Old barn renovation gets Dolby Atmos cinema update from AWE and Halycon AV

An ambitious renovation in the Buckinghamshire countryside has seen this Dolby Atmos cinema installed by Halcyon AV, with leading distributor AWE. The property, which was purpose-built to replace an old barn in the grounds of a family home, required a comprehensive AV overhaul.

The original barn was demolished and re-built within the same footprint, offering plenty of technology opportunities. One early challenge that had to be surmounted by Halcyon came when linking the building to the house, as it required them to run very long cables between the two buildings. The main TV, Wi-Fi and network distributions are located in the house, so maintaining a high quality signal was vital.

“The brief from the homeowner was to provide a stylish yet discrete home cinema, which was equally suited to watching films and listening to music,” explains Director Tim Dyer. “During the early stages of specifying the equipment, the client asked for a demonstration of what could be achieved. I got in touch with AWE as they had just finished the cinema room at the head office. We both went for a full demonstration of Dolby Atmos and knew it was the perfect system for the job.”

The owner of the property adds: “We had advice from Tim initially as to what system would work well. But really it was when we went down to the AWE showroom, and heard all that the system could do, then we thought wow, it’s fantastic and it would be perfect for us.

The building has been designed with AWE-supplied technology at its heart. The home cinema is fully insulated and features sound proof screens and blinds, allowing the immersive sound produced by the KEF speakers to be contained within the building. KEF Ci3160 speakers were installed around the 65-inch Panasonic AX802 4K screen, with KEF Ci160QR speakers installed into the ceilin

“We specified KEF for a number of reasons” continues Tim. “The client was keen to keep as many speakers as possible in-wall, and I don’t think there is a product that is as good as the KEF offering currently on the market. The customer has been really impressed with the sound.”

Providing amplifaction and decoding is a Marantz SR7009 AV receiver, for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and a Marantz UD5007 Blu-ray player.  The speaker configuration is 11.2. To ensure the cinema room is easy to use by the whole family, Halcyon AV opted for a URC MX1200i touchscreen remote control.

“The room has different uses for all of the family” explains the homeowner. “I love using the room to listen to music through the sound system. But the whole family has been using the room as a home cinema – we all watched the final of The Great British Bake Off in here.”This is one of the larger Dolby Atmos installations that Halcyon AV has done, and the results have been outstanding. With more Atmos compatible Blu-rays now available, more installs are certain to follow.

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