FAQ
Questions, answered straight.
The questions serious buyers actually ask, answered the way we would answer them across a table. If yours isn't here, ask it directly — we reply within two working days.
How much does a dedicated home cinema cost in the UK?
Most of the cinemas we take on start at around £100,000, and a fully specified reference room goes well beyond that. The range is wide because the room decides the number: the shell work, the acoustic treatment, the screen and projection tier, the seating count. We put a costed scheme in front of you at design stage — before anything is ordered — and we won't quote a number we can't defend. There is a longer answer in our journal article on what a home cinema costs.
How long does a home cinema take to design and build?
Months, honestly — sometimes more than a year for a complex room inside a wider renovation. As a guide: discovery takes one to two weeks, design four to eight weeks, the build itself eight to twenty-four weeks depending on the shell work involved, and calibration one to two weeks at the end. We publish these timescales on our process page and we hold to them.
Where do you work?
The studio is in Bath. Most of our cinemas are in Bath and the Cotswolds, London, Poole and Sandbanks, and Cornwall — and across the drivable South of England where the brief is right. We travel further when the project earns the journey; recent work includes a dedicated attic cinema in Wales. We will not pretend to serve the whole of the UK.
What is the difference between a dedicated cinema and a media room?
A dedicated cinema is a room built for one job: controlled light, engineered acoustics, seating placed where the sound is right. A media room is a living space that also shows films, and it compromises accordingly. We build dedicated rooms. If your house wants a media room instead, we would rather tell you that at discovery than build you the wrong room. The longer comparison is in the journal.
Can an attic, garage or spare room really become a cinema?
Yes — some of our best rooms started as the least promising spaces in the house. We have turned an unwanted garage shell in Bath into an internationally recognised cinema, and an unused attic in Wales into a dedicated room treated to 40 Hz. Difficult shells need the acoustic decisions made first; that is exactly how we work.
Which equipment brands do you install?
A short list, on purpose: Steinway Lyngdorf, Wisdom Audio, Sonus Faber, Perlisten, McIntosh, Gryphon, StormAudio, Trinnov, Kaleidescape, Christie, Barco, Stewart Filmscreen, URC and Lutron, among others. We are not a multi-brand reseller — the specification starts with the room, and the brands page explains where each earns its place.
Can we hear a room before we commit?
Where an owner is comfortable, we can arrange for serious enquirers to experience a finished cinema, and demonstration facilities are available. We also share imagery and detail of unpublished projects under NDA. Ask when you enquire and we will set something up that fits where you are in the decision.
Who calibrates the finished room?
We do, in-house, in the room — never outsourced. Calibration is the hand-finishing of a cinema: the hour where it stops being a list of equipment and starts being the room you commissioned. It is also why we stay involved afterwards, with an annual calibration check as part of aftercare.
How do we start?
Write to us — a few sentences is enough. Tell us where the project is, roughly the size of the room, and roughly when you would like it finished. We reply within two working days with an honest view on whether we are the right fit and what the next step would look like.