We at Bespoke Home Cinemas, alongside our distribution partners at DbM, have once again created magic by transforming an unused garage into a six-seater reference-level cinema room.
This project marked our second venture with a longstanding client who initially had us craft a retractable ‘stealth’ cinema in his previous home’s lounge. His dream was to have a dedicated cinema space as a retreat from his stressful job. Fast forward eight years, and now settled in his new six-bedroom family home in Leeds, West Yorkshire, he wanted to bring his cinematic dreams to life once more.
Recently, we designed a state-of-the-art demonstration space, showcasing top-tier products from DbM's portfolio, including Meridian and Trinnov. As Gifford Malcolm, our Director, explains, “When looking to create a new cinema demonstration space, we researched many brands. Meridian has always been a brand we’ve followed and admired from afar. The dedicated DBM team looked after us from the early design discussions to selecting the right products to demonstrate, making us feel we were in good hands. It was without question that Meridian was going to be our top choice.”
We invited our client to experience this new showroom, and he was instantly sold, exclaiming, "I’ll take everything you have in here!"
The new cinema room was to be housed in a triple garage, with a structural dividing wall that couldn’t be removed. We utilised the double garage area for the cinema and the single garage for a home office. After stripping back the entire area, we built up the sloping floor with screed and floating insulated flooring. We studded out the space to conceal existing services, infilled all walls with ROCKWOOL RW3, and double dB boarded for soundproofing.
Our client’s vision was clear: one row of seats to focus the audio precisely. He wasn’t interested in chasing numbers on channel count but achieving audio clarity. We delivered a 5.2.2 setup, featuring three Meridian DSP750 in-wall loudspeakers for left, centre, and right channels, two Meridian DSP520.2 in-wall loudspeakers for surround channels, and two Meridian DSP320.2 in-ceiling loudspeakers for Atmos height channels, along with two Meridian DSW600 subwoofers.
“DSP loudspeakers have multiple benefits from massively enhanced audio fidelity, amazing dynamics even at lower volumes and also in hugely reduced rack space,” adds Gifford. “From a fidelity perspective, the DSP750 loudspeakers are hugely efficient. They deliver massive power at 500W per speaker and have infinite control over each drive unit as they have a dedicated power amp for each driver built into the speaker housing. This gives the client an exciting, dynamic, detailed, and life-like experience with zero fatigue and amazing immersion. It allows us to deliver incredible fidelity and thunderous low frequency response without masking any of the fine details.”
To create a clean, linear effect, the entire room was fabric-wrapped to conceal speakers and provide acoustic treatments, further enhanced with numerous zones of DMX-controlled lighting. We ingeniously utilised an awkward nib at the rear of the room to form a comms room, accessed via a ‘hidden’ door within the rear Accupanel diffuser wall. This room features a Meridian 271 Theatre Controller and a Trinnov Altitude16 Audio Processor.
This comprehensive transformation took just six weeks, including extensive building work. Now, the room is used daily, and our client revels in building an extensive collection of classic and cult films from the ’80s and ’90s on his Kaleidescape server.
“The client was thrilled to see the finished room,” says Gifford. “They were highly impressed with the transformation and how quickly it all came together with minimal disruption. They praised our dedicated team for managing the entire project, making it much less stressful without involving other trades. Each day, we had to keep the clients away from the space as they were eager to see the daily progress. When we finally unveiled the room, it exceeded their expectations; they couldn’t have been any happier.”