Home Theater Audio System Standards - What Are We Trying To Do?
by Anthony Grimani
So you claim that you're putting together a high performance home theater. But do you fully understand what that comprises? Do you know all the little ins and outs of why some products work better than others in selected applications?
I know it's hard to take time to read through technology reports, research papers, and product reviews to learn how to design the best possible theaters, so I'm going to help. I'll give you some facts along with my honest unbiased opinion of what a home theater is supposed to be. And of course everyone reading this will agree with me... NOT!
I know we'll get some mail criticizing this or that position, but we gotta start somewhere; shoot now - we'll talk later.
Let's first cover what the theater is supposed to do. It is supposed to reproduce sound and pictures as closely as possible to those intended by the creators of the program material. If the creator was good at it, you can get a realistic representation of naturally occurring soundscapes and landscapes. All it takes is for the playback system to do the same thing to the program material as what the creator's system was doing. Then presumably you will hear and see the program the same way they did.
The good news is that there are actually standards and specifications for the audio-visual monitoring system used by program creators. Read more...
For more information on this and other topics, visit our website where you'll find a range of published articles and informative links.
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PMI Engineers Screening Room at Martis Camp in Lake Tahoe
Martis Camp is the pinnacle of private, residential communities located on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, California. Comprised of 2177 acres, this community offers an abundance of amenities and year-round activities. The 18,000 square foot Family Barn was built for a wide range of uses - with a bowling alley, art studio, concert stage, and screening room.
The compact 50-seat community screening room - designed and engineered by PMI - includes state-of-the-art picture and sound. While the project had some obvious limitations and compromises, it turned out to be a great-sounding room for this family-oriented community.
 
For more info and photos on PMI portfolio projects, visit our website.
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PMI Engineers Practice & Recording Studio
We recently designed and engineered a practice and recording studio in a luxury home in Northern California. The dedicated space inside the home needed complete sound isolation so the client could play, practice and record music without sound leaking into the rest of the house. PMI specified suspended walls, a sound door, and a range of acoustical panels and treatments to make the room sound great for its many uses.
See the plan drawing below which shows one of the walls where we specified SõN™ Acoustic System Modules by MSR Acoustics - and below that is a photo of the finished space showing the same wall in its final state, complete with Pete Townshend decorated acoustically transparent curtain using the high-quality printing process from the Salon Acoustics™ line of decorative acoustical panels.
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