Home Movie Theaters

This installation, by Ed Gilmore and Gilmore's Sound Advice of New York City, is notable for its open, multi-purpose layout and clever concealment of audio/video components when the system is not in use. In its resting state, the main room is a stylish, comfortable loft area, complete with brick walls from the original industrial building and floor-to-ceiling windows that peer out onto NYC's Tribeca neighborhood. Come movie time, a Savant control system triggers the shades to close, a screen to drop, and a Sony 4K projector to silently lower from a hidden compartment in the ceiling.

The room's ceiling also houses seven IC-16 speakers from Denmark's Steinway Lyngdorf. Electronics including surround processor and amplifiers are also from Steinway Lyngdorf, with the company's RoomPerfect room EQ technology serving to improve sound quality in a reverberant space where interior design concerns overruled conventional room treatments. A pair of corner-loaded Steinway Lyngdorf Custom Boundary Subwoofers supply the bottom end.

Both an Apple TV 4K and a Kaleidescape Strato 12TB movie player serve as the system's main sources. While the Apple TV offers up a wide world of streamed movies and TV shows, the benefit to the Kaleidescape player is that it lets users download and store bit-accurate versions of 1080p and 4K-format movies—essentially the same as what you get when buying a Blu-ray or Ultra HD Blu-ray disc. Also similar to discs, Kaleidescape downloads feature uncompressed multichannel soundtracks and include the full range of extras content produced by the studio for the title's release.

Manhattan may be an island where small apartments sell for millions and space for most inhabitants is at a premium. But as this installation demonstrates, sophisticated custom A/V integration technology can bring home theater thrills to any living environment—even in the Big Apple.

Equipment List

Sony VPL-VW365ES Projector

Display Devices LCD-105 lift

Savant Pro Host and Pro Remote control system

Kaleidescape Strato 12TB

Apple TV 4K

Steinway Lyngdorf P100 Processor

Steinway Lyngdorf A2 Amplifiers (2)

Steinway Lyngdorf A1 Amplifier

Steinway Lyngdorf IC-16 speakers (7)

Steinway Lyngdorf Custom dual 12-in Boundary Subwoofers (2)

Stewart Filmscreen 120-in 16:9 Visionary ElectriScreen w/Firehawk 1.1 gain

AV Pro HDBT 4K HDMI Receiver

Audioquest Cinnamon HDMI and Optilink digital interconnnects