Thank you CinemaTech!!!!
Since the age of 7 when my family purchased of the first VHS systems in 1979 to the initial day of DVD commercial release when I was a first year medical student (and spent hundreds of lab hour to purchase it) to the initial day of Blu-ray in which I bought a Sony PS3 (despite not a gamer just to have the Blu-ray player), I have had a love affair with home movie watching and AV equipment. As my 50th birthday neared, my wife floated the almost certainly regrettable offer of building a dream home theater. It didn’t take long to accept that offer and run with it.
However, what I failed to mention, is this “dream home theater” would be my 8th home theater over the past 25 years and 3rd in 9 years. What she was offering was a “final” home theater. The one that offered no future buyers/builders remorse. The home theater that was so perfect that I would stop thinking of ways to improve the theater and go essentially “all out.” To be fair, my last 3-4 theaters were exceptionally high cost and had top shelf components and as my theater builder and installer mentioned they were likely better than 96% of the high-end theaters he constructs. That being said, I wanted a theater to be perfect.
This is the part of the story in which CinemaTech enters. I had decided on wisdom audio top-of-the-line Line source speakers (LS3s), Trinnov 32 processor, Sony 380 or Barco Njord projectors with MadVR. Basically, as crazy as I could go. However, I needed a solution to do the following
- build a design that had essentially no compromise on either the audio or video side of the equation (I did not want to compromise either aspect of home theater)
- I needed a designer willing to work within the confines of this no compromise solution but also give the project flare and handholding
- I required easy access to ask all the design, acoustic treatment, and baffle wall strategies that my mind and internet searching could fathom
- I needed a team of perfectionist craftspeople who would garner my trust with this project. As I unfortunately told my wife, this was my mid-live crisis of purchasing a top-of-the-line Rolls Royce’s and Ferrari tied into one room cost-wise. Everything needed to be perfect
- I needed a coordinator to make sure this happened and assuage my fears and anxieties and clients need for everything to be done “now or yesterday”
Well, from the initial meeting with Stacey to the completion of this project I could not possible say enough about CinemaTech. I will try though in a few brief words.
Stacey was incredible. She met with us and immediately understood our vision, our aesthetic, and hopes/dreams of the project. Then miraculously within 2-3 days, she was ready to discuss her ideas. Her initial impressions were spot-on, and her design was essentially perfect for us from the onset It even included my need for essentially an entirely black room to mitigate the 10k lumens of the projector in such a small space. It was perfect. However, then Stacey went far and beyond her role as head designer. She answered my emails, texts, calls — essentially a near constant barrage on any question regarding the construction or design. We are talking architectural questions, acoustic questions, electrical questions, and carpet thickness questions. It was a lot of questions, and she was wonderful and answered them all promptly and with perfect outcomes. I cannot say enough about her. She rocks.
The craftspeople (and in this case men)…..By the time we got to acoustic and fabric paneling, I was 3 months into the project and because if its time and cost, the stakes were very very high to make sure everything was absolutely perfect and seamless (no pun intended). Walt walking into the room and within 5 second I knew my fears were unfounded and to shut up. Here was a perfectionist and someone who was a master of his craft. My contractor and wife are crazy perfectionists, and both simply nodded as if to say, “let’s leave the pro alone and let him do his thing.” Not a peep of criticism or concern. Just awe at how Walt had distilled down every step of the process for building this room to its essence. My wife is a surgeon, and she was the one who created that metaphor. She used it to describe the head of her surgical department as a person who has done something 1000s of times and just knows every perfect exacting step without any missed opportunities or extraneous processes. Watching Walt is just watching a master.
Needless to say, I wanted Walt to do the final stages of my project. He was a master. Bradley told me to try out this relatively new upstart and “trust him.” What part of this essay makes one believe that I trust anyone and if I trusted anyone it was Walt. Well, I sure as hell trust Tanner now too. Tanner might be young, but he is growing into a young master if not already there. He was deliberate and exacting. He took his time and had the same attention to detail as Walt. It was like watching a young apprentice ready to assume his equal footing with the master (please insert the Star Wars intended metaphors. It is a theater after all). Tanner gained my trust within the first hour (as well as my contractor and wife as well) and with the 50-70 people we have had work on our house over the past 3 years only 3-5 have had achieved that distinction. Tanner was truly remarkable and an asset for any project or job he sets his mind too.
Lastly, I do need to thank Bradley. I was introduced to him later in the project, but he probably had to manage the majority of my craziness. From calls and texts on weekends to badgering with demands, Bradley never swayed from his calm and charming demeanor with reassurances that everything would be ok and get done. Wow, he could not have been more correct and soothing in the process. He managed expectations while making things happen. He understood the weird anxieties and stresses that accompany any project of this size and his manner and problem solving worked everything out. Best of all, and potentially most importantly, he made sure everything was perfect and seamless and did so with grace and levelheadedness. If there is a better way to run projects than Bradley’s method, I cannot conceive it.
Basically, thanks to CinemaTech, they have lost a future client. I do not plan on ever building another theater and I owe it all to them. Their design and custom chairs, their designer and craftspeople, their managerial staff, and acoustic treatment have helped build me the theater of my dreams. The eighth one was the charm and now I think I can comfortably enter home theater and music nirvana and stop wondering about what to do next. I can’t imagine better praise than after 8 home theaters CinemaTech has allowed me to say, “I AM DONE.”
With my most sincere gratitude, Eric Nadler