GOLD WINNER: Best Home Theater $25,000 and under
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No, you don’t need $50,000 or $100,000 for a great looking, dedicated home theater room. You can have a very good audio and video experience—better than most people will ever have—for $25,000 or less, as the proud builder/owner of this space will tell you.
The idea was to keep costs down as much as possible, so much of the audio/video gear was chosen by the custom electronics pros at Hi-Tech Home to provide the best bang for the buck.
“We wanted to keep it good quality,” says Hi-Tech Home’s operations manager, Chad Lofgren. “The equipment that we used we’ve had a lot of good luck with in the past. We used a Panasonic [1080p LCD] projector on a number of installs, and it creates just as good a picture [as comparable projectors]. We’ve had good experiences with Vutec screens, and the Sonance speakers are good-quality, middle-of-the road speakers to stay within a budget.”
The Panasonic PT-AE1000U projector is mounted in a soffit and projects onto a 92-inch fixed Vutec Silverstar screen, and Sonance Symphony front speakers are located in the custom-built cabinet below the screen, along with a 10-inch Sunfire subwoofer. Four in-ceiling Sonance speakers provide the surround sound for a 7.1-channel system.
The brains of the system are in a Denon AVR-987 receiver. Lofgren says Hi-Tech Home really likes using Denon receivers, because of their sound quality, reliability and ease of set-up. “We really know those receivers well,” he says.
Another favorite is the Control4 home control system, which was used throughout the house. “We’re really big on Control4 for affordable home automation, and we use it for lighting and thermostat control,” Lofgren says. “We can also use it to go on the Internet and give them cover art of the discs in their Sony [400-disc] CD/DVD changer.”
The Control4 system is programmed to automatically dim the lights when the projector comes on, and raises them again when the system is powered off.
Costs were also kept to a minimum by getting Hi-Tech Home into the project from the start, so the wiring and other pre-installation work could be done while this second-floor room was being framed.
To give the room a real theater feel, the seating area was designed stadium style, with the back row a step up from the front. Encore GT theater seats add to the experience. It was all topped off with some vibrant carpeting, just as you would find in a real theater.
Systems Design and Installation
Hi-Tech Home
Clovis, Calif.
http://www.hitechhome.net
Builder
Kludgian Construction
Fresno, Calif.
Equipment
Panasonic PT-AE1000U-EC projector
Vutec Silverstar 92-inch Screen
Sonance Symphony 623 LCR
Sonance Symphony S622C (2)
Sonance Symphony S622TR (4)
Sunfire True Sub EQ subwoofer
Denon AVR-987 receiver
Sony DVPCX777ES 400-disc DVD/CD changer
Control 4 HC-300 controller
Control 4 LDZ-101-W dimmers (5)
Encore GT theater seats (6)
onQ LyriQ F7637 Intercom unit
Cool Components CPCC4FN 4-Fan spacer unit
Monster In-Wall Power Center
Minuteman ETR700 surge protector
Thanks Chad. I really appreciate the breakdown. It confirms that when doing the design and construction myself I over-engineered my theater, and I completely overlooked the overall design. I have a nearly soundproof room with great acoustics, but it lacks the design flair of a professionally designed theater.
I don’t believe that $25,000 is a really outrageous theater when you are starting from scratch, and need to construct the room itself. Having finished my basement / theater myself, it’s very easy to spend tens of thousands of dollars in construction even while keeping an eye on the budget. A quick example from my own theater would be me choosing Quietrock drywall over regular drywall. 40 sheets of regular drywall was $350. 40 sheets of Quietrock was closer to $3000.
If we work with the 40% figure for gear, we have spent $10,000 on theater equipment, and while still pricy, this becomes a lot more paletable to people, particularly if you stagger purchases over a couple of years like I did.
Great job on the theater space Chad, if I could do it all over again, I’d be a lot more likely to hire a professional company like yours.
Chad, this is great info ... thanks for your comments. At your convenience please contact me to see if we can whip something together for EH magazine. jjacobson at ehpub dot com
Julie, you rock! Thanks for listening.
Another idea is to discuss ways and options to use existing legacy equipment that is already own into the new system, Ie, sat receiver, or even old stereos,
Theses are idea for future topics that could be covered.
Chad;
Thanks for chiming in. This has become a very lively discussion.
I offered the idea of a muti use room as a general idea of options for a room, in working within a budget.
Ken
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I would have liked some sort of product description like the size of hard disk, capacity… 
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