Michael Marklund
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2002
- Messages
- 160
First things first: I am not a professional reviewer and I also did not write down every component model #. This was a casual ivitation from one of my clients to watch a movie at his house. (We had previously discussed being HT buffs.) Secondly: I have a lot of clients with a lot of money. I have seen $400k watches, $1.4 million for a car, and $27 million for a diamond. Many of my customers have big bucks and almost all of them have at least one hobby they indulge their wallets in. The guy who let me watch his system owns a telecommunications company. Not only can he afford this kind of gear, he understands it down to every single iota. He is not just someone with big $$ that hired some consultant and said: "build em a big home theater." All of this stuff was picked by him and the room was built to his specs. As a final note-see the info on the custom cable later in this post. Please bear with my amateur review.
When we left the kitchen and went down the hall, my friend told me that when he has people over, he usually tells them that this is his video system. (We enter the first room.) Two B&W Nautilus stand out in front-the bigger ones with the mid atop the woofer cabinet and the tweeter looks like a sideways teardrop on top of the mid housing. Five other B&Ws are built into the walls. A 20"ish Velodyne sub w/ granite base sits off in the corner. There's a Runco projector w/ about a 7-8' screen and rack of Japanese components. Not bad. Beats my system cold. He tells me there's about $65k in that system. We leave the room and enter "The Theater". My friend explains that this room is for the real movie/HT buffs.
It's somewhere around 35'x25' w/ 12'+ ceilings. 1000sq/ft he tells me. First impression is that it's not done yet. He explains that it in fact is not done yet. No wall treatments, no shelving built in, oddly the system is 5.1 not 7.1. More on that later. Four or five leather sofas are next to and behind each other, forming two rows of seats.
Immediately the eye goes up. Suspended from an inverted pedastal from the ceiling are TWO of the biggest projectors I've ever seen. He begins to explain that they're Vidikron Vision Ones each with it's own quadrupler and they have been "enhanced" by Madrigal. They run in tandem, simultaneously. Prior to his set up, no had run two at once for the same movie. He worked w/ Transparent Audio to design a cable that would split the signal off the Snell & Wilcox Interpolater and send the signal to both Vidikrons at once. (That cable cost him $22k and he and his engineers did the design work!) (BTW, the enhanced Visions run $90k apiece w/ the quads.)
Ok, nuts and bolts. I will try to list as much as I saw/can remember. Here goes: mains and rears-Wilson X1 Grand Slams (silver finish), rear back and center-Wilson Watt/Puppy, sub-Wilson (don't know model, but it's 7' tall!!), speaker cable (all over the floor, this stuff is everwhere)-Transparent Audio Reference XL balanced, Amps-(get this) next each speaker (connected w/ TA ref XL interconn is a Mark Levinson 33 monoblock. I think there were 7 of these laying around and perhps it was a 336 for the sub?? Two audio racks about 5' tall. One for HT, one for 2ch. HT: Proceed Modular DVD Transport, Proceed stand alone Decoder, Proceed Surround Processor (all 3 silver boxes the same size, don't know models.) Transparent Audio Power Controller, JVC super vhs, Snell & Wilcox Interpolater, AMX Phast Landmark mainframe for home automation/remote. The 2ch-Mark Levinson 37 reference cd unit, Mark Levinson 30something preamp, and one other Mark Levinson component that I can't remember (brain overload.) The screen: 150" Stewart Grayhawk (sp?).
Started w/ the first 20 min of Fast and Furious, the intro of Lost in Space, all of Windtalkers, and finsihed w/ pod race seen from PM. (note for Star Wars fans- this guy is connected high enough up that if I had wanted, I could have watched all 3 of the first Star Wars movies...on DVD!--yes, I even held them in my hand. No they weren't bootlegged and had original studio packaging) P.S.- he has about 2400 dvds.
I will not get into whether his system is $985,000 better than mine. Nor will I get into the debate over the merits of spending a million dollars on an HT system. All I can tell you is that nothing I have ever seen/heard comes close to this system. Even if I tried and stared right at one of the main speakers during the movie, I could not hear the sound coming from the speaker. The soundstage was so amazing, it was almost impossible to localize any speaker (especially the rears.) The sound was perfect. If you have ever fired a M1 Garand rifle, you will know the sound of the little tin metal clip hitting the ground after it ejects. Having shot this gun enough times, I jerked my head towards the screen to see wheat rifle was being used in Windtalkers b/c I had just heard the exact recreation of that clip ejecting. Speaker sound so precise I could tell the type of rifle in a movie by the sound of the clip hitting the ground. Unbelievable! I'd swear the sub could move the sofa I was on. It went beyond blowing my pantleg around. I knew the pod race seen had a ton of the lowest bass around, I had no clue what that meant until now. Wow.
Video was without equal. No errors period. No chroma bug, no moire, no jaggies, no combing...just picture and color so real it blew me away. I tried hard to find some identifiable error or flaw in the picture. Something that would prove to me I was watching digital and not film. Couldn't find it. Simply, it looked exactly like film. ( without the dust other anomalies.)
Sorry for the long post. Just had to share a great evening w/ all of you. He has extended an offer to me to come back, and I will. (duh.) Hope I got as many of the model #'s, etc correct. So much to try and memorize and yet still actually enjoy the system. If any q's, post and I'll try to answer when I can.
Thanks,
MM
Oh yeah, it's 5.1 not 7.1 for now b/c the two surround back WATT/Puppys are not hooked up yet, FYI.
Admins-ok to move this to the After Hours Lounge if it's inappropriate to this area.
When we left the kitchen and went down the hall, my friend told me that when he has people over, he usually tells them that this is his video system. (We enter the first room.) Two B&W Nautilus stand out in front-the bigger ones with the mid atop the woofer cabinet and the tweeter looks like a sideways teardrop on top of the mid housing. Five other B&Ws are built into the walls. A 20"ish Velodyne sub w/ granite base sits off in the corner. There's a Runco projector w/ about a 7-8' screen and rack of Japanese components. Not bad. Beats my system cold. He tells me there's about $65k in that system. We leave the room and enter "The Theater". My friend explains that this room is for the real movie/HT buffs.
It's somewhere around 35'x25' w/ 12'+ ceilings. 1000sq/ft he tells me. First impression is that it's not done yet. He explains that it in fact is not done yet. No wall treatments, no shelving built in, oddly the system is 5.1 not 7.1. More on that later. Four or five leather sofas are next to and behind each other, forming two rows of seats.
Immediately the eye goes up. Suspended from an inverted pedastal from the ceiling are TWO of the biggest projectors I've ever seen. He begins to explain that they're Vidikron Vision Ones each with it's own quadrupler and they have been "enhanced" by Madrigal. They run in tandem, simultaneously. Prior to his set up, no had run two at once for the same movie. He worked w/ Transparent Audio to design a cable that would split the signal off the Snell & Wilcox Interpolater and send the signal to both Vidikrons at once. (That cable cost him $22k and he and his engineers did the design work!) (BTW, the enhanced Visions run $90k apiece w/ the quads.)
Ok, nuts and bolts. I will try to list as much as I saw/can remember. Here goes: mains and rears-Wilson X1 Grand Slams (silver finish), rear back and center-Wilson Watt/Puppy, sub-Wilson (don't know model, but it's 7' tall!!), speaker cable (all over the floor, this stuff is everwhere)-Transparent Audio Reference XL balanced, Amps-(get this) next each speaker (connected w/ TA ref XL interconn is a Mark Levinson 33 monoblock. I think there were 7 of these laying around and perhps it was a 336 for the sub?? Two audio racks about 5' tall. One for HT, one for 2ch. HT: Proceed Modular DVD Transport, Proceed stand alone Decoder, Proceed Surround Processor (all 3 silver boxes the same size, don't know models.) Transparent Audio Power Controller, JVC super vhs, Snell & Wilcox Interpolater, AMX Phast Landmark mainframe for home automation/remote. The 2ch-Mark Levinson 37 reference cd unit, Mark Levinson 30something preamp, and one other Mark Levinson component that I can't remember (brain overload.) The screen: 150" Stewart Grayhawk (sp?).
Started w/ the first 20 min of Fast and Furious, the intro of Lost in Space, all of Windtalkers, and finsihed w/ pod race seen from PM. (note for Star Wars fans- this guy is connected high enough up that if I had wanted, I could have watched all 3 of the first Star Wars movies...on DVD!--yes, I even held them in my hand. No they weren't bootlegged and had original studio packaging) P.S.- he has about 2400 dvds.
I will not get into whether his system is $985,000 better than mine. Nor will I get into the debate over the merits of spending a million dollars on an HT system. All I can tell you is that nothing I have ever seen/heard comes close to this system. Even if I tried and stared right at one of the main speakers during the movie, I could not hear the sound coming from the speaker. The soundstage was so amazing, it was almost impossible to localize any speaker (especially the rears.) The sound was perfect. If you have ever fired a M1 Garand rifle, you will know the sound of the little tin metal clip hitting the ground after it ejects. Having shot this gun enough times, I jerked my head towards the screen to see wheat rifle was being used in Windtalkers b/c I had just heard the exact recreation of that clip ejecting. Speaker sound so precise I could tell the type of rifle in a movie by the sound of the clip hitting the ground. Unbelievable! I'd swear the sub could move the sofa I was on. It went beyond blowing my pantleg around. I knew the pod race seen had a ton of the lowest bass around, I had no clue what that meant until now. Wow.
Video was without equal. No errors period. No chroma bug, no moire, no jaggies, no combing...just picture and color so real it blew me away. I tried hard to find some identifiable error or flaw in the picture. Something that would prove to me I was watching digital and not film. Couldn't find it. Simply, it looked exactly like film. ( without the dust other anomalies.)
Sorry for the long post. Just had to share a great evening w/ all of you. He has extended an offer to me to come back, and I will. (duh.) Hope I got as many of the model #'s, etc correct. So much to try and memorize and yet still actually enjoy the system. If any q's, post and I'll try to answer when I can.
Thanks,
MM
Oh yeah, it's 5.1 not 7.1 for now b/c the two surround back WATT/Puppys are not hooked up yet, FYI.
Admins-ok to move this to the After Hours Lounge if it's inappropriate to this area.
