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A Winning System (Sound & Vision Magazine, October 2005)

by John Sciacca

At home with the Ludlows, winners of the XM & Polk Audio home-entertainment makeover contest

Writing for Sound & Vision has taken me to such exotic locales as an aircraft carrier at sea and George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. Getting to meet the family that won our "Home Entertainment Makeover Contest" (November 2004) might not seem to rank with those experiences, but it proved just as unforgettable.

The Ludlows live in Laingsburg, Michigan, about 20 miles north of Lansing and two hours northwest of Detroit. Laingsburg is a Norman Rockwell kind of town with lots of red barns and silos, a place where people still grow their own food. Passing the acres of cornfields on my drive there conjures up Field of Dreams (and a little bit of Signs).

The Ludlows are the kind of people who make you feel completely welcome in their home. Within 10 minutes, I feel like I've known them for years. When I walk in, an inviting aroma of scents washes over me, the byproduct of wife Cara's homemade soap business. Kevin, who's a shipping manager for a local furniture company, is quick to offer coffee, soda, or beer, depending on the time of day. Three-year-old Anna loves to show off her tap-dancing skills in her red princess dress, while six-year-old Emma is quick to challenge you to a game of tic-tac-toe. Aspiring-gymnast Alexander, 12, says a polite "Hello" before retiring to the computer.

Paul DiComo, marketing manager at Polk Audio, voted for the Ludlows' entry because "they had a 'blank slate' room that allowed for a fresh system design. And I thought their situation - refinishing a basement into a home theater - would resonate with a lot of readers. I also liked their enthusiasm for home theater, and including a photo of the family holding a 'Thank you' sign in their contest entry was a nice personal touch - they just seemed like nice folks."

Home Improvement

The Ludlows bought their 100-year-old farmhouse in 1990, and it's been a work in progress ever since. Kevin recounts that they "gutted the place down to the studs and rewired, replumbed, and drywalled the entire house." During the renovation, he realized that the new basement could be something special. "That turned into my space," he says with a smile. "My vision was to have an entertainment room."

Kevin says he got the idea for a projection system from reading Sound & Vision. "I knew one was out of our budget, but it was still the kind of system I wanted to have. I even dropped speaker wiring into the walls, planning for a home theater."

The Ludlows' old "home theater" included a 32-inch Sears TV they got for Christmas a couple of years ago and a DVD player and VCR "we connected to our Bose Wave radio, which we received in a gift exchange from Uncle Butch. This created a poor man's surround." When he saw the makeover contest in S&V, Kevin decided to enter. "It was one of those things where you knew you weren't going to win, but you went ahead and tried anyhow. I wanted a nice room for our family, and this was my best chance to have something done before the kids went off to college."

But, like any great procrastinator, Kevin didn't fill out his entry right away. "I had the magazine for maybe two weeks, thinking, 'I'll do it, I'll get around to it.' Then late one night, I just sat down and wrote how I felt. I sent it off thinking that no one was going to read it."

Cara was the one who got the phone call from XM with the news that they'd won the grand prize. "I was speechless," she recalls. "I just kept saying, 'Are you kidding me?' I didn't think Kevin could write anything that would win a contest. I can barely get him to write a thank-you card for Christmas! I've known Kevin for 17 years, and I've never seen him smile like that - even with the birth of our children."

Even after the call, Kevin couldn't believe his good fortune. "I kept thinking it was some kind of scam - someone trying to get my credit card number or something. But when the editors from Sound & Vision called, I knew it was for real."

When people asked Kevin what he'd won, he told them he wasn't sure. "The contest just said that the grand prize would be a home-entertainment system featuring an HDTV, a Polk Audio XM tuner, one year of XM service, a DVD player, and a 5.l-channel surround sound system. The only thing I knew for sure was that it would be Polk speakers which would have been part of the dream system I'd have assembled on my own if I could have afforded it."

Decision Time

It was now time to bring in a custom installation firm. Polk turned to one of its local dealers, eMagine Technology Systems, located about an hour away in the Detroit suburb of Clarkston. Company president Ken Eagle told me his first impressions of the room. "Polk and XM had planned on a rear-projection DLP TV on a stand, which would have been easy to set up and would have made a great entertainment room. But you don't get a theater feel from a TV - you need larger-than-life images for that. Since we're comfortable with retrofit work, we wanted to push things up a few levels and create a home theater the Ludlows would really enjoy. So we recommended a high-definition projector and a 9-footwide screen. The cost was almost the same, but the effect is incomparable."

Not surprisingly, this was Kevin's first experience working with a custom installer. "I really wanted to hear what Ken and designer Phil DeJarnett had to suggest, because they were the professionals. But I was smiling inside when Ken suggested that a projection system would be right for this room, since that's what I had really wanted."

Like any good installers, Ken and Phil didn't come in with preconceived ideas. "What was cool about working with these guys," Kevin says, "was that they started by asking, 'What do you want to do with this room? Who is going to be in here, and how is it going to be used? Will you be watching movies or listening to music?' They weren't telling us what they were going to do, but leading us into making decisions that were right for us."

It was Ken's idea to distribute music beyond the theater. "We felt it would be nice to be able to enjoy the XM radio in more rooms than just the theater. The budget allowed for two inexpensive ceiling speakers, and since the Denon AVR-2105 receiver provided a full second zone of audio with a dedicated amplifier, it came down to the work involved in getting wire to the speakers."

Having settled on an InFocus ScreenPlay 5700 DLP projector, the installers turned to Polk for the speakers. "Before selecting a system," DiComo recalls, "I asked Kevin what he had in mind for performance and placement, and what would work best with their long-term decorating plan. He wanted high-impact, wide-dynamic-range performance, so we opted for full-range floorstanding speakers. And since the Ludlows had ordered cherry furniture, the RTi10 front left and right speakers and matching CSi5 center, finished with cherry-wood veneers, were the logical choice. I selected the TC60i ceiling speakers for the surrounds because they use the same tweeter and 6-1/2 inch driver as the RTi10."

One of the most important elements of any home theater is killer bass that shakes the walls and floors. For this, DiComo says he "calculated the volume of the room and picked a subwoofer that would fill the space with dynamic range to spare - the 12-inch PSW505."

While Kevin was excited about the theater, it was music that won Cara's heart. "What got me excited was the XM satellite radio, and that I could be listening to my Broadway music [XM Channel 28, "On Broadway Showtunes"] on really good-sounding speakers. My mom says that Kevin's Christmas present from here on out will be a year's subscription to XM."

Kevin is excited about XM as well, but he's not sure how much listening time he'll get. "I'm hoping I'll get to hear something other than the Broadway channel. I love everything from Elvis Costello to Green Day to classical, and I hate commercials. I listen to the radio to hear music, not ads." Since all of XM's music channels are commercial-free, that shouldn't be a problem.

Getting Down to Work

Kevin says the basement wasn't anywhere near ready for an installation. "These past years have been hard on us. We ran out of money trying to rebuild the house. But winning this contest was a huge motivation to get the room finished."

Cara adds, "Kevin had been working almost around the clock - his day job, his volunteering at the fire department, then coming home and working on the house until the early morning. For nearly two years, we barely saw him at all. This has been an amazing shot in the arm."

So Kevin threw the tool belt back on. Before Ken and crew arrived, he had to finish the drywall and the electrical work, install pocket doors to close the room off from the kids' playroom, and prime and paint the walls.

Eagle saw the room with an installer's eye. "Since Kevin had almost finished the basement before we got here, we had to put wire in finished walls and ceilings without damaging the existing drywall." Ken and Phil were able to use the wires that Kevin had run to the positions for the surround speakers. But they had to run new wires to the front speakers plus all of the cabling for the projector. "We average about 40% retro and 60% new construction," Eagle says, "so we were totally comfortable with it."

Being an installer myself, I was thoroughly impressed with eMagine's retro chops. Especially hard was running the video cabling to the projector. "We had to fish the wiring through a space filled with ductwork and plumbing, up into the ceiling, and through a joist above the projector," Ken says.

Dream Come True

When it was time to fire up the system, Kevin tried to prepare Cara for what to expect. "I told her, 'I don't think you know how good this is going to be.' When I saw the 9-foot-wide screen on the wall, I was worried it would be too big, but now that we're watching movies, it's perfect."

Kevin has a hard time finding words to sum up his feelings about the system. "It's just awesome, way more than we ever imagined - like being in a cinema."

Cara echoes his sentiments. "It does sound like you're at a movie theater. People get focused on how big the screen is, but Ken and Phil told us you need to put most of your money into the sound because that creates most of the effect. I'm not a sound person, so I didn't really believe them. But now that we have it installed, I have to agree."

The family immediately settled into enjoying the new system. Kevin says he likes "just losing myself in a movie, especially one with lots of effects. The sound is just amazing. Hearing a bullet whiz by really pulls you into the action. Watching The Return of the King, I felt as though the wall was crashing down as the wolf's head crashed the gates of Gondor!

"The kids love all of the Pixar films. We have Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Monsters, Inc., and seeing them on this system is a totally new experience for them. Alexander had friends over for four hours of Star Wars - they were speechless the whole time!"

Cara adds that the family has become "quite accustomed to the second lap of the Pod race. When Kevin is watching it, the pots on my kitchen walls rattle. Anna has informed me that 'The big TV in Dad's room makes my butt shake.'"

Installer Eagle is also happy with the outcome, but from a different standpoint. "Because this is a farmhouse with a lot of character and heritage, we had to carefully plan to integrate the technology and still preserve the home. I'm pleased that we were able to retrofit wire without interrupting the existing finish.

"The Ludlows are the kind of customers you always want to work with. They were very polite and welcomed us into their home. We had a tight installation timeline, and Kevin really pitched in to help complete the theater on time. And it was great to see the neighbors drop in to experience a little bit of the excitement."

Kevin already has plans for his first upgrade. "Everyone on our road has satellite TV, but we just have an offair antenna that gets five local stations - that's our TV entertainment. One of the first things we'll do is get a satellite system, hopefully one that's high-def." While there's still some remodeling to be done around the house, Kevin has put it on hold for now since he "can't seem to get anything done because I'm distracted by a rather large screen in the basement!"

Cara says that the whole family is still amazed every time they go downstairs. "There are no words to thank everyone for this experience. We never could have imagined anything like this ever happening to us."