French chateau pt.7 - Nearly there...

Cinema Rack

Cinema rack is now fully populated! Alongside Onkyo PR-SC5509 AV processor and
Onkyo PA-MC5501 9 ch. power amplifier combo, there is a Denon DBT3313 Blu-Ray player, Dreambox DM800HD Satellite tuner / receiver, QNAP 12TB NAS drive, Imerge S3000 music server and Cisco 24 way Ethernet switch, connecting everything with home network and Internet.
Bottom half of rack is populated with high-end Hi Fi gear
(Two Conrad Johnson pre-amps and two David Berning ZH-270 valve power amps.
driving a pair of Kaiser Acoustics Kawero speakers) Turntable TBC

Cinema room rack wiring nearing completion...

One of two URC MX-5000i Two-way network remotes with color touch screens that will control both cinema room and main house AV.

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Cinema Room

Finally we stretched and mounted 150" Screen Excellence Enlightor 4K, acoustically transparent projection screen. Behind a screen are three Sonance Cinema Series LCR2 speakers.
Everyone was delighted with quality of picture on this big screen.
HD TV (courtesy of Dreambox HD800 tuner ) also looked pretty amazing too.

Just to give a sense of scale...and size of the screen!

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AV Wall

Also completed is custom built, floor to ceiling AV Wall housing a massive Panasonic TH65VX300 65" FHD reference grade plasma screen. Screen is mounted on a large pull out and swivel bracket. Under the screen is Yamaha YSP-5100, top of the range sound bar, hidden behind acoustic cloth. Bank of ethernet sockets behind screen is feeding Android XBMC TV and media player, URC IR/RF over Ethernet emitter and HD Connectivity HDMI over Ethernet box that brings
Sky+HD, Apple TV and Sony Blue-Ray to this room, from the rack on the ground floor.
It looks great even though it is just painted with undercoat!

 Pull out and swivel plasma bracket in action.

 Panasonic TH65VX300 65" FHD, professional grade Plasma Monitor

 Yamaha YSP-5100 Sound projector - hidden behind acoustic cloth.
DVD & Blu Ray storage at the bottom.

 Android - XBMC TV / media player / streamer.

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Network

Finally, last bits of this large home network are in place, configured and fully tested.

Two additional Drytek routers, five (!) Cisco 24 way switches, three indoor and two outdoor WiFi antennas. We used specialist software to determine best possible position of WiFi access points for best coverage of this large property and even larger garden!

One more bit of kit to go into this rack (HD Connectivity 4x4 multiroom HDMI over Ethernet matrix) and the rack is full !!

 One of two Drytek routers.

 Fully configured network with Ethernet patch bays and Cisco switchers.

Network & NuVo rack from the back.

New additions to AV rack - Fully racked, latest generation Sky+ HD box with WiFi 

and Sony Blu Ray player.

Empty slot awaiting HD Anywhere 4x4 HDMI Matrix

Full AV rack!

 One of two outdoor antennas.

It's all in the name...

Lots of people are asking what M.E.G.A. in our name stands for.

I can say that it took us a while to work that out, too...honestly !

But now, it is all revealed :

Massively Entertaining Greatly Appreciated AV Installations

French chateau pt.6 - Network

It was time to address 100+ Cat 6 network cables laid around the house and adjacent buildings.
All of them are terminating near main house AV rack and will populate bottom half of it.
House wifi will be divided into couple of WLAN networks with various access privileges for owners and guests alike. Once configured, as well as wifi, network will provide TV/Video/music streaming.

Start with stripping hundreds of Cat 6 cables...

Two days later, ethernet patch bays all wired and in place.

Back wiev...

Boxes that will hold (and hide) 150+ network patch cables are in place.

AV Rack is nearly full. Still to come 4 x 10 Gigabit switches, HDMI matrix, Sky+ box, Blu Ray player and 12TB rack mount QNAP NAS drives.

Leftovers...

French chateau pt.5 - Cinema room

With the main house multi room system completed, works in the home cinema are progressing.

Cinema will be situated in this lovely old stone and timber barn / summer house. Owners wanted to preserve as much of the original charm so extra care was taken to make everything work. We decided only to paint wall around screen and ceiling section above screen in sexy dark brown. Rest of the room will stay untouched with white painted old beams and stone. Acoustic panels and blackout curtains will be added later, after first room measuring is done but never the less, will complement the interior.

Sonance Cinema Series LRC2 speakers and are in place, fixed on baffle wall behind the screen frame. Freestanding Sonance 12"subwoofers are under the screen.

Frames in front of sub woofers are soon to be covered with acoustic cloth.

150" Screen Excellence Enlightor 4K HD projection screen frame in place.

 View into the garden...

The "white side" of the cinema room which will be also used as a music & listening space.

 Panasonic PT-AT6000 HD 3D projector is in place, surrounded with custom made boxes housing Sonance surround speakers.

 Rack room behind cinema screen is painted and AV rack is slowly getting populated with gear.

 150" metal frame that will hold the screen is mounted over extruded mdf frame which holds L/C/R speakers, tightly squeezed between sheets of acoustic foam to prevent vibration traveling to wall behind.

Back side of AV rack with Onkyo PA-MC5501 9 ch. power amp and Onkyo PR-SC5509 surround processor,  soon to be joined by more juicy AV and HI-FI gear!

French chateau, part 4

Couple of more weeks in sunny France and some more bits completed.

Main house 16 zone (!) NuVo Grand Concerto system is fully installed and working. Just waiting for client's QNAP NAS drives to turn up and set them up. Everyone is very pleased with sound, especially in large open areas where there are 8 Kef Ci200 QR with ceiling back boxes (which make all the difference!). Whole area is evenly covered and listener never feels like sound is coming from one direction...(except when One Direction are on the radio)!

Dining area is nearing completion. No less than 8 Kef Ci200QR's employed in large open plan ground floor area incorporating kitchen, dining and seating area.

NuVo touch panel seamlessly incorporated into stone feature wall

Another NuVo touch panel in one of the five bedrooms.

NuVo 16 zones Grand Concerto AV rack

NuVo Grand Concerto AV rack and electricity hub.

Bottom of the rack will be soon populated with large ethernet patch bay.

Work in progress at the back of a NuVo AV rack...final testing and cable fixing.

 150" Screen Excellence 16:9 cinema screen frame being assembled...

 Sonance Cinema Series LCR2 speakers squeezed between slabs of special foam to stop vibration transmission to wall behind the projection screen.

 Frame which will hold L/C/R speakers and cinema screen is in place and painted in cool dark brown. Brief is to keep as much of original summer house / barn features and atmosphere as possible.

Next step - stretch and fit the screen and then we will measure the room to determine its acoustic properties. There will be need for some acoustic treatments but they would have to blend in with the interior.

French Chateau pt.3

After few month, we went back to France to continue installation at this magnificent property.

Sorting miles of Cat5 and Cat6 cables, speaker cables, rack building, hanging plasma TVs around the house, etc. We also did tests in order to determine how big projection screen will be.

 AV rack in the main house, housing 16 zone NuVo Grand Concerto multiroom system with Music server with Internet radio, dual FM tuners, additional power amps and 12TB Qnap NAS hard drive with uncompressed music files. 

Another big AV rack in cinema room that will be filled with some tasty AV and Hi-Fi gear from Onkyo, Denon, Conrad Johnson, etc...

Five pairs of Kef Ci500 AW outdoor speakers were installed in massive barn which will be used as a function room. These will take care of background music, together with Arcam MZ series multichannel amplifier.

 Screen test in cinema room, to determine size of a screen. Projector is Panasonic AT-TA6000E HD 3D. Screen will be massive 150" acoustically transparent 16:9 Screen Excellence Enlightor 4K.
To get the idea of how big the screen is, there is a door to machine room on the left!

 Custom made MDF boxes that will house surround and rear surround Sonance SUR-1S speakers for full 7.1 surround. Existing ceiling is also a floor upstairs, so we had to suspend them on metal rods. Sonance speakers are already set in moulded plastic box (closed design) so placing them inside boxes, lined with rockwool, would not affect their performance.

Testing how it will look with speaker in...

When only the best is good enough! Cabling for home cinema - Chord Rumour silver plated speaker cables and new Chord HDMI Advace high speed cable with Ethernet.

Each room will have access to NuVo multi room system, with local amps also enabling guest to listen music from their phone, iPod or lap top on ceiling mounted Kef Ci200 3QR top of the range speakers.

Whole house is also wired with numerous ethernet and TV points.

 Mighty Panasonic TH-65VX300 65" 3D reference plasma screen, fitted with Future Automation swivel bracket, awaiting fixing. 

 Main house rack is slowly getting filled with equipment..

Some of the rooms are nearly finished...

French Chateau - phase two...

Phase two nearly done... miles of Cat 5 & 6 cables are in place, electricity is done, LED lighting, etc

We started mounting dozens of Kef Ci200QR flagship ceiling speakers throughout the house.

Next step - rack building !!