Featured Home Theater System: Juan in Colombia

Juan in Colombia

Our latest featured home theater brings us to Colombia, where Juan talks about his passion for movies and music, and how he started on his journey to great audio. Juan is a bit of a craftsman and one of the unique features of his set-up are the custom-made wooden speaker stands he designed and built out of wood from the Achapu tree, a species native to Colombia.

As someone who works primarily from home, Juan enjoys having a soundtrack to his workday, so he invested in an SVS system that combines both the Prime and Ultra Series speakers in a 7.1 array to handle his daytime music playback. When the workday is over, however, Juan’s music system turns into an immersive home cinema where he enjoys a wide range of thrillers and action movies.

Questions And Answers:

What were the greatest challenges you had to overcome when setting up your home theater?

The biggest challenge overall has been finding the perfect balance of price and quality from my audio components. I have been slowly acquiring components to build up the quality of my home theater, but my SVS Ultras were the first high performance speakers I’ve used, so it took some effort to get the system perfect. It was also a challenge to work within the space of my living room and to adjust each of the elements of my home theater to be integrated aesthetically with the decor without bring overly intrusive visually.

How has SVS impacted the performance of your system?

SVS has had a tremendously positive impact on the quality of audio in my home theater system. One word I like to use is “revealing” based on how well the Ultras performed in my living room and how they are letting me hears things I’ve never heard before. Besides that, visually they are wonderful. I'm very happy with everything SVS brings to my system.

What are some of your favorite music and movies for showing off your audio gear?

Some of my favorite movies and music to show the performance of my home theater are: Hanz Zimmer soundtracks, Brian Tyler, Howard Shore John Ottman, Daft Punk (Tron Legacy) and many others like Skyfall, 2012, Oblivion, Defiance, Contagion. For soundtracks, I also love The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, Unstoppable, Star Wars, Battleship, all of DC Comics and Marvel universes, The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, action, suspense and science fiction in general. I’m definitely big into movies and there are many more, but I also enjoy classical music, classic rock, big band and jazz, so my system gets LOTS of listening time.

Why is having a home theater important to you?

Having a home theater is very important for me because I enjoy the company of good music and movies at home. In addition, much of my work is performed at home and is very nice to hear the music as it should be while working on my professional activities. I have always had an appreciation for great sound and the differences that can be made by incorporating a great team of components. Although some of my components are basic, with the arrival of the SVS Ultra Speakers, the experience has been elevated to spectacular ... Thank SVS!!!

Tell us about the speaker stands, what inspired you to create them?

Furniture design has always been a hobby of mine and something I’m pretty good at. There are actually two kinds of supports and each one has a different use. The first one is a solid column of Colombian wood called Achapo, a similar to Cedar, but with greater density and strength. The tone is natural with a small protective wax and the processing was made by a craftsman in the city of Popayán. I designed them 10 years ago for some Bose speakers, but they now are the perfect solution for anchoring my SVS Prime Satellites.
The second design I created last year can serve as a horizontal or vertical base depending on speaker location and type. It’s also unique because the horizontal shelf at one end has an additional plane tail shaped piece to reflect sound back from the speakers so there is better dispersion to the front and less dissipation. These supports are also made with an internal Achapo wooden structure, coated in a Cedar veneer, and dyed in a dark chocolate tone. These supports were performed by the same craftsman. Although these supports were initially designed for other speakers, I thought they were flexible and usable for other models of speakers like these. The dimensions were chosen carefully so that whatever the speaker, the drivers always stay at ear level.