We meet extensively with each client to discuss the possibilities for their home theater. Let’s say you’d like to hire David to build your home theater. You’ll tour the home and the room you’ve chosen for your home theater, while he keeps an eye out for details. He’ll be asking a lot of questions, but come ready with plenty of your own.

David is a people person, and he feels like the better he knows you as a person, the better he knows your ideal system. This is the perfect time to tell him what you’re into: what movies you like, your favorite bands, and your taste in decorating. Your taste inspires our work. Tell us everything you think is relevant, even your lifestyle. Do you have small children or fussy neighbors? You probably want extra soundproofing. Need the room to watch the news and work in the mornings? We’ll set you up in a room with natural light and install automated window coverings for movie time.

If you know exactly what you want you can tell us now. We’ve had plenty of clients bring paint and fabric samples and A/V catalogs to the initial consult. Hey, bring your interior designer if you want. We’d be glad to meet them.

Or maybe you’re overwhelmed by all the choices. In that case, we can help you nail down your dreams. Most clients are somewhere in between: sure about some aspects of the project, but needing to hear some options about others. In any case, we’ll offer as much or as little guidance as you need.

Of course you’ll talk technical details, but we know that every client is different. Some are tech obsessed and already know plenty about what they want, while others don’t know where to begin. We love to talk shop with fellow techno-junkies, but we know not everyone can make sense of the complicated world of technology. Either way, we’ve got you covered.

After we get to know you, we make a little time to get to know your house.

We couldn’t get started on a home theater without some serious background on the space where it will be built. Not just to get an overall sense of what the finished product will be like, but also (and more importantly) to help us decide a thousand tiny factors that will make your theater look, sound and feel as good as it can.

The most basic questions—how will the screen be oriented? where will the speakers be placed? how about the seating?—are often not the first questions we try to answer. Those answers come from small things most designers even forget to ask, questions of lighting and glare for picture, surface acoustics and angles for perfect sound. Those are just a few of the considerations we take into account, because we don't just want your system to look and sound as good as it can for the room; we want the room to look and sound as good as it can for your system.

Only after our in-depth analysis of the space that will become your home theater do we begin.

Like we said, it's a serious process, but by the time we begin physical work on the system, most of the work has already been completed. There are many, many steps to the installation work, but here are a few key ones to help you understand the difference between an Audio One home theater and all the others.

You've probably seen systems before where the shiny cabinet is just a facade for a snarl of wires of all kinds, tangled like multicolored vermicelli. Our wiring is done differently—we lay it in neat rows and fasten it together to reduce contact stress and interference and allow easy component upgrades. And it's not how we lay wire but what kind of wire we lay. We wire our home theaters for pro audio with the best available low-impedance cable and speaker wire. We set up our high-def video systems with top-of-the-line, current-generation video cable. After all, what good are high-end components if they're connected with the same kind of cables you get from the box of a cheap DVD player?

Top-quality acoustic paneling and curtains allow us to optimize acoustics while giving your home theater a decorative edge. The choices are endless, with real wood, paintable surfaces or fabrics—or even old-school, velvet theater curtains—to beautify your theater while making the sound incredible.

After the environment has been suitably set up for your theater, it's time to install the components. After making all the connections and verifying that the components work properly, they are settled into their integrated places behind panels and cabinetry. Cleanup and interior design work are finished.

Once the installation work is finished, we set to work optimizing the picture quality and calibrating the audio levels to perfection. If the theater is part of a larger home automation system or is to act as the home's digital media hub, the system is integrated now.

All that's left in the process is to sit back and be blown away. Work is finished and life resumes, but not life as usual—your home is now equipped for the total media immersion experience as envisioned by Audio One.