Five companies have teamed up at the Integrated Systems Europe show in Barcelona to create what must be one of the most spectacular home theatre systems money can buy. It’s called the Luxury Immersion Cinema, and it’s designed to showcase the possibilities available when “cineman-level video standards and uncompromising immersive audio are combined in a luxury home environment.”
First reported by TechRadar, the Luxury Immersion Cinema is the brainchild of Ascendo, Barco Residential, StormAudio, PrimeTheater and Technology Integration Partners. Barco Residential took care of the visuals, supply its stunning Runar LED video wall, which is based on MicroLED technology with a 0.9 millimetre pixel pitch and a native DCI 4K resolution of 4,096 x 2,160, and delivers a 100,000:1 contrast ratio. It boasts 100% DCI-P3 coverage, 300 nits brightness at DCI-grade HDR, rising to 500 nits for consumer-grade HDR and 005cd/m² black levels, enabling it to support both professional cinema and consumer formats.
Barco Residential’s Runar LED video wall is a fantastic piece of kit no doubt, but like other video walls such as Samsung’s The Wall, LG’s Magnit and Sony’s Crystal LED CAPRI, it’s not so great with audio. Basically, when you buy one of those monster displays, the sound is something that you have to sort out yourself, but getting it right can be problematic, for you can’t just hide the speakers behind the scene. As such, it can be tricky to get the right spatial positioning for the truly immersive surround sound such a display requires.
That’s why Barco Residential has teamed up with the others. The Luxury Immersion Cinema boasts an incredible 14.8.8-channel Ascendo sound system that’s built specifically for LED video wall systems. The speakers are designed to fit around the display and provide the front-channel localisation that’s found in traditional cinemas and ensure proper immersive sound.
Ascendo said it used six of its most advanced THE8 Pro Passive LED Wedge speakers to supply the front channels, with additional THE10 Passive Wedge 30, THE10 Passive On Wall and THE10 Passive LED Phantom speakers providing side, overhead and rear channels. Finally, there’s eight really hefty THE28 Sub Pro Squared subwoofers and eight A1A1-10K2 IS infrasonic amps to provide what must sound like absolutely solid bass.
“For LED applications, audio must be perceived as coming from the vertical center of the wall without exception,” said Geoffrey Heinzel, co-managing partner of Ascendo. “Our design approach, as always, is to use point source speakers for seat-to-seat performance consistency in multi-seat home theater environments. Because our speakers are direct-radiating, they are capable of extremely high-performance results.”
StormAudio's Elite 32 Analog system provides the smarts, using spatial mapping and calibration algorithms to ensure coherence between the audio and video, compensating for the distance between the various channels. PrimeTheater designed and built the installation, while Technology Integration Partners helped, unsurprisingly, with the intricacies of integrating the various systems.
“With the ISP Elite 32 and our new Impulsion 8 amplifier, we provide the precise steering and dynamic power needed to ensure the audio is as impactful and localized as the video, creating a seamless sensory experience,” said StormAudio CEO Olivier Thumerel.
“This is more than a technology demo,” added PrimeTheater CEO Helder Martins. “It is a masterclass in modern residential cinema, giving integrators a clear vision of how DCI-grade LED video and immersive audio designed for LED, in concert with a room built for performance, raise expectations for what luxury home theaters can and should deliver.”
