Beside the seaside
CEDIA Awards 2025 Winner'Best Home Cinema'
How it began
When Steve and Jan left Surrey for the coast, their move came with a bonus: a rather odd 1950s side extension to a beautiful Victorian house, originally intended for a swimming pool. Rather than demolish it, they saw an opportunity. As well as a new kitchen and family room, a dedicated cinema room, which Steve had always wanted.
I came to the project in lockdown, so we started off on Zoom. Steve has an engineering background - he didn't want a pitch, he wanted to understand. We talked about toe-in, seat consistency, and optimal placement.
I won this project by being a better designer.
The room
The space allocated was around 8m long - more than needed. Filling that space with great sound would have cost a lot more, without any benefit.
I asked for a tech space at the back, to house projector and rack. That reduced the cinema to 6.4 x 5.8m, brought seats closer to the screen, and kept the spec within reach - the best answer for these clients.
The room brought further challenges later - building control insisted on a second door quite late, and the ceiling as built was 300mm lower than we wanted. I did some 'instant design' from their garden to adapt; overhead performance was reduced a little, but the revisions worked very well. It helps when the designer does the site checks.
The finished room seats seven in full comfort across two rows, with everyone in a good sounding seat.
You were one of the few to take RP22 seriously and gave good answers where you deviated.
You should keep submitting projects.
Sound
The system used 16 Klipsch THX speakers and two high-output THX subwoofers, driven by Emotiva XPA amplification and Anthem surround processor.
Left, centre and right (LCR) are THX-6000 - a higher output speaker suited to larger rooms. Surrounds are THX-504-L, the same speaker I use at front three in the showroom, with Pro-RC overhead.
For all the surrounds I used custom enclosures by Dellicompagni, to give the ideal volume behind each speaker, and the exact toe-in angle for each location, making site install fast and precise. Behind fabric, you'd never know they weren't flat to the wall. Listening to it, you absolutely feel the difference.
Calibration involved manually tailoring after Anthem ARC - adjusting the frequency response to house target curve, and manually time-aligned each speaker using Room EQ wizard.
Doing the time alignment and subwoofer phase independently really paid off - increasing the solidity of the sound and a smoother transition between main speakers and subs.
Picture
Steve's love of Formula 1 settled the aspect ratio question quickly.
A 16:9 screen was the best choice - sports and TV content would always share the room with films, and a wider scope format would have compromised the everyday experience.
We chose the Sony VPL-XW7000 laser projector after a side-by-side demonstration against a lower-spec model Steve had originally looked at - for this size of room we needed the brightness, and the difference was clear. The final image width is 3.5m, giving us ‘cinema’ viewing angles from both rows.
Steve loves to sit at the front and be fully immersed, Jan prefers the back row, so it worked out really well. Sources are a Panasonic UHD Blu-ray player and Apple TV - the rack room provides useful space for a wall filled with UHD and Blu-ray discs.
Style
Performance design is mostly my problem - once we agree a target, it's my job to make sure we meet or exceed it. Style is entirely collaborative; it's your room, you have to love it, and my job is to make that happen.
Jan took the lead. She loved the navy 'Nightfall' fabric by Cinema Build Systems - an open-weave designed for cinema, chosen as much for what it doesn't do to the sound as how it looks. Steve and Jan both wanted something quite traditional, in keeping with the main house. At the size of the room, flat fabric walls looked a little plain; so the bay window detail in the corners helped with speaker toe-in and added interest. A double ceiling coffer finished things off.
'I just love going in there'
The outcome
This room performs like a cinema, but feels warm and inviting - finding that balance is not easy.
Steve and Jan use it far more than they ever expected to. That's the best thing I can hear.
Before the ceremony I'd already discussed with them - if we won, the award was heading their way. And we did. The following week, I shipped the award to them, and ordered myself a duplicate.
WRITTEN BY
Owen Maddock
Owner & designer, Cinemaworks
I've spent twenty years looking for ways to make films feel more real in people's homes.
CEDIA® Member of Excellence, award-winning designer, podcast host, and the one you'll actually work with.
