HIGH PERFORMANCE HOME THEATER IN KANSAS CITY

Our Kansas City Showroom High-Performance Home Theater is complete and ready to experience. If you want to discover what home theater can be, this is the place in Kansas City to do it.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GREAT HOME THEATER SOUND SYSTEM?

• Intelligible, natural-sounding dialogue is essential. That requires a good center channel speaker.
• Spacious and dramatic presentation including surround sound if possible. That requires full range, high-quality left and right channel speakers as well as robust, capable surround speakers.
• Excellent room-filling bass for drama, impact, and excitement. That requires high-performance subwoofers.
• Elite execution in speaker positioning and audio level dialing. This requires us. Beyond the components themselves, high-performance theater comes down to execution, ensuring everything is not only performing at the highest level individually but synergistically as a whole delivering a true final result. This leaves you in the movie, not worrying about the audio system.

Any of our high-performance speakers can be used to create a great home theater sound system. We have also worked hard to create more affordable home theaters designed to our standards as well. That is actually tougher than creating a very high-performance home theater. Our multi-channel theater audio systems start at around $8,000. These systems are thoroughly enjoyable. Any home theater from us is also great for music. More and more concerts are now available, especially through Kaleidescape.

Our new high-performance home theater in Kansas City comes in at around $175,000 including audio, video, acoustic treatment, complete design, installation, and alignment. Okay, above most budgets but it is there to experience for all. Our approach to designing a theater system, regardless of investment level, doesn’t change. The same elements that are critical to the home theater experience listed above are just as important at the entry-level as they are in a high-dollar theater like the one you can experience in our Kansas City showroom. You aren’t just experiencing what the investment gets you pertaining to the products themselves but also The Sound Environment’s approach to designing and executing incredible home theater systems.

This system is in and designed for a large room. The video image is a cinemascope (2.35:1) image 12 feet wide. Near this level of performance can be achieved in smaller rooms with smaller screens for around $50,000. Such a system is exhibited in our Omaha showroom. With our Trade-up Program, you can build from a starting system to one of great impact as your budget allows.

Most home theater sound systems are unremarkable. If you can’t afford a high-quality home theater now you can build toward one with us without losing your investment. We always emphasize quality over quantity. So, start with a few channels and build from there. You can start with a good AVR and just two speakers then add the center channel, add surrounds, upgrade to a better AVR, etc.

WHAT IS ATMOS SOUND?

Our highest performance theaters in both Kansas City and Omaha incorporate Atmos sound. We do think that a great home theater sound system should incorporate Atmos if possible. But Atmos is not the be-all-end-all of a great home theater sound system. It is an add-on. Don’t give up good sound to have Atmos. To experience Atmos as intended you need to consider seating positions as well just as you should for a seven-channel theater sound system. Five channel is more forgiving.

Atmos starts from seven channels of audio, three in front, two on the sides, and two in the rear. Atmos adds four overhead speakers. A spaceship can then seem to start from the back go overhead and end up in front – very enveloping and exciting if done right. Doing it right means a very careful installation with appropriately chosen and matched speakers installed in the right places and properly setup in the AVP or AVR. A good-sounding Atmos theater sound system is more difficult to get right than one without Atmos.

As always some people are just trying to sell more stuff so they promote how you can easily do Atmos by spraying sound off the ceiling. You will get an effect but is that what you want? Focus on quality, not quantity. Atmos makes some movies more exciting and fun but it should not be the focus. Good overall sound with intelligible dialog is most important.

We don’t see much point in doing an Atmos system that is not very good just to get some effect. Any of our main speaker lines, Sonus faber, Rockport Technologies, or Wilson Audio can be used to create an enveloping Atmos system. Many installation companies skimp on the sound but it is the sound that makes the experience. There is too much emphasis on just doing something rather than doing it well. You can skimp by using inexpensive main speakers and woofers and by using techniques such as spraying the overhead sound at the ceiling but that is far from ideal. You do get an effect but there are other ways to install the Atmos speakers to get closer to having them in the ceiling if you cannot have them in the ceiling.

PRICE OF A GREAT HOME THEATER SOUND SYSTEM

We feel strongly that quality is more important than quantity so we don’t think you should entertain doing Atmos unless you are willing to spend in the neighborhood of $15,000 or so on the theater audio system. You can make that investment over time if you need to. Many current AVRs are Atmos capable so you can add Atmos later on. There are always tradeoffs. We don’t’ think you should trade off an articulate center channel and good woofers for Atmos but you can. It all depends on what is most important to you. After all, most of the dialog is from the center speaker. It needs to be clear. Unintelligible dialogue is one of the biggest complaints we hear about sound from a TV. We can do a good home theater sound system without Atmos starting at around $8,000. We demonstrate that in both our Kansas City and Omaha showrooms.

Our new high-performance home theater in Kansas City comes in at around $175,000 including audio, video, acoustic treatment, complete design, installation, and alignment. Our Atmos theater sound system in Omaha is in the $50,000 range.

Can you do a great theater sound system for less? Yes! The sound can just get better if you spend more money but you must be careful about how you make the investment. That is what we excel at, bringing you good value no matter the level of investment.

If this all seems complicated, that’s because it is but fear not, we will take the time to sit down with you and create a system that will be best for what you tell us you want to accomplish in your room and within your budget. We don’t sell packages that are presumed to fit all but in reality fit no one.

OUR APPROACH

We can create a great theater system in a dedicated or multi-use room. Can we do a beautiful room with elegant seating and lighting? Of course. Our Kansas City showroom Atmos theater is acoustically right with appropriate dimensions and acoustic treatment. Room décor is up to you. The system itself must be high value, no matter the price. We have chosen to show a really fine sounding system but not over the top. Some providers provide beautiful rooms with bad sound.

Within every home theater audio system we create is an excellent music system. After all, music plays an important role in most movies and there are also many fine multichannel concert recordings with and without video. You can also use stereo music sources with your home theater system. This is especially valuable if the system is in a multi-use room.

THE SOURCE

Every high-performance home theater must start with a Kaleidescape Movie Player. Kaleidescape is as good as it gets. Kaleidescape uses the same file the studio sends to a digital movie theater containing the same video and completely uncompressed multi-channel audio. See our separate news article HERE about Kaleidescape for details and discuss what is right for you with one of our consultants.

VIDEO SYSTEM

The video in our Kansas City theater is about as good as it can get including Stewart’s best screen material, 12′ Cinema Widescreen (2.35 to 1 just like at the movies), and Sony Laser light engine Tru 4K projector. This Sony projector presents true black and excellent color and appropriate brightness that does not dim with age because there is no bulb.

The projector and screen we are using total about $30,000. There is little point in spending more on the video unless you have a much larger screen. We are using the best roll-down 12′ wide cinemascope ratio (2.35 to 1) Stewart screen and a Sony laser projector of appropriate light output. Some people try to sell very expensive professional-level projectors. There is no point in that and may even result in poorer image quality if the projector uses a lamp. With a laser projector, there is no lamp to dim and need replacement. Color rendition is very good and black is absolute as the pixel is shut off when black is called for. The ideal seating distance for a 12′ widescreen is about 15′. You can sit closer but we don’t recommend it. The seven-channel or Atmos sound will be best at the designed seating distance.

SOUND SYSTEM

The main front speakers in our Kansas City theater are presently Wilson Audio with two Wilson subwoofers and two more subwoofers in the rear. The front speakers could alternatively be Sonus faber or Rockport Technologies. Four in-wall speakers support conventional surround channels while four in-ceiling speakers provide the Atmos channels. The control and signal processing is handled by a McIntosh Audio Video Processor. Amplification is via three McIntosh MC830 amplifiers for the front channels and two four-channel Rotel amplifiers for the surround and Atmos channels.

CABLES AND POWER CONDITIONING

Each system uses all Transparent cable and power conditioning at the appropriate level for each application within the system. Transparent has many products in a wide range of prices. The key is to select the most appropriate, best value interconnects, speaker cable, power cable, power conditioner for each individual application. We have done that. Cabling is a critical part of a theater system just as it is with a stereo system.

For the very best sound, you need to add HRS stands, isolation bases, and damping. Talk to one of our consultants about this option/add-on.

IN-WALL/ON-WALL SPEAKERS

Both our Kansas City and Omaha showrooms show three home theater systems. One is in-wall/on-wall. You can do in-wall/on-wall speakers and have great sound. You don’t need to be satisfied with cheap, bad-sounding in-wall speakers.

FOR YOU

We can design a system that fits your home in a specially dedicated room or a multi-use room. Most of our customers prefer a multi-purpose room. Many people have preconceived ideas of what a home theater is, working with us you will learn that you can incorporate incredible sound and video into your home more easily and effectively than you might have thought possible

COME IN – HAVE A LOOK AND LISTEN!

Wilson Audio WATCH Dog Subwoofer next to Sasha DAW and McIntosh MC830 Monoblock Amplifier