Author Archives: Jim Lee

Home Theater Transformation

Over the years we have had the pleasure of transforming a basic surround sound room into the ultimate home theater room. Our customer recently remodeled his entire room to optimize the listening experience.

With the risers and theater chairs, every seat is perfect. For the viewing experience, we are using a Reference JVC projector and a Screen Innovations 152″ wall mounted screen.

The audio/video processor is the top of the line Marantz 13.2 channel AV8805. To make sure that the speakers have all the needed power, two Anthem amplifiers are being used to provide the juice.

For the main speakers, what else would we use, but two Focal Sopra 3’s with a Sopra center channel in Imperial Red? The surround speakers are PSB’s that were installed in the past. For Dolby Atmos enabled in-ceiling speakers, four Focal 300ICW8’s handle all of the immersive sound. To tie all of it together, a pair of JL Audio Fathom F113 subwoofers.

It has been fun to see the transformation of this room over the years and the friendships that have been formed. Can’t wait to see the next steps.

Small Room – Limitless Entertainment

This week we finished a home theater system for two of our long term friends and clients. This is a relatively small room but fortunately has overall nice acoustics. I feel we reached a very nice balance of a large, engaging viewing-screen, along with exceptional sound to go with it.

For the speaker system we used 2 JL Audio F113 series 2 subwoofers, which normally might be considered a bit overkill for this size of room, but that being said there is not an unexciting place to sit anywhere. For the main speakers we installed a complete Focal Aria front, center and on-wall surround speaker system. We used the new Marantz SR 8010 top-of-the-line receiver. This was our first installation of this tank of a receiver. Both Adam and I were very impressed with it’s easy set up and effortless sound.

For Video we installed the new JVC projector and Screen Innovations wide-ratio wall-mount screen. What a great place to escape into a movie.

Thanks both of you for allowing us to help you have this.

Hello, Mimas!

About 3 years ago I had a lunch with my good friend, Jim White, owner and Chief
Design Engineer of Aesthetix. Jim asked me if I felt anything might be missing from their product line. We talked about music loving customers who are listening through home theater products instead of a real music setup with Preamps and Amps. And how many clients just want a simple, beautiful sounding, “just add speakers and source” listening system without spending a king’s ransom.

This week Jim called me with this very nice surprise. The Mimas integrated hybrid amplifier, intended for high performance audio and home cinema systems.

I feel that the Mimas amp should be a great answer to many of our customer’s desires. It will seamlessly adapt to any existing home theater system without musical compromise. And it will offer options to vinyl listeners and present an excellent value for serious music lovers.

We should be getting our prototype in our shop next week. Jim feels we should see the finished product soon. I will update as soon as we’ve had a chance to give the Mimas a listen.

Focal Kanta No. 2

We just received our first pair of Focal’s new speaker line called Kanta.
This is the first model released with more to follow later this year.
The word Kanta according to “Behind the Name” means “beauty
and desire.” According to “Wiktionary” it means “to sing.”
Immediately after unboxing these last night, it was evident that they
are indeed beautiful, and after just a short listening session (even without break in) we could tell they definitely know how to sing.

Focal is positioning the long awaited Kanta line just above their Aria line, and just below their Sopra and Utopia lines.
They share Aria’s flax or linen woofers and midrange speaker material, as well as
Sopra and Utopia’s pure beryllium tweeter and much of the internal cabinet structure technologies.

They are available in several finish combinations. Click here to check them out.

Listening Room Upgrades

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of helping two of our favorite customers dial in their listening system. We recently upgraded their speakers with a beautiful pair of Focal Sopra 3’s.

Because of the large room volume we also installed a stereo pair of JL Audio F113 subwoofers to fill up the low frequency to allow for a huge believable sound stage. We also replaced all their cabling with Nordost Heimdall 2 series.

What fun it was getting the speakers placed perfectly and then experimenting with dialing in the subwoofers. When we were done we all decided it sounded as if we were at a live concert. Thanks you two!