World-class Australian home theatres & smart homes

(Image credit: Future)

Smart homes, stunning dedicated home theatre rooms, custom hi-fi music systems – we cover them in every issue of Sound+Image magazine, explaining the tech behind them, interviewing the custom installers that create them, and featuring the often-specialised custom products and home theatre packages that enable these projects to deliver reference-quality performance.

These features not only show what's possible at different levels of budget, they provide ideas which you might apply to your own home. We've seen families convert garage spaces and formal dining rooms into magnificent movie palaces. Many new-builds these days allocate a space for a dedicated media room or home theatre, but as you'll read in our articles, often the space is a non-ideal shape or fails to account for the needs of acoustics or air-conditioning. Learning from the experts will help you get it right from the earliest stages of planning.

Sound+Image presents GOLD awards for excellence in home theatre, stereo hi-fi installations and smart homes, so look for those awards on the websites of custom installers for additional confidence in their abilities. You can see our 2021 winners linked from the bottom of this master list of the projects we've put online so far, with more to come.

Enough preamble - please enjoy the full story of these fine custom installations - just click the pics below to head straight to the full articles.

Sound+Image Custom Showcase — **The world's best home cinema:** 'Surprise us!' was the minimalist brief from the owners. And Wavetrain Cinemas certainly did, building them an Australian home cinema judged to be the world's best in CEDIA's 2023 global awards (Image credit: Wavetrain Cinemas)

Studio Kai — **Coast with the most!** Nine audio zones, five 4K video zones, full Savant control – and not a bad view. Len Wallis Audio delivered this rather comfy intelligent smart home. (Image credit: Len Wallis Audio)

**Total upgrade!:** This multipurpose Western Australian cinema room goes from 65-inch TV to 4K projection, from 5.1.4 sound to 7.2.4... and from plain white walls to designer décor, thanks to Rogue Home Cinema. (Image credit: Rogue Home Cinema)

Photography: Holly Muldrock — **Making a Statement:** If you’re going to build an extension to your home, what better use for it than a reference-level home cinema! Wavetrain Cinemas was engaged to design this home’s new 17-speaker cinema space from the ground up, as an extension to the existing house. (Image credit: Wavetrain Cinemas)

Sound+Image installs — **A music haven for digital and vinyl:** A fine-looking stereo installation in Western Australia which has been comprehensively upgraded by Frank Prowse Hi-Fi in Perth from an original CD-based system to add vinyl replay – but which also evolved in the process to add Roon-controlled digital streaming. (Image credit: Frank Prowse Hi-Fi)

**The Director's Chair:** a Sydney movie insider tasked Signature Cinemas with delivering this screening-room-level home cinema (Image credit: Studio Kai)

Screen images: Panji Sukma on Scopio — **Dining room ditched for movie magic!** This WA family cleared away the cutlery and invited Rogue Home Cinema to prepare an audio-visual feast instead. (Image credit: Rogue Home Cinema)

Sound+Image — **Creating a space apart:** Sydney hi-fi store Audio Solutions delivered this “transformational” system in a custom-designed space for a high-end two-channel hi-fi solution. (Image credit: Audio Solutions)

**One room – two systems:** Abacus Acoustic delivers an extraordinary room with full semi-pro movie sound flanked by a high-end stereo system. (Image credit: Abacus Acoustic)

Awards 2022 — **Our GOLD winning custom installation projects and product in the 2022 Sound+Image Awards.** (Image credit: Future)

**Our GOLD winning custom installation projects and product in the 2021 Sound+Image Awards.** (Image credit: Future)

Sound+Image is Australia's no.1 mag for audio & AV – sister magazine to Australian Hi-Fi and to the UK's What Hi-Fi?, and bestower of the annual Sound+Image Awards, which since 1989 have recognised the year's best hi-fi and home cinema products and installations. While Sound+Image lives here online as part of our group, our true nature is best revealed in the print magazines and digital issues, which curate unique collections of content each issue under the Editorship of Jez Ford, in a celebration of the joys that real hi-fi and high-quality AV can bring. Enjoy essential reviews of the most exciting new gear, features on Australia's best home cinemas, advice on how to find your sound, and our full Buying Guide based on all our current and past award-winners, all wrapped up with the latest news and editorial ponderings. Click here for more information about Sound+Image, including links to buy individual digital editions and details on how best to subscribe.

Get the What Hi-Fi? Newsletter