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October 2009

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Playboy Magazine - Hungarian Edition - October 2009 - Playtech Feature Column

Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS) - The Home Theater Extravaganza!

What is the ultimate ticket price for the most outstanding home theater in the world? Costing as much as house boats, the Bugatti Veyron, and the newest Ferrari Formula One combined, such desire also comes out of the same shopping galore. Jeremy Kipnis broke into his piggy-bank, spent years doing research and development, and finally built a "modest" home theater system known variously as The Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS) - "The Greatest Show on Earth!" For this prototype, a curved leather sofa in front of the giant 610 cm diagonal screen is the top quality Stewart Filmscreen 4-Way Automated Masking Snowmatte (a laboratory grade reference screening material), which serves as the canvas upon which either the ultra-high resolution Sony SRX-T110 (4096 x 2160) digital projector or the Meridian 810 Reference Video System (4096 x 2400) broadcasts every one of nearly 10 megapixels in 3D (Sony) or Anamorphic Cinemascope (Meridian) better than you will see at any movie theater in the world.

And, from the drop of a pin to the galloping of a stampede of horses, or even the bloodthirsty roar of a T-Rex, everything is reproduced with incredible fidelity through a specially hand-built and modified 8.8 channel surround sound system (which is soon to be updated to 12.12). Kipnis' unique audio system featuring 8 Snell THX Music & Cinema Reference Loudspeaker Towers also includes a 3 piece Snell LCR-2800 THX Center Channel Array, as well, so as to accurately reproduce film & television dialog better than ever before. Designed by Kevin Voecks for George Lucas and Tom Holman as their very first THX home theater approved loudspeaker system, the commercial product originally consisted of 2 towers, 2 subs, 2 diffuse surrounds, and 1 center channel. And it sounded really great, according to Kipnis. But the earthquakes and other subsonics were not nearly realistic enough, so he tested and then added a total of 16 Snell THX Sub-1800 Subwoofers (46 cm in diameter), which are now easily capable of braking down whole buildings or causing seismic faults in the Earth's crust. On the other side of the frequency spectrum, 10 Murata ES103A super tweeters were hand-selected to complete the KSS 8.8 Surround Sound System, so that all frequencies from 10 Hz to 100 kHz are precisely recreated at volume levels that can exceed 135 dB/SPL (Very Very Very Very Very Loud!) with no audible distortion, whatsoever. These are the sort of sounds that only cats, dogs and bats should be able to hear, but which Kipnis requires in order that his sound system completely and effortlessly recreate the illusion of reality from any media source.

The KSS mega-system utilizes 50 specially commissioned and incredible sounding American McIntosh tube amplifiers, along with 8 solid-state amplifiers (running in Class A operation - the most linear possible). The total continuous power output is measured at an astonishing 11,315 Watts, offering "You Are There!" sonic transparency along with nearly unlimited dynamic range. If you desire, you can play the system ridiculously loud (13 on a scale of 10), but this also provides for the capability to hear the most delicate swish of leaves outside or water running along softly from a nearby stream; both types of sound perfectly fill the dedicated KSS home theater space - a room with no parallel surfaces, and therefore no standing waves. Next to the acoustically ideal KSS home theater building are two mammoth 13,800 Volt / 800 ampere General Electric transformers along with two enormous 100 kVa Equitech balancing transformers - one exclusively for the analog components, and one just for the digital. We know how much high-end picture and sound systems depend on the wiring, so of course, there's no lack of specially commissioned technology here, either - kilometers of it. Why ever leave home, again?

Price: 1.2 Billion (!) Ft

How is that enough? "Just a little bit more!" sounds like John D. Rockefeller's reply. It is easy to get used to the good - and we, as recipients, demand more and better all the time. But really, is it worth it to spend an irrational sum, like that for a luxury city high-rise apartment, or gold speakers for the family car? Where is the boundary of obsession? We do not know, that's for sure, but that the previous clearly describes a level of personal immersion in media playback that costs a premium but also provides the maximum is (sadly) not likely to be found in your neighbor's living room, much less down the street at your local IMAX theater.

Written by: Hámori Dávid (www.pto.hu)

Caption 1:

Passionate fans of high-end never regret the money spent for their home theaters. Jeremy Kipnis, however, is a bit more like "Thomas Edison" meets "Stephen Hawking" with his multi-media KSS cinema room that costs a cool 1.2 billion forints.

Caption 2:

Feel Earth tremors alongside the sounds of softly falling leaves - so lifelike and delicate, while at the same time being at the epicenter of an Earthquake!