Project Overview
These clients had a great new home with speakers throughout and a great LG 60″ HDTV sitting on an entertainment center with all of the gear and wiring in plain view. There was just one issue- all of the existing speakers had foam surrounds on the woofers that had decomposed over time. Theater Design Northwest was contacted by the clients for a new design to get 5.1 surround in the family room and get the whole house speakers functional.
The clients had a budget in mind, so we repurposed a somewhat outdated Elite THX Certified receiver that was not 1080p capable and installed future proof wiring infrastructure for potential tech upgrades. For the family room, the final design was an above-fireplace TV and the left, right and surround installs were replaced with excellent sounding made in the USA BG Radia speakers. The dilemma of where to install the center channel was solved with the use of a small form factor MK Sound M7 speaker on top of the mantle below the HDTV. As MK and BG Radia are a very accurate sounding speaker, the system was voice matched nicely all the way around. We repurposed the clients ancient subwoofer as a cost cutting measure as well, but ran into an issue there. The sub driver’s foam surround literally disintegrated during the post calibration listening evaluation on the THX deep bass note! The AR cabinet design and amp were a decent design in their day, so it was decided to rebuild. We sourced an upgraded replacement driver for the client to order and rebuilt the subwoofer onsite for them.
Key Components
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- Pioneer Elite
- LG HDTV display
- BG Radia architectural series speakers
- MK Sound speakers
- Custom Acoustic Research sub
- URC MX-450 remote
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Summary
This birthday gift from the customer’s wife seemed to put a great big smile on his face. In a space with quite a few limitations, careful collaboration and a well thought design produced excellent high end performance that fit the budget.
