Avitel Brings the Theater into Your House
By Lara Vaienti
Photos by Michael Blevins and Avitel
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Avitel Studio - Bozeman, Montana - Fireplace Set Up
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“Technology goes beyond the limits of your imagination,” says Herb Metier, at ease in the coziness of his 3,000 square-foot showroom, recently opened on 1007 East Main Street, Bozeman. Here a series of rooms are furnished rustically, and cushioned chairs face or surround wide flat viewing screens and rock walls. As one walks in, the fragrance is new leather and wood. An electronic fireplace that can be lit by a hand wave welcomes you in the entrance of the building. The gurgling of a decorative water fountain is the backdrop in this quiet “high- technology” forest.
“Want some music? Here it is!’’ Metier says, dialing his choice from a menu on a little screen set in the wall in front of him. The clear sounds seem to emanate all over the building. Then with one finger, Metier presses once more on the menu, turning off an already muted big screen TV above his head. A painting glides down in its place, leaving no visible trace of the screen. Throughout the building, Metier has installed wiring that enables control of every environment in the store. Heating, cooling, lighting, audio, video, fireplace, security and even window shade controls are all available with the simple touch of an electronic wall panel. Welcome to Avitel, where intricate systems and implants of technology will leave you wondering whether you are still on earth or in a James Bond movie.
Metier is not a special agent with fantastic tricks up his sleeve, but a guy who grew up in out-of-the way Wilsall. Metier’s eyes brighten as he meticulously describes what electronics can do for you and how one of his men or himself can “install the Avitel’s expertise” in your house while meeting your needs and budget. Metier admits to working often at home in his free time, just out of pure passion for his job. “It’s basically love and lust of electronics and design that drive me into self-studying and experimentation. In fact my family gets a little distraught from time to time because I’m completely changing my audio and video system at home,” he says.
He says that his wife and two kids are electronics-passionate as well and are involved in the family business – his daughter until she left for college and son, a high-school kid, will soon start pulling wires at job sites. The Metiers bought Avitel in 1992 and have built up a crew of eight people who have been with them since then. “We often design and work all together,” says Metier of his team, “and we go to conferences during the year to keep Avitel updated.” They don’t want anyone to leave the Avitel shop with unanswered questions on acoustic, visual, lighting, control systems that could turn one’s house into a smarter, more convenient place to live in.
“The Montana Classic Theater,” designed and installed by Metier’s team, can turn nights into delectable daily events in the intimacy of your house. To the “Montana Classic Theater,” the enthusiastic Metier dedicated one big area of his store. Acoustic Innovations -- a line that combines acoustics with aesthetics -- expands on this concept with room treatments, including seating, acoustical panels, starfield ceiling, wall paneling, and lighting. Powered by the JBL Synthesis THX Ultra system, and viewed on a 107” wide Stewart Film Screen, this is a sophisticated way to incorporate a theater into your home.
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Avitel - Bozeman, Montana -
Fireplace Set Up
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For the theater-at-home experience to be good, there are an array of details to take care of. One goal is to exclude the noises coming from adjacent rooms, neighborhood kids, outdoor noise, telephones, and family traffic. According to Metier, while there may be an almost unlimited choice of options available, two basic approaches work best: dedicating a room in the home room as a “personal theater” or automating a family room for multi-purpose applications. With climbing construction costs, the few mechanical contrivances required to transform a family room into a theater can be easily justified. If the budget or personality of the home supports a dedicated theater, specific structural and acoustical provisions should be done.
“Some people like to be involved in the total design of their home, and others just like to have the end result without knowing how we got there, which is fine and I understand it,” states Metier. “It can look complicated to understand the electronic design of a house and the thing is that there aren’t very many things that you can think of, that we can’t-not- make happen, especially if it’s in the building-process of the home. You can have total light control throughout the house. For example, the shading of a room is important for theater rooms or media-rooms because the more light you can control coming into the room, the better you can make the video appear.”
“Then there’s the acoustics. Starting with the material the room is made of, you can control the sound waves,” Metier explains.” It’s not just the design of the wiring lay-off or where the speakers sound best in a room, but what substance is in, behind, and on the wall. As important, if not more so, are the sizes of the ceiling and the floor and all the flat surfaces, because those are what make the sounds accessible to a room. So our focus is to try intensely to keep the sound within its given area throughout the house.”
In order to synchronize one building’s electronic design with its structure, Metier and his men need to work with the architects, builders, and interior-designers, other than the customer. “From our standpoint we try to make life simple for the client in the end result because a lot of our clients mainly use their vacation home three or four times a year. So it’s not easy to come in and learn about a new audio-video system. It has to be built as simple as possible. That sometimes means that what goes on behind the scenes is very, very, intricate,” Metier explains.
Once the home theater is set up, Metier can provide viewing chairs. A line of comfortable chairs, called “Contempo Cinemachair,” is part of Acoustic Innovations. The cinema chairs are equipped with cup holders, recliner mechanisms and are available in one’s choice of high quality leathers. They have hardwood frames, deeply padded coil seats and backs, and lifetime foam cushions. These chairs, made in different sizes according to the customers’ preferences, can be motorized, heated, and even programmed to give a massage. Certain devices can also be built into the chairs to enhance the base response of a movie or music, so that the chair too becomes part of the action.
These days Metier has more requests for whole house audio and video systems that often call for installations of theater-rooms and complete lighting packaging and control systems. “Over the years our focus has changed so much,” says Herb, who’s been in the electronics business since 1977 and has seen many changes along the way. He recalls his experiences with the installation of huge satellite dishes and their enormous bundles of wiring in people’s backyards and his history at Avitel. “We came from a retail experience; from projections systems and big screens, plasma TVs on the wall, to cam-corders and portable stereos etc. Gradually we crossed over by dividing the retail business—mostly car-stereos on one side of the old store on 7th and audio-video experience on the other side and started to diversify. Not too long after that I ended up selling the car audio portion of the business and now we are moved into here!” says Metier.
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Avitel - Bozeman, Montana -
Studio Set Up
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Although Avitel’s history is solidly rooted in the sales and installation of custom audio and visual equipment, the team is also specialized in the integration of custom-designed electronics and “smart-home” technologies. With some Avitel work you could turn on the heating system in each room of your house by a remote control, activate a system in your walks and driveway to melt ice and snow, turn on your sprinklers and even install a home-theater outdoors for the Summer. Avitel technicians can put wired sound sources into planters and lights into rocks along pathways and decks around swimming pools. Today’s changes in electronics have come quickly and are part of the fascination in the pursuit of excellence for some people. Avitel and Metier did it, and, if you stop by his showroom, you can experience how his “connected” world can be yours as well.
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