Heres (http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=pZ6npOJQlmw&NR=1) a Jerry Lewis 1958 interview. A little past mid way you get a quick glimpse of his theater. That was considered elite in its day. How things have changed!











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Alan,

Maybe you could email PHC (the speaker company) and see if they can share some of their end user photos.

They claim to have done systems for Tom Cruise and Matt Damon to name a few heavy weights.

I know that a buncha years ago, BGW made a powered subwoofer with I think 4 X 12 or 4X15" speakers. The sales rep I talked to at the NSCA show in 1995(?) said that he did an install/calibration at Sharon Stone's house. She had a 35mm projector...

Fabio had an Ampro 4600 CRT projector for years, 'upgraded' to a Runco DLP a while back.

Alan,

Maybe you could email PHC (the speaker company) and see if they can share some of their end user photos.

They claim to have done systems for Tom Cruise and Matt Damon to name a few heavy weights.

PHC? I thought it was PMC that claimed this.

PMC is the British company I think. http://www.pmc-speakers.com/index.php

PHC is Professional Home Cinema. http://www.professionalhomecinema.com/

PMC is Canadian, I believe, ATC is British.

PMC is Canadian, I believe, ATC is British.

PMC are a British company, but they have very close ties to (not sure if extends to ownership by) Bryston.

Sean

Ah, that makes sense to me. I've never liked PMCs at all, but thought that unusual since Canadian speakers tend to be uniformly good. I guess Bryston must be the importer or something, or was.

One wonders though, do celebrities know any more about good audio than anyone else? I know musicians who really couldn't care less about audio, but know everything about every guitar ever made or the difference in sound with ever type of wood used in drums. I imagine most of the people that get these things put in have no idea what is going on when it comes to the products, the installation, etc. Probably they have someone who hires someone who hires someone else and then they just want to know how to turn it on and off.

Edit - that sounded kinda harsher than I meant it. I'm just saying I'm probably more interested in HTs by hard core enthusiasts like we have here on AVS ;)

Well, everyone has their own interests. But most of the musicians I know have this ability to hear "through" bad equipment/recordings and listen to the music.

Well I know two celebs who can be counted in the top levels of the Hollywood Crowd:

One who specced his entire system after personally auditioning equipment for hours........ Finally settled with a combination of Sonos Faber Speakers and Naim 500 Series Electronics. He then repeated the same combination for his home theater..

The other has Kef Reference 207 front and back and Kef 204 Center with Krell Electronics and a couple of Gotham Subs, again all personally specced and auditioned.

So there is some hope for Taste within the Celeb Crowd.

I did some maintenance work on Frank Sinatra's place down here in Rancho Mirage which is now owned by Jim Patterson from Vancouver.

There is a dedicated screening room with 2 35mm projectors and a smaller CRT projector. A small screen (CRT projctor) sits in front of a larger screen (35mm projectors). The small screen is only 100" but the larger screen is about 18-20' wide.

The caretaker told me a lot of stories of when Frank and the Rat Pack were partying all the time. Funny!

The caretaker told me a lot of stories of when Frank and the Rat Pack were partying all the time. Funny!

I can imagine. He should write a book I bet it would do well.

Hugh Hefner has/had an entry level CRT projector (Pansonic PT 101) under his bed projecting on the wall. That 'girl next door' or whatever series those little slu....errr...women were on showed it, so I'll bet it's still there.

I also read a 1960s Popular Electronics or similar that showed a couple of pix behind the scenes of the Mansion's a/v system at the time, with one full time guy operating it. I can only imagine it now.... then again, if he's still got a composite video only CRT projector under his bed, maybe things haven't changed much.

Also zapped to one of these girls of the playboy mansion shows somewhere halfway into the show and noticed a sort of extruding bay with a window at the end, on the right the wall consisted of two high gain silver torusses side by side. These were Sony CRT type parabolic screens. Not sure if it were the 80" or the 72", or even the 100" screens, though they appeared to be smaller than 100". So looking from the side they appeared to be the 72". I am sure there still must be a set of Sony CRTs on the other wall, behind/above the couch.

He also has had an Advent 1000(A?), and a Talaria.

1960s, are you sure, in the show Barbi Benton told the story of how she found the place and got Heff out of Chicago in the early seventies...

Heres (http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=pZ6npOJQlmw&NR=1) a Jerry Lewis 1958 interview. A little past mid way you get a quick glimpse of his theater. That was considered elite in its day. How things have changed!


Well, for a livingroom set-up, motorized walls, are still 'Elite'.

One wonders though, do celebrities know any more about good audio than anyone else? I know musicians who really couldn't care less about audio, but know everything about every guitar ever made or the difference in sound with ever type of wood used in drums. I imagine most of the people that get these things put in have no idea what is going on when it comes to the products, the installation, etc. Probably they have someone who hires someone who hires someone else and then they just want to know how to turn it on and off.

Edit - that sounded kinda harsher than I meant it. I'm just saying I'm probably more interested in HTs by hard core enthusiasts like we have here on AVS ;)

I was working for some pro musicians recently. One was into great audio and the others were not. One had pretty sever hearing damage from years of abuse. He said it was caused mostly by the metronome level being too high during studio recording sessions.

I did some maintenance work on Frank Sinatra's place down here in Rancho Mirage which is now owned by Jim Patterson from Vancouver.

There is a dedicated screening room with 2 35mm projectors and a smaller CRT projector. A small screen (CRT projctor) sits in front of a larger screen (35mm projectors). The small screen is only 100" but the larger screen is about 18-20' wide.

The caretaker told me a lot of stories of when Frank and the Rat Pack were partying all the time. Funny!

How funny. For a short time, I worked for David Rutledge AV in the desert and I did several install/upgrades at the Sinatra House. It was a very nice setup (especially for being such an old "home theater" design) and is just like it was described above. There were a bunch of B&W pictures of Frank and the Rat Pack and everything looked like it was straight out of the 60's. The film pj's were no longer being used and there was a large retractable screen for the CRT pj which we replaced with a Panny LV DLP. There were 2 or 3 Altec Voice of the Theater speakers behind the large movie screen that were in good shape that were no longer being used but the owner wanted a newer speaker system, so we installed 3 large Klipsch speakers beside each of the Altecs. :confused: I have no idea why the owner didn't want to use the Altecs because they sounded great.

The coolest part for me was as I was installing the Klipsch's, I found a box with a bunch of old 8mm and 16mm film reels and a mint boxed pair of old Everlast boxing gloves!!! :eek: I looked at a couple of reels and one was of a 60's race car at racetrack and another was of some children playing. I can only imagine what was on the rest of them. :D It took every fiber of me not to put the box in my truck and never tell a soul and then make a pretty penny on eBay! ;) Anyway, I showed the box to the woman who was managing the property and she gave me this look like I had just found something very special and sincerely thanked me and gave me a $100 tip at the end of the day. :rolleyes:

How funny. For a short time, I worked for David Rutledge AV in the desert and I did several install/upgrades at the Sinatra House. It was a very nice setup (especially for being such an old "home theater" design) and is just like it was described above. There were a bunch of B&W pictures of Frank and the Rat Pack and everything looked like it was straight out of the 60's. The film pj's were no longer being used and there was a large retractable screen for the CRT pj which we replaced with a Panny LV DLP. There were 2 or 3 Altec Voice of the Theater speakers behind the large movie screen that were in good shape that were no longer being used but the owner wanted a newer speaker system, so we installed 3 large Klipsch speakers beside each of the Altecs. :confused: I have no idea why the owner didn't want to use the Altecs because they sounded great.

The coolest part for me was as I was installing the Klipsch's, I found a box with a bunch of old 8mm and 16mm film reels and a mint boxed pair of old Everlast boxing gloves!!! :eek: I looked at a couple of reels and one was of a 60's race car at racetrack and another was of some children playing. I can only imagine what was on the rest of them. :D It took every fiber of me not to put the box in my truck and never tell a soul and then make a pretty penny on eBay! ;) Anyway, I showed the box to the woman who was managing the property and she gave me this look like I had just found something very special and sincerely thanked me and gave me a $100 tip at the end of the day. :rolleyes:

The owner wanted to keep everything as it was since he purchased the house from Sinatra directly. Sinatra even sold his prized train set (maybe just left them there in the train car).

Everything in the house is original, down to the kitchen, glassware and the furniture. I replaced a couple of the crt tube tv's in the guest cottages and had to find ones that looked like the original ones. Kinda hard to do now-a-days.

Mcintosh system for the living room and house audio is in a closet.

Sammy Davis used to get drunk and fall into the pool all the time, so Frank moved the pool 10' farther away from the house, crazy!

I really liked it there. Very nice feel to the house. Comfortable.