PROJECT ORCHESTRATION & TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION
Cinema Paradiso
Recognized by industry peers as the world’s best home theater.
NEWPORT COAST, CALIFORNIA
In a Newport Coast estate, Audio Images set out to do something no home theater had done before: dissolve the line between watching a film and living inside one. Guests arrive through an Italian piazza, move through five themed entertainment spaces, and finally take their seats inside an oval domed theater inspired by the Paris Opera. The result, Cinema Paradiso, was named the Best Overall Home Theater in the world by CEDIA in 2013.
Audio Images
Our role on the project.
A theater this ambitious isn’t installed — it’s conducted. Audio Images served as the technology integrator and project orchestrator, engineering the audio, video, motion, and control systems while coordinating the architects, acousticians, and builders into one quality-controlled process.
Our role was to make a million dollars of precision engineering completely invisible — so that nobody in the room thinks about the equipment, and everybody feels the film.
That discipline is what we call Solutioneering, and Cinema Paradiso is its definitive expression.
Great home theater is supposed to disappear. You shouldn’t notice the optics, the acoustics, the hundred-plus speakers, or the rooms-within-rooms hung on springs to keep sound from ever reaching the house. You should just feel transported — and at Cinema Paradiso, the transport starts long before the lights go down.
Named for Giuseppe Tornatore’s beloved 1988 film, the experience opens onto an Italian piazza patterned after Siena, surrounded by five themed entertainment spaces. As guests move deeper toward the auditorium, the everyday falls further away. Then the film begins — and it the programmable seats sway. Properly encoded scenes gently sway through a water sequence or shudder as something enormous crosses the screen.
Moments
A night at the Paradiso.
Inside the Cinema
Specifications Worth Knowing
Sound
Steinway Lyngdorf all-digital surround driving 150 speakers.
Acoustics
Concertino acoustic enhancement transforms the room — theater to concert hall at the press of a digital switch. Hidden microphones let musicians perform live with no handheld amplification.
Screen
165-inch-wide, four-way PMI 2.0 variable masking screen.
Projection
Commercial-grade DCI-compliant Barco digital cinema projector.
Motion
Dbox motion platforms and seats synced to encoded scenes — gentle sway, ground-shaking impact.
Isolation
Ceiling, floors, and walls suspended on springs. Sound stays inside the room.
Silence
Custom ventilation engineered to eliminate background noise. Massive sound-isolating entry doors.
Architecture
A rectangular shell transformed into an oval space capped by a large dome — architectural and acoustic designs reinforcing each other.
System specs reflect the 2013 build. Audio Images continues to evolve the installation today.
Recognition
What the Industry Said
2013 CEDIA Electronic Lifestyles Designer Award
Best Overall Home Theater
The single highest honor in the industry.
2013 CEDIA Gold
Technical Design, Home Theater Level VI ($1M+)
Part of Audio Images’ record for more CEDIA home theater and media room awards than any other integrator in history. Additional 2013 honors recognized other Audio Images projects across multiple categories — see our Awards page.
In the Homeowner’s Words
From the Homeowner.
Video — Paradiso Cinema Owner Says:
It now feels like one home. It truly is fully connected in every way: lighting, audio, video, you name it. Every aspect is a unified home.
— The Current Homeowner, Newport Coast
The Experience
Inside Cinema Paradiso
Credits
Project credits.
Technology Integration & Systems Design
Audio Images
Mark Ontiveros, President / CEO
Theater Architecture & Concept
TK Theaters
Theo Kalomirakis
Acoustic Engineering — Sound-Isolation Shell, AV Integration
Performance Media Industries (PMI)
Anthony Grimani, CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient
Interior Acoustics, Fabrication & Final Calibration
SH Acoustics
Steve Haas
Master Builder
Andrew Miner Construction
Inspired?
Let’s talk about what’s possible.
Every project starts with a conversation. By appointment only.