Project Overview

Theater Design Northwest was contracted to upgrade existing systems is this waterfront Southworth home that has a great picturesque view of Seattle and the surrounding mountains. We upgraded a den TV with a soundbar/sub combo for clearer sound and easy operation. Their existing living room theater install had wires running down the wall, didn’t work with no pic/sound and when it did work the client had to always turn off the sub for his wife because it was too boomy.

First off, install a Powerbridge setup and conceal the wires including a new IR sensor for the TV so it would reliably receive commands. The system had a nice URC MX-980 remote, but we converted it to RF for more reliable macro sends and tweaked the programming a bit. Traced the no satellite issue to a non working low quality HDMI cable, once it was replaced we had picture plus sound. Then a complete THX Audio calibration got this system performing to potential and the client had wonderful sound when completed. Integrating the sub properly via the calibration procedure will eliminate the need to turn off the sub because now it is powerful, never boomy. Denon AVRs are notorious for either losing setup parameters on a power outage or losing sound due to their input switching scheme. We corrected all of these issues and provided the client with easy pictorial instructions should the sound ever “dissappear” again. 

Key Components

  • Denon Ci series AV receiver
  • Definitive Tecnology Mythos speakers
  • Panasonic BluRay
  • Samsung Plasma
  • URC MX-980 RF remote
  • Media Server PC  

 

Summary

 To quote the client, the sound is now “Awesome!” After smoothing out the installer settings and programming on his system, it just took 5 minutes of trying things and asking questions to make it so the system is simple to operate. Looks and sounds better too!