Sound Sense Recently Completed a High-end 33-seat Theater in Just a 25 X 19 Space Featuring Phase Technology Audio. – rAVe [PUBS]

In densely populated areas of India, it is common to see multi-use buildings that house both a business and residence. Sound Sense, an award-winning integration firm in Surat, has one of Indias most elite showrooms and is quite familiar with working in this type of structure. Sound Senses state-of-the-art showroom displays living and office space possibilities to meet virtually any audio, video and control need that is then customized for each client to meet their unique requirements and budget.

A local dental surgeon reached out to Sound Sense after recently completing construction of a 4-story home/business with his dental clinic located on the ground floor and residence situated on the upper three floors. He had a two-fold vision for the uppermost floor to provide a place to retreat from the long hours of the work week and to provide a place to get together with family and friends on evenings, weekends, and special occasions. The client envisioned a high-end theater, yet they only had a room sized just under 25 x 19 to work within.

Our client wanted a larger-than-life movie experience whose vibrancy was to remain isolated from the dental clinic below, said Ankur Bhatt, founder and director of Sound Sense. The client requested a monster-sized screen and a high-end audio video calibrated system that well exceeded the limited budget that remained after the other construction expenses. We were able to carefully select components that allowed us to fulfill his vision while staying within the allocated budget.

The main challenge was to meet the large seating requirement in such a limited space. After assessing the room size, screen size, speaker placement, seating needs and acoustics, we designed five rows of seating for 33 people using six or seven seats per row in non-reclining chairs. The six-seat rows were designed to accommodate the pillars on each side of the room.

We used a discrete speaker setup with the surrounds placed in the center of rows one and two and rows three and four to achieve the correct phase alignment for these rows. Diffuser panels were used in the back half of the room to add spaciousness to the sound and reduce the localization of the surround and rear speakers. For subwoofer placement, we performed a room analysis, and the seats were place in the optimized zone with moderated peaking and no nulling. We needed the boundary gain from the wall for the subwoofers and placed the two subs in the corners of the room to create a virtual sub in the center. This gave us the real estate we needed to place more seats.

To address the noise isolation issues, we designed the acoustic treatments to rectify the reverberation time and solve problems related to the flutter echoes. An intricate isolation system was installed in the floor and an acoustic sheet was added behind the Milan acoustic transparent screen. We also installed a dedicated split air conditioning unit with internal thermostat controls in the equipment room to overcome the typical Indian heat whether the cinema room was in use or not.

Phase Technologys CI Custom Install 3-way in-wall speakers were selected for cinema audio for their high-quality sound and noise isolating properties. The tweeter and midrange assembly absorb the horizontal sound waves through Unicell Acoustic treatment to minimize interaction with the mounting wall resulting in amazingly precise imaging and clarity.The patented CI 130 uses a hybrid in-wall enclosure design that lowers the transmission of sound into an adjacent room while keeping the bass output at levels close to an infinite baffle design. With this design, a speaker with the same size rear enclosure will have bass output that extends up to one octave lower than a comparable speaker.

We selected Phase Technology loudspeakers and subwoofers for this project as they brought us the superlative sound and resonance we needed for this cinema. With our experience installing Phase Tech speakers over the past few years, we can vouch for their consistency and reliability in terms of quality output and technical performance over time.

Read more:
Sound Sense Recently Completed a High-end 33-seat Theater in Just a 25 X 19 Space Featuring Phase Technology Audio. - rAVe [PUBS]