Pro-Install

From a lack of legroom to unforgiving upholstery, we’ve all had a movie experience affected by an uncomfortable seat. At your local cinema this is just about sufferable, but in your own room it shouldn't be tolerated – spending thousands of pounds on AV hardware and software but ignoring where you park your fundament is home cinema heresy. The good news is that there are numerous options available, suited to most budgets and tastes, so before you start saving for a 4K projector, perhaps it's time for a seating upgrade...

This subterranean cinema room, the work of ET Home Cinema from South Yorkshire, doesn't want to hide its light under a bushel - with the owner adamant that Bowers & Wilkins Diamond speakers were to be used for the front soundstage, there was little choice but to let these stunning-looking cabinets steal the show.

In Part 1 we discussed some of the basics of a DIY home cinema room project, from the shape of the room itself to the sorts of decisions you need to make about speaker and screen positioning.

So, our kind-of-D.I.Y. home cinema project is finished. We’ve taken the sensible route of doing what we could ourselves, and calling on the professionals (builders, electricians and so on) when we came across something we couldn’t (or shouldn’t) sensibly handle. Of course, if you have the money, you can turn the whole job over to a professional installer – but where’s the fun in that? What we’ve learned about specifying, fitting and tweaking a home cinema is just as valuable.

This cinema room is part of a wider, whole-house installation conducted by Surrey/Sussex-based company Audio7. At first glance it doesn't look unusual, until you discover that the house itself was designed and built in Germany by bespoke home builder Baufritz and then assembled in mere days once it arrived in the UK. Oh, and that Wi-Fi isn't featured and the entire property aims to stop external RF entering by creating essentially what is a Faraday cage, with foil-backed and earthed boards...