Harrogate Home Cinema

Sonos – Now Even More Flexible!

andy@audiovogue.com — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:14:14 +0000

OK, Sonos. Obviously, we’re big fans of Sonos here at Harrogate Home Cinema, but the Sonos S5 all-in-one system has always been a touch limited in my opinion. Yes it goes loud and sounds great, but what about for larger rooms where hard-wiring a ZP120 amplifier in with some large speakers isn’t really an option? Well, they’ve cracked it now by offering a ’stereo pair’ option for two S5’s! It’s simple. Place one S5 at either end of a room, and link them together to work as one unit. Now we’ve got a pair running together in our home cinema showroom in Harrogate, I can see what Sonos were thinking. They sound fantastic, and will fill even large rooms with powerful, well weighted stereo sound. And, they remain completely portable too! Perfect for taking one up to bed with you on an evening, or laving one by an open door during barbeque season! Well done Sonos!!

Harrogate Home Cinema – Heating Houses since…now!

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:38:24 +0000

A clients Property, in the Leeds Road area of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, is a true Eco-House. Through some very clever engineering, the Clients property is temperature regulated through heat-exchange with the outdoor air. This heat exchange process takes place in the utility room/av cupboard, so during the colder months, the clients home cinema equipment actually heats the whole house.

To combat this being a problem in the warmer months, the client also benefits from our use of a remote mains switch for his rack. This means when the system is not in use, it can be powered down completely with the push of a button. Goodbye standby!

Virgin RF Distribution – The Sky’s the Limit!

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:27:22 +0000

A Client from the Leeds Road area of Harrogate came to us with a challenge. The client is a property developer in the North of Yorkshire and wanted the benefits of a Sky multiroom system, with its implied relatively low cost, but he wanted it from a Virgin V+ Box, and at the same time wanted to benefit from the HD capabilities in his primary viewing zone (lounge) on his 50″ Panasonic plasma display.

Having been set the challenge, our R and D department were quick off the mark, apparently waiting for this exact opportunity. Within 24 hours, a system was specified and agreed that would fulfill all the clients needs, from RF distribution, to Sky-equivalent Magic-Eye Control.

Once implemented, the system was upgraded to Philips Pronto control in the lounge through a TSU9300 combined with RFX9400 unit, allowing full discrete control of the clients remote hardware rack, including not only his V+ Box, but also his media server and Blu-Ray Transport.

The Virgin Backfed sets (Kitchen and Bedroom) were set up to be controlled by a pair of Logitech Harmonys, simply to remove any excess remote clutter from this stylish, minimalist house

Testimonial – Alex Johnson

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:23:07 +0000

“Dear Andy, Just a short note to let you know that everything is going well. Alison and I are really pleased with the systems you and Peter installed over the last couple of years. The Sonos system continues to “wow” all our guests and it tends to get a regular bashing whenever the kids are home. Now that BT have ironed out the bugs with our internet connection (it turned out to be a cable fault approx 1 mile from our house) the Napster system performs superbly with no drop outs. The distributed TV systems (including the HD) continue to work well and the CCTV system continues to perform as installed. Be assured we will be coming back as and when we want to upgrade the system.”

Alex Johnson

Customer

Testimonial – Dave and Christina Atkinson

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:19:18 +0000

“From the first day we set foot in the “Harrogate Home Cinema” Premises through to the completion of our cinema room, and to the present time, we have had nothing short of fantastic, friendly, professional service.

We had an in-depth no-obligation survey on the room, great advice and reccommendations on products required, all resulting in an outstanding completed job.

The picture and sound quality are second to none and, as you can imagine, it has become the most popular room in the house. Sports nightswith the lads, family film nights, kids cinema parties. It has created a whole new social avenue for all family and friends.

All in all, a fantastic purchase from a great company who do a fantastic job.

Regards”

Dave and Christina Atkinson

Customer

The £3000 Family Home Cinema

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:40:53 +0000

Back in December, A customer enquired about having a home cinema installed on a very strict budget and timescale (Christmas present). The customer had a games room in the basement of their house and wanted to turn it into a boys “den” complete with home cinema system. The specified system saw the birth of our entry-level home cinema system.

We installed a Sanyo full hd projector system, running from a Denon 1610 and displaying on a 93″ screen, complete with Sony bluray player in order to effectively play all sources.

Since the initial installation, and through the winter months, we were asked back by our clients to add to this system, and it now includes a Logitech Harmony for reliable one-push touch-screen control, alongside sky hd integration. The client was over the moon with the installation, and you can read about their experience first-hand on our testimonials page.

Since this installation took place, we have essentially refined and repackaged this system, tweaking the products to offer a simple set-up cinema that we can offer, installed, for less than £3000, with no need for a site survey. This package offers both great value for money, and a reliable, enviable home cinema with simple effective control for the whole family.

NEW Philips Pronto TSW9500 in-wall touchpanel

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:09:05 +0000

Short teaser for the Philips Pronto TSW 9500 in-wall touch panel, soon to be available from Harrogate Home Cinema – more about Philips Pronto control systems from Harrogate Home Cinema

Fit for purpose video distribution

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:57:48 +0000

Alot of home automation companies out there always try to push the latest technologies onto people, causing the end user to pay for the companies’ Research and Development, essentially meaning the client is often left footing the bill for the AV company to experiment on the end-users install.

At Harrogate Home Cinema, we operate a little differently. Although we want to allow users to take full advantage of emerging technologies, we always want to give the client a stable system.

With this in mind, at the pictured site, we decided to wire for all eventualities, running a core infrastructure of multiple Cat5e/Cat6 cables, meaning that as soon as the 3d-tv format is fully stabilised, the client can easily, and cost-effectively upgrade to the stable new platform. However, with this in mind, we explained the full pro’s and con’s of existing HD distribution systems to the client, and through joint agreement, decided that the most realistic way of distributing video while the market finds its feet/stabilises, was to utilise the RF cable infrastructure to temporarily distribute the existing sources via a backfeed system. Although there is an obvious temporary compromise in image quality, the temporary system is only distributing to relatively small screens (no bigger than 22″).

The resulting real lack in quality is barely noticable. This temporary solution is allowing the client a more than adequate viewing experience in their kitchen and bedroom, whilst allowing them to watch the market and ensure they invest in the correct distribution system at the correct time.

Needless to say, At Harrogate Home Cinema, we don’t believe in selling expensive systems with limited future potential.

Here to Help

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:33:34 +0000

At Harrogate Home Cinema we always put customer satisfaction first. That’s why, when an existing client of ours decided that the speakers they had sampled and loved in our in-store demo facility, and so purchased for their (large, vaulted ceiling) music listening room, were a little inadequate, we were more than happy to replace them with the Canton Chrono SL 520’s, allowing a big full-range sound for the purpose-built listening environment.

North Yorkshire Kitchen Audio

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:07:48 +0000

The Sonos Multiroom Audio System was an ideal solution for the multi-room audio needs of this particular client. After an initial consultation, it became clear that the client had an ecclectic musical taste and didn’t want to compromise on anything. The solution was in the way of the Sonos system we installed. An emphasis was put on sound reproduction, and so an unamplified zoneplayer 90 was digitally linked into an external DAC and power amplifier, before being routed to the Hifi quality full-range in-ceiling speakers for a bit-perfect music reproduction with the ability to stream practically any recording directly from the internet through Napster. To learn more about how Sonos works, click here