Cédric's Discreet Home Cinema Installation in a Parisian Apartment

In this new case study, we take a closer look at Cédric's discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment. This audio/video project also incorporates a multiroom audio setup — equally discreet. We'll also share our recommendations if you're planning something similar.

You might not know Cédric personally, but if you have a taste for fine (and beautiful!) things, you've almost certainly enjoyed the fruits of his culinary talent. I mention his profession because the professional standards he applies to his own work are exactly the standards he expects from others. We first met Cédric in the middle of a full renovation of his apartment. As you might imagine, Cédric is (very) demanding — everything must be as impeccably presented as his gastronomic specialities. We were therefore especially attentive to ensuring that the finishing quality of this Home Cinema installation surpassed even his expectations.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: the starting point

Our previous article (Stéphane's invisible Home Cinema installation in a living space) covered a cutting-edge audio/video project featuring a Sony 4K laser projector, an Atmos sound system, and fully invisible speakers.

Cédric's Home Cinema installation, by contrast, was all about achieving a simple, intuitive, and thoroughly discreet experience within a pared-back interior. His apartment, on the first floor of a period building, was originally staff quarters. The ceiling height was minimal — around 240cm. As the full renovation progressed, more and more beams emerged. The interior designer made the most of them, gaining additional ceiling height between the beams and adding considerable character to the space.

Our challenge was to conceal everything within the limited ceiling height available while preserving the authentic character of the beams and the aesthetic envisioned by the interior designer.

The brief for Cédric's discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment looked something like this:

• Enjoy a top-tier Home Cinema experience with complete discretion in a space-constrained environment.
• Have a multiroom audio system. To listen to his favourite music or radio from the moment he wakes up, in the kitchen, in the shower, and in the guest room.
• Avoid disturbing the neighbours (directly related to the above point).
• Make everything incredibly easy to use — so there's never any question about how it all works.
• Exceptional attention to detail in the finishing. So the result matches the rest of the apartment renovation.
• All of this within a reasonable budget. So — no invisible speakers like Amina as in Stéphane's project, or anything similarly extravagant.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: solutions and project planning

After determining the available and required recess depths at various points in the apartment, we put forward the following solution:

Home Cinema Section

• Home Cinema projector Sony VPL-H65ES.
• Motorised Alulift mount with its Integration Housing. Both installed within an exposed housing unit to conceal the assembly (the false ceiling being only 14cm deep).
• A housing unit built at the projector lift position, continuing the mouldings originally planned along the ceiling line.
• Concept Built-In Electrol 2 motorised recessed projection screen to be concealed between two beams for a completely invisible finish.
• Three Cinema 7 in-ceiling speakers and two CCM664 speakers (Bowers & Wilkins). High-quality sound in a minimal footprint. This combination delivers perfectly respectable bass — no need for a standalone subwoofer (which would disturb the neighbours).
• Denon AVR-X2600H Home Cinema amplifier. Powerful enough to fill the room, and capable of streaming Cédric's content to his large curved TV.

We specified dual-channel in-ceiling speakers for the rooms to be included in the multiroom system. The Bowers & Wilkins CCM664SR is compact, high-performing, and dual-channel.

What is a dual-channel speaker?

Audio sources are typically broadcast in stereo — left and right audio channels. You always need to reproduce both channels through two separate speakers to capture the full audio content. If you only use one speaker, you'll only hear part of the music — just the portion assigned to that speaker. In an in-ceiling multiroom audio setup, the dual-channel speaker is an elegant solution that avoids needing two speakers in every room. You connect both the left and right channels from your source, and the speaker handles the mix internally.

The total cost of this Home Cinema and multiroom audio project came to just under €15,000.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: audio system layout

Getting everything down on paper and having it approved is the comfortable part of a project like Cédric's. A renovation in a period building — especially one where beams keep appearing throughout the works — is always full of surprises. Cédric's installation was no exception.

The beams, which varied in height and were distributed unevenly across the living space, required some adjustments along the way. With aesthetics taking priority over pure performance, we swapped out the centre speaker — replacing the Cinema7 originally specified with the CCM664. The height, and above all the diameter of the Cinema7, meant it couldn't fit within the spacing between the two beams at that location. The result is excellent nonetheless — the sound is powerful and clear, more than sufficient for the room.

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To prepare the installation properly, we had asked the electrician to run the audio cables at the same time as the electrical wiring. Although he did an excellent job overall, he made two mistakes — because we hadn't thought to specify that each cable needed at least one metre of slack at the wall and ceiling exit points, and that every cable should be labelled. We recovered the situation by making splices and testing each of the 14 cables individually.

Our advice: When carrying out a Home Cinema installation and running audio cables, remember to:

• Leave at least 1m of cable (ideally 1.5m) at each wall exit point. It's far easier to trim a cable that's too long than to neatly join two short ones.
• Label every cable as you run it. It will save you the hassle and wasted time of having to test them one by one.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: integrating the projector

For Cédric's discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment, we went with the Sony VPL-H65ES projector. A proven performer that delivers unmatched contrast and image clarity among projectors compact enough to fit inside the ultra-compact Alulift motorised mount. The manual lens shift and centred optics make it straightforward to achieve a perfect result quickly. Thanks to the Integration Housing, we were able to prepare the projector installation well before the end of the building work. Once the plasterwork had dried and the dust had cleared, we completed the installation by slotting the Sony projector into its recess in a matter of seconds.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: installing the recessed projection screen

We decided to conceal the projection screen between two beams that had enough space between them. This elegant solution did, however, cause us some trouble later on. The uneven surfaces — both the ceiling between the beams and the beams themselves — forced us to compromise on the levelness of the false ceiling built between them.

In short, it proved impossible to achieve a perfectly level false ceiling from one end of the room to the other. As you can see in this photo, the left side sits slightly higher than the right.

Once the screen was fully installed and flush against the housing, it turned out not to be level at all. While this hadn't caused any issues during our initial tests, it became a problem once the renovation was complete.

Although far less sensitive to temperature changes than PVC fabric, our thick fibreglass screen fabric does undergo an initial reaction to the ambient temperature at the time of installation. This is normally barely noticeable and has no impact on the screen's performance. In this case, however, the installation took place in early winter, and Cédric moved in the following March. That gap caused a slight contraction in the screen fabric — between the cold of the empty apartment during the building works and the warmth from the radiators once occupied. These few millimetres of difference, compounded by the uneven housing unit, caused the ballast bar to retract too far, causing the closing flap to drop back down.

What I'm describing here in a few lines took us several visits to fully diagnose, as none of it was immediately obvious given the tiny tolerances involved. The cause was the combination of two separate phenomena — not just one.

Regardless, we resolved the issue. Here are two very useful tips if your Home Cinema installation is in a period property:

• Tip 1: Make absolutely sure your housing unit and false ceiling are perfectly level — and that your projection screen is too.
• Tip 2: Once the installation is complete, leave the screen fabric unrolled for 24 hours in a normally occupied, room-temperature environment. Only then adjust the stop precisely so that the flap of the recessed projection screen closes flush with the casing.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: automation

To keep things simple and fast for Cédric — a thirty-something who always has his smartphone to hand — we installed four essential apps and grouped them together in a single folder on his phone.

AiOcontrol: The AiOcontrol app controls the entire installation — screen, projector, and motorised mount — from a single interface.

Denon AVR: Denon provides the AVR app to control the Home Cinema amplifier from your smartphone. Ideal if you'd rather not have remote controls cluttering up the coffee table. Quick shortcuts let you switch between sources at a glance. It's free and genuinely handy. Useful to know: when you order a full AiOhc configuration from us, we programme the Home Cinema amplifier before shipping it. The shortcuts are pre-set — no need to wrestle with it yourself. On request, we can also come on site to carry out the calibration in person.

Heos: The Heos app manages the multiroom audio side of the installation. Simply choose what to play and in which room. It's intuitive and effortless — you can listen to different music in each room, or the same soundtrack throughout the whole home.

Remote: Cédric is more of an iPhone person than an Android user, so we recommended he get an Apple TV. It then becomes your primary platform for all your content, including 4K. The Remote app downloads automatically to your iPhone when you sign in to your iCloud account on the Apple TV. It mirrors the Apple TV's clean, minimal remote control on your smartphone — no extra remote needed.

Once these four apps are grouped in a "TV" or "Home Cinema" folder on your smartphone, using your Home Cinema and multiroom system becomes genuinely effortless.

Discreet Home Cinema installation in a Parisian apartment: conclusion

Cédric's discreet Home Cinema installation unfolded over many months, given the extensive renovation works underway. The unique constraints of the space — low ceilings, exposed beams — and Cédric's exacting aesthetic standards pushed us to go beyond what we thought possible, and well beyond his expectations. The level of finishing applied to every aspect of this apartment is exceptional. The tradespeople involved did remarkable work, and we're proud to have contributed at our level.

After several months of use, the greatest compliment came when we found out that Cédric's 4K 55" curved TV — bought before he knew us (you can spot it in some of the photos) — had been gathering dust ever since (#jobdone).

Better still, the moment we told him about our new Infinity technical screen fabric, he immediately asked us to install it as a replacement. These photos — taken of the same screen, in the same position, but with our two different fabrics — speak for themselves when it comes to illustrating the Infinity effect. The colours are richer, the blacks deeper, and the immersion complete thanks to the black border created by the fabric's tone. We now actually use these photos in one of our articles exploring the differences between a classic white matte fabric and the Infinity fabric.

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I hope this article has been useful and given you some fresh ideas for your own Home Cinema installation. Nothing here is particularly complicated or difficult — the key is knowing the right tips and the pitfalls to avoid. That's what we try to pass on through these articles 🙂

Get in touch with us directly via the live chat at the bottom of your screen to discuss your project. Or better yet, personalise your Home Cinema with AiOhc. We'll get back to you to fine-tune and confirm the technical aspects so your Home Cinema is exactly as it should be.