HOME CINEMA CHOICE SEPTEMBER 2019
80 READER'S ROOM
Certified: AV - H o l i c!
HCC reader David has used his DIY skills to create custom subwoofers and amplifi cation for
his conservatory cinema room, and recently upgraded to 4K projection and Dolby Atmos
Welcome to the
AV-Holic Hall of
Fame – introduce
yourself!
Hi, I'm David Wilkins, aged 59.
After 20 years in drug
discovery in the pharmaceutical industry,
I moved to Cornwall and I'm now a wedding
photographer.
How long have you been into
home cinema, and what was
the fi rst setup you had?
I've been into home cinema since my late 20s,
I started with a Sherwood AV amplifi er bought
from Richer Sounds and a big CRT TV – that's
all I can remember.
I quickly upgraded to a Yamaha DSP-A2.
What a beautiful-sounding amplifi er –
so atmospheric!
When and why did you make
the decision to set up your
current cinema room?
When we moved to Cornwall around 20
years ago I wanted a dedicated cinema room
with a projector. We were going to add a
conservatory to the house and I thought that
if we added one that was big enough it would
make an ideal home cinema when the sun
went down.
I bought an Infocus X1, the only projector
I could aff ord, after I saw a demo of it at the
Bristol Sound & Vision show. Now I have just
fi nished a new upgrade and have a 7.2.4 Dolby
Atmos setup.What kit's in your system?
The hub of my cinema is a Marantz SR7009
AV receiver and I have added an additional
power amp to drive the front L/R speakers,made from two BK Electronics 200W amplifi er
modules, which I built in 1997 and is still
going strong.
My projector is the fab Epson EH-
TW9300W, used with a drop-down Grandview
92in 16:9 screen.
My front fl oorstanding speakers are based
on the ProAc Response 2.5, and the centre is
a web design called the Ariel – it uses a Vifa
5.5in midbass driver (used in some very
high-end designs for its neutral midrange)
and a ScanSpeak 9500 tweeter.
The four surrounds are Bowers & Wilkins
VM1s, as they fi t into the corners of the
conservatory just right, and the Dolby
Atmos speakers are Control 1s from JBL.
One of the advantages of building a Dolby
Atmos system in a conservatory is the easy
installation of the speakers, although they
are quite high up!