In this episode of Inside the Experience, Audio Command Systems founder and CEO Robert Kaufman joins Richard Charschan, founder and CEO of AcousticSmart, for a conversation hosted by Rae Haas. Together, they explore the art and science of designing a private cinema, from acoustic planning and speaker placement to custom interiors, lighting, automation, and intuitive control. They also share memorable challenges, including the creation of a one-of-a-kind drive-in home theater, and discuss how AI may shape the future of the cinematic experience at home. Transcript: Steve All right. Cool. So let's start. Rae: So can you please introduce yourself? Tell us a bit on what you do. And for folks that might not know your work, can you just describe what you do and where your mission lies? Steve My company is called Acoustic Smart Home Theater Interiors, and we specialize in building private cinemas. We're actually a design-build company. One of the very few in the country that actually do the design of the rooms. And then we do all the construction from the studs out, and we manufacture all the interiors from the seatin. The millwork to star ceilings to all the isolation, everything needed to build the home theater. We even do the carpet. We don't manufacture the carpet, but we work with a company called Stanton all around the country, and they accommodate us all over us. And we partner with AV dealers around the country to create a turnkey type of environment. So this way, when an AV dealer has a project and they have a home theater, we become an extension of their team like we do with Audio Command. And we then sell the job as a team. They concentrate on the audio; we concentrate on the interior. We design the room with them, take all of their specifications, all of the speakers, the projector, the throw distances, the acoustics of the room. We analyze the acoustics, do an acoustical analysis, and then we build the room together. We create a set of technical drawings based on all their equipment so we know where every single thing is. We even know what the room is going to look like, because we create a photorealistic rendering with all the finishes. So the clients will not only get to see what the room is going to look like, but we also budget that room from start to finish, and the beauty behind the process is that we not only do the design, but they get to know what everything cost months before the room was built without any change orders. The amount of times we get a change order on a job is maybe, I can probably count them on one hand,throughout our entire career, you know, because the amount of detail that we go into is pretty good so, and then the other thing is that the, AV dealer also can spec out all of his AV gear months before the room is built. So nothing really goes unturned. In other words, the size of the screen, the projector, the throat distance of the projector, where the projector is going to be located, what kind of speakers can we fit into that design? Because we have different speakers, you know, some speakers might not work with whatever the interior design or whatever we come up with with the client. So we have to problem solve and we have to make it all work, there's also other times when the projectors outside of the room and you have to be able to vent that projector, make sure it doesn't overheat and keep the room quiet, and then you have, other guidelines for HVAC to make sure that the entire room has enough ventilation and where to locate the returns and the supply vents. Sometimes, that's a challenge because you don't want to have these gigantic vents in the wall, you know, where you see these giant grilles. So you want to be able to hide it. So it looks very aesthetic. And you also don't want a speaker right in between, you know, a seam of an acoustic panel. So, you know, to get sound to be done correctly, , you know, you want to have a speaker, not in the middle of a scene. You usually want it, you know, like in the middle of a panel so that you're not having any of the sound affected. ...
