Return to Virginia Business - January 2003

by Doug Brown

The ads are everywhere for home theaters that come in a crate for $299. But for the video-and-audio cognoscenti, the whole thing is redolent of buying wine in a box: Cheap, yes, but divorced from the pleasures and complexities of, say, a 1970 Chateau Petrus.

Of course, a magnum of ’70 Petrus might set you back $4,000. Similarly, a top-of-the-line home theater could easily cost $150,000 or more. But you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to grace the house with a new place to watch flicks, which is where the latest in home entertainment is going. For $6,000, experts say, homeowners can begin to transform their video-viewing experience. Between $6,000 and $150,000, there is a smorgasbord of choice.

The degree to which consumers desire to replicate — or even surpass — the visual and auditory atmospherics of a movie theater helps to determine the costs, says Ray Lepper, president of Home Media Stores in Richmond, and vice president of the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association, the home theater trade association. If the viewing room “is a dedicated room, where the primary purpose of the room is to recreate the experience of the cinema, then we are going to build a home theater, a theater in the home,” Lepper says. “What most people live with who don’t have dedicated rooms and don’t want to stop talking, turn down the lights, and get rid of the phone, is a media room, a multipurpose room. We live in that room, we play with the dog, talk to the kids, talk to each other during commercials. Once we know which way you want to go, it’s easier to talk about it.”

True home theaters involve large, projection screens, Lepper says. They use high-end sound systems in acoustically engineered rooms, so that everything from whispers to explosions can be heard without distortion. Lighting is extremely important, and so is comfortable seating, often with reclining chairs and motorized head rests. All of the electronic pieces of the theater puzzle — the audio, the video, the lights — get tied together in a single, custom control device. Otherwise, the systems would require a complicated array of clickers.
The minimum price for a true home theater, says Lepper, is at least $20,000. “You can continue to spend money up into the hundreds of thousands, and they do get better,” he says. “But I’d argue you can have a pretty good movie experience in a dedicated room if you spend $20,000.”

A typical media room, on the other hand, will have a big-screen television and surround-sound for about $6,000, including installation. The system won’t come with a fancy, custom remote-control device, and the lighting won’t be engineered. “It’s OK,” he says. “You’re not going to think you’re at the theater. [But] it will be fun.”

Tom Wells, president of Integrated Media Systems in Vienna, specializes in high-end dedicated rooms. His systems begin at about $20,000. The most ambitious clients typically spend between $150,000 and $400,000 on the electronics, seating, lighting, and other extras. One customer dropped $750,000. “We’re electronic architects,” he says.

At the dedicated home-theater level, one determinant of price is the size of the projector, Wells says. “The bigger the projector, the more light output, so the bigger the screen you can get. The budget gets bigger and bigger.” For about $20,000, he says, he can install a system using high-definition digital video and a crisp sound system. “It’s a good starting point,” he says. “It’s the difference between a Rolls Royce and a 1962 Volkswagen Bug.”

People install home theaters for different reasons, he says. Some people entertain a lot, he says, and when they have 12 people over for a get-together “there may be a half-dozen people watching a movie while another half-dozen are at the pool.” It’s also a great carrot for corralling the extended family together in one place for an evening.

Virginia Business - January 2003