Can you install a home cinema in a London townhouse?

Yes — and it is one of our most common London project types. London townhouses offer basement spaces that are acoustically ideal for cinema installation. We have installed dedicated basement cinema rooms in Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill.

How much does a home cinema cost in London?

A living room cinema system for a London apartment typically starts from £20,000–£30,000. A dedicated basement cinema room with acoustic treatment, 4K laser projection, Artcoustic Dolby Atmos and Kaleidescape typically starts from £50,000–£80,000.

Can a home cinema be installed in a listed London property?

Yes, though it requires careful planning. For listed London properties we use wireless Lutron lighting control, plan cable routes to avoid damage to historic fabric, and work with conservation officers where structural work is required.

Do you offer home cinema calibration as a standalone service in London?

Yes. We offer professional home cinema calibration for London cinema rooms installed by any company. Our calibration service uses Dirac Live, Trinnov Optimizer and ISF-standard video calibration tools.

Do you service and maintain home cinemas installed by other companies in London?

Yes. We provide service, maintenance and repair for London cinema rooms regardless of who installed them, covering projector health checks, calibration reviews, source equipment updates and Crestron programming.

Home Cinema Installer London — Design, Installation & Calibration

Award-winning home cinema design and installation for London properties. Dedicated rooms, living room cinemas, basement conversions and loft installations since 1998.

Custom Controls are London’s most experienced dedicated home cinema installer, with over 25 years of cinema room design, installation and acoustic engineering across the capital. Our London portfolio spans basement screening rooms in Mayfair townhouses, living room cinema systems in Chelsea apartments, loft cinema conversions in Hampstead, and dedicated new-build cinema suites across the Home Counties. We are five-time Crestron Integration Award winners and specialist home cinema designers and installers.

Our London office is in the City, EC2V. Our engineers and acoustic designers are active across Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Kensington, Belgravia, Notting Hill, Hampstead, St John’s Wood, Primrose Hill, Marylebone, Holland Park, Richmond, Wimbledon, Fulham, Barnes and all London postcodes.

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Calibration

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Home Cinema Installation in London — The Specific Challenges

Installing a home cinema in a London property presents specific challenges that do not apply to country houses or new builds. London properties are dense — terraced townhouses, mansion block apartments and converted Victorian buildings sit immediately adjacent to neighbours, with shared walls, floors and ceilings that transmit sound readily. The acoustic isolation requirement is more demanding in London than almost anywhere else. Planning constraints on listed buildings — common across Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington conservation areas — limit what structural work is possible. And London basements, while ideal cinema spaces acoustically, are often already in use and require careful coordination with existing services. We have been navigating these constraints for 25 years.

London basements are acoustically ideal for cinema installation — the structural mass of surrounding soil provides inherent isolation, and the depth below the living areas gives bass energy a significant buffer before it can reach any shared surfaces. We have installed dedicated basement cinema rooms across Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill. For London apartments where a dedicated room is not available, a living room cinema system with a retractable screen and concealed Artcoustic speaker system delivers a genuinely cinematic experience without sacrificing the room when not in use.

The Technology — What We Specify for London Cinemas

4K laser projection — Sony and JVC 4K laser projectors. Laser maintains rated brightness for 20,000 hours without degradation, ideal for London clients who use their cinema daily. Read our projector guide →

Screen Excellence acoustically transparent screens — fixed-frame on all dedicated London cinema rooms, allowing the front speaker array to sit directly behind the screen with audio and video spatially aligned. Read our screen guide →

Artcoustic speaker systems — modular, scalable, available in any finish to match the room’s fabric walls, capable of Dolby Atmos configurations from 5.1.2 to 13.2.14. Read more →

Trinnov and Anthem processing — Trinnov Altitude for our most demanding London cinema installations; Anthem MRX with ARC Genesis for mid-range. Room correction calibration is standard on every installation.

Kaleidescape — Kaleidescape movie servers on the majority of our London cinema installations, delivering lossless Dolby Atmos and full uncompressed 4K HDR.

Crestron and Lutron integration — every London cinema is integrated with Crestron and Lutron. One button press dims the lights, starts the projector, selects the source and lowers the screen.

Home Cinema Calibration London

We calibrate every London cinema installation — and offer professional calibration as a standalone service for rooms installed by other companies. Our calibration service uses Dirac Live, Trinnov Optimizer and ISF-standard video calibration tools. A London cinema room that has never been professionally calibrated is typically delivering 60–70% of what the hardware is capable of.

Home Cinema Service & Maintenance London

We provide ongoing service and maintenance for London cinema rooms we have installed and for rooms installed by other companies, covering: annual system health check and calibration review; projector laser health monitoring; Kaleidescape server management; Crestron and Lutron programming updates; fault diagnosis and repair — remote where possible, on-site when required; and priority response on annual maintenance contracts.

London Case Studies — Home Cinema Installations

Kensington Basement Cinema

A dedicated basement cinema room beneath a Kensington townhouse. Sony 4K laser projection on a 2.8m Screen Excellence acoustically transparent screen, Artcoustic 5.2.1 Dolby Atmos speaker system, Anthem MRX-1120 processing and full Crestron integration. The acoustic design for this room was particularly demanding — the basement is directly below the main family living room, requiring a full mass loaded vinyl and acoustic plasterboard treatment to achieve complete sound isolation.

Belgravia Living Room Cinema

A living room cinema system in a Belgravia apartment where no dedicated cinema room was available. A Future Automation motorised panel conceals a 75″ Samsung OLED display behind artwork when not in use; a retractable projector screen drops from the ceiling for film viewing. Concealed Sonance in-ceiling 5.1 surround system, Anthem processing and Crestron one-button operation. The room is a normal living room when the cinema is off — indistinguishable from any other Belgravia drawing room.

Living Room Cinema, North London

A north London living room where a 2.4m motorised projection screen drops from the ceiling behind a motorised panel, paired with a concealed Artcoustic Dolby Atmos surround system, Sony 4K laser projection and Kaleidescape source. The Crestron system manages source selection, lighting scenes and screen deployment from a single button press. When the system is retracted and the panel closed, no evidence of the cinema exists in the room.

Hampstead Home Cinema

A dedicated ten-seat cinema room in Hampstead with full fabric wall treatment, fibre optic star effect ceiling, Artcoustic 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos speaker system and Crestron lighting integration. The fibre optic ceiling — visible throughout the film — creates the illusion of watching under an open night sky without adding any measurable light to the screen image.