Bottlehead/Blumenstein Home Theater!

[Doc B]

Please join us Saturday April 12th from 1 to 4pm at our home in Poulsbo for a demonstration of our newly revamped home theater. The intimate theater seats 4 and uses a classic Sony G70 CRT projector with Moome Sony IFB-FULLHD v3 HDMI 1.4  card and a 96 inch screen. Our source is a brand spanking new Oppo BDP-103D blu ray player, and we are using its marvelous analog outputs to feed a Bottlehead Stereomour 2A3 amp for the front speakers and Bottlehead S.E.X. amps for the center and surround channels. The speakers are all from Blumenstein Audio - four Orcas, one Orca center channel, two Dungeness subwoofers accompanying the Orca front speakers, and a BUF sub for the .1 channel. We also have a Mac Mini feeding one of the Oppo's HDMI inputs for streaming Amazon, You Tube, Vimeo, etc. from a wireless connection using a Motorola SB6141 modem and Asus N-66U router and a VPN.

It's a cool blend of old and new technology and those who have seen and heard it so far have been quite pleased with the result. As we said the room is small and we may have to rotate visitors through for everyone to get a good audition. Please RSVP at docb@bottlehead.com if you plan to stop by and we'll send you directions.

 

[Doc B]

Just a reminder that we need your RSVP for this event by Wednesday if you are planning to stop by this Saturday.

 

[Paul Joppa]

I'll be there  :^)

 

[richardl]

See you then.  Look forward to it.  ;D

 

[Doc B]

Great, see you Saturday. I've been compiling a pretty decent selection of blu rays that we can sample.

 

[aragorn723]

That sounds really cool, how do you control the overall volume since there are 3 amps with different levels?  Unfortunately for me, i'm on the east coast and cant make it. 

 

[Doc B]

The Oppo blu ray player has a volume control and individual trim for each channel.

 

[Doc B]

Thanks to everyone who came by this afternoon, and for the kind words about the setup. The Blumenstein speakers were working beautifully with everything from jazz concerts streamed from youtube to big sci fi explosion stuff on blu ray. Clark did a good job of convincing me that the only reason we need to prototype a tube subwoofer amp is that no one else seems to be doing it. just might give it a shot.

 

[richardl]

I had a great time and it was good to catch up with you and Eileen.  Clark's speakers were a great addition to your home theater.  Had to get out of there or I would have been arguing to see all of Casablanca and I figured that you wanted to show it off.  What a great print!

Thanks again,

Richard

 

[Doc B]

Sounds like a good reason for you to come back for a visit. Hopefully I'll get my bike finished this spring and maybe we can do a little riding.

 

[Clark B.]

Dan, it was great coming over and catching up.  Your HT system really made an impression on us.  The performance is so cohesive, effortless, and transparent its more enjoyable than I anticipated.

It feels awesome that you chose our speakers to tie the superb visual presentation of your system together.  An set/single driver system seems like a natural choice to compliment the strengths of your CRT projector that has tube like speed and extreme microdynamic resolution.  What especially stood out were the most stable blacks i've probably seen, some of the fastest action scene footage, and also a rich warm and slightly saturated look rather than the typical greys and tracers.  You've got a nicely dimensioned room considering the screen, amps and speakers as well.

Lots of awesome memories of some of my favorite movies as well, 5th element opera scene especially. 

Cant wait to do another movie night some time.

 

[Doc B]

Any time, we love to share the theater. Here's a pic of the front wall setup on Saturday, a long exposure in the very dark room. Due to an unfortunate accident with a plate amp the blonde Dungeness stood in for the BUF sub for the .1 channel.

 

[Doc B]

A second, rather blurry shot of the equipment rack. Stereomour on left with a Fix in the middle feeds the front channel speakers (Orcas/Dungeness subs). S.E.X. amp on lower left uses one channel to feed the center channel Orca. S.E.X. amp on bottom middle shelf feeds the rear Orcas. .1 sub is fed at line level directly from the Oppo BD-103 which is on the top right buried under the remote farm. On the shelf below the Oppo is the Mac Mini in a rack cabinet.

 

[Grainger49]

Awesome Dan!

So the BUF was relegated to speaker stand? 

I'm waiting for the tubed sub amp project.  I'm dieing to find out what you guys come up with.

 

[aragorn723]

What is the mac mini for?

 

[Doc B]

I use the Mac primarily for Amazon streaming, Vimeo and Youtube. The Oppo player has a Youtube app, but Youtube on blu ray players usually requires the use of a total PITA on screen KB. With the Mac I can use a neat little handheld blutooth remote with a KB built in, shown here. The HDMI output of the Mac goes into the HDMI input of the Oppo to take advantage of its image processing capability and volume control.

 

[jrebman]

Dan,

Thanks for confirming that's how the Mac mini would work with the Oppo -- I suppose it would also work that with iTunes and other music apps the same way. Of course the on-screen menus are not accessible to me but a remote app on an iPod touch will, and still let me use the volume on the oppo.

Looks like I bought the right dvd/br player.

-- Jim