Bellevue Home - UK

The sourround sound of Bellevue

The emotions felt when watching an event or a film at a cinema is enhanced by a full surround sound experience. Hearing the rubber squealing from the tyre of a formula 1 car screaming around the track or the bullet emptying from a gun causing explosions from all around through a high end audio system makes the viewers experience come alive. Even better when the surround sound in the living room cum media room is invisible leaving the interior design as relaxing and natural as desired.

This beautiful home in Kent (South-East England) has achieved just that with Amina speakers installed into the living room to accompany the 65 inch television screen. The installer spoke about the request for audio integration, “On this project the client came to us with a very clear design objective. The Amina hidden speaker range allowed us to ensure that the result was a 5.1 media room that sounded stunning whilst not impacting on the design vision that he had.” The images show how beautiful this interior is and why the homeowners didn’t want any blemishes on the walls and the ceilings of this room, the centre piece of their home.

To understand how VPT (Vibrational Panel Technology) loudspeakers propagate sound which is different to how conventional loudspeakers work, it is easiest to consider how an acoustic musical instrument such as a violin fills a space with sound.

Like a VPT loudspeaker, the violin creates sound through vibrations generated in the light weight rigid wooden sound box from the energy transferred from the strings through the action of the bow.

Musical instruments radiate spherically right across the frequency range and provides high clarity sound and works well in reverberant spaces. Similarly, VPT loudspeakers radiate effectively, hemispherically from the wall or ceiling right across the frequency range and do not get more directional with frequency as it does with a conventional loudspeaker.

Using VPT loudspeakers provides a wonderful surround sound experience to those enjoying the experience and the extended listening sweet spot means the position of the listener in relation to the speakers is not as crucial.

For this installation the speakers were installed behind a 2mm final skim of plaster, then wallpaper was applied to complete the decoration. The end client explained his delight and the reaction of his friends and family at how wonderful the invisible speakers are, not just because of the sound quality or the invisibility but their friends thoughts on them, “Seeing peoples reactions to the totally hidden 5.1 speakers in my living room is great fun.”