Going underground

Some film fans look up into their attic for space for a home cinema – HCC reader Craig explains how he ended up digging down to build his dream room

- Craig

How long have you been into the home cinema?

My family were always into gadgets and the latest tech. My first recollection of home cinema was my eldest brother bringing home an old-style reel projector, displaying it on the wall. We watched Alien and The Incredible Shrinking Man; versions cut down to around 30 minutes.

When did you decide to set up your current cinema room?

We moved house last year and the first thing I did on viewing was to look where we could make a cinema. We converted the garage in the last house [HCC #262] but wanted to make something slightly different. When we started digging for a two-story rear extension the foundations were over three meters deep so the builder (my friend) joked about having a basement instead. From that, we decided to carry on digging and change to an underground cinema with a single-story extension on top.

What kit's in your system?

I have an Optoma UHD60 projector and 133in, 16:9 fixed-frame screen from Duronic. The speakers and subwoofer are from KEF's T Series, driven by a nine-channel Marantz SR7012 AV receiver. My 4KBD player is a Samsung UBD-K8500. I also have a Zappiti Duo 4K HDR media player, Western Digital NAS drives, and a Logitech Harmony Elite controller.

Are you happy with the setup?

A lot of the hardware has been kept on from my previous garage cinema; the only things I changed were the larger projector screen and the KEF ceiling speakers, as I reduced the Atmos heights to two instead of four.

I'm not quite sure why but the system seems totally different in the new room, with improved picture quality and sound. This could be the room dimensions, higher ceilings, and thicker walls, or maybe better placement of speakers.