The 36-seat screening room at hClub LA, the private members club on Vine Street in Hollywood, specified to genuine cinema standard. DCI-compliant Christie projection with DCP playback, Dolby surround, a Meyer Sound cinema loudspeaker system, and a Stewart Filmscreen micro-perf screen with four-way masking covering 4:3, 16:9 and 2.39:1 scope.
Handsome Group handled the AV design and integration, including the design and construction of the baffle wall carrying the screen channel loudspeakers and subwoofers. Every loudspeaker at the front of the room sits behind the screen surface, so nothing in the architecture gives away the scale of the system driving it.
The specification set the difficulty. A room that plays DCPs on DCI-compliant projection with Meyer Sound behind the screen is a cinema, not a home theater with good equipment in it — and cinema loudspeakers are large. Three Acheron 100s and two 21-inch USW-121P subwoofers represent close to half a ton of loudspeaker that has to sit at the front of the room, precisely positioned, rigidly supported, and completely invisible.
That is what the baffle wall solves, and Handsome Group designed and built it. The structure carries the screen channel loudspeakers and the subwoofers at the correct height and alignment relative to the seating, decoupled so that cabinet energy does not transfer into the room structure, and set back behind the screen surface. The Stewart MicroPerf material is acoustically transparent, so the loudspeakers fire straight through the picture rather than being placed around it. From a seat, the entire front of the system is a screen and a drape.
Masking was the other requirement that shaped the room. The screen presents an 83" × 196" viewing area, and the Director's Choice system reformats it for 4:3, 16:9 and 2.39:1 scope — so archival material, broadcast content and anamorphic features each fill the frame properly instead of floating inside black bars. Getting three formats out of one screen means the masking, the projector's lens memory and the room's sightlines all have to be planned together rather than resolved afterwards.
Crestron ties the room together, so operating it does not require someone who understands the equipment behind it.
This room was one part of a full-property AV design-build for hClub LA. See more of our commercial theater and screening room work.