround and rear positions. Audio Buys offers Paradigm speakers, which is a fine brand, so I spec’d out four Paragidm CI Elite E80-IW in-wall speakers that they install, for a nice, flush mounted look. That means, for tonal matching reasons, I’ll stick with the Paradigm brand for the front and center speakers. They’re also installing speaker hookups in the front and center positions as well as two subwoofer hookups in opposing corners. All speaker wires run to a central location. Finally an HDMI cable hookup in the ceiling (14’ from the front wall) will run a video projector.
Two of these should do the job
Here’s the equipment I plan to add myself after we move in:
- Two front speakers: Paragidm Prestige 95F tower speakers
- One center speaker: Paragidm Prestige 55C
- Two subwoofers: SVS SB-16 Ultra
- A/V Receiver: Anthem MRX-720
- A/V Rack: Middle Atlantic ERK-3525 (35 RU)
- Surge protector: 20 AMP Tripp Lite 12 Outlet
- Projector: Optima UHD60
Anthem Receiver has plenty of connections
I already have a 4K Blu-Ray player and Roku Streaming Stick+ for content.
I’m pretty solid on the choices except for the projector. The Optima is an ok projector — good, but not great. As of this writing, the Optima is $1600 whereas a great projector, such a true 4K Sony, is $5000. Video technology changes quickly; whatever projector I buy now will be completely out of date in five years. I’m not inclined to spend big money on something that has a short shelf life. Speakers that, on the other hand, sound great now will sound great 20 years from now. Speaker technology just doesn’t change much.
The Middle Atlantic A/V rack is larger than I need (at 35 rack units) right now. But it will also house the 4 Sonos AMPs for whole house audio, which is part of the reason I opted for a dedicated 20 AMP circuit. In addition the home builder is installing 4 sets of cables (CAT6/RG6) for hard-wired security cameras, which also terminate at this same A/V rack (for a future surveillance DVR). Add in a rack mounted network switch and security gateway and I suspect most of the 35 RU will be in use eventually.
