Spend enough time around residential AV and sooner or later you'll hear someone suggest that the industry is having the fun sucked out of it.
I can understand where that sentiment comes from.
Most of us found our way into this industry because we loved films, music and technology. We learned by experimenting, trying new things and, occasionally, getting them spectacularly wrong. There was something genuinely exciting about discovering what worked, and what didn't, through curiosity and experience.
But does becoming more professional really mean becoming less enjoyable?
I don't think so.
At Cinema Buro, we've had the privilege of watching that transformation from several different perspectives: as designers, integrators, educators and contributors to CEDIA's recommended practices. That experience has convinced me that professionalism and enthusiasm aren't opposing forces. If anything, they're becoming inseparable.
Human nature doesn't particularly like change. If something has been fun for the last twenty years, it's perfectly reasonable to ask why we should do it differently tomorrow.
There are plenty of talented integrators who have built wonderful cinemas over the years without a single unhappy client. Experience counts for a great deal, and many have earned outstanding reputations through years of hard work and dedication.
That doesn't mean there isn't a better way.
Every industry reaches a point where experience alone is no longer enough. The people who continue to move the profession forward are those who combine experience with evidence, continually asking not just "What works?" but "How could this work even better?"
Residential cinema may be approaching that point.
There was a time when the automotive industry looked remarkably similar to where residential cinema stood a decade ago. Small workshops, gifted enthusiasts, learning by trial and error, driven almost entirely by passion. Yet 140 years later, nobody expects a luxury performance car to be built in the workshop at the bottom of Gottlieb Daimler's garden.
We expect it to be the product of world-class engineering, rigorous testing, objective measurement and an extraordinary manufacturing process.
None of that has made the automotive industry less enjoyable.
Quite the opposite.
The engineers take their work incredibly seriously so that the rest of us can simply enjoy the finished product.
Residential cinema is beginning to follow that same path.
Today's media rooms and dedicated cinemas are no longer niche hobby projects. Even a modest installation can represent the cost of a family car. At the very top of the market, clients are investing sums that would buy a house in many parts of the country.
When someone buys a performance car, there's an expectation that it will perform exactly as claimed.
That doesn't happen by accident.
It comes from careful engineering, repeatable processes, rigorous testing and objective measurement. It comes from understanding why something works, not simply knowing that it usually does.
The same is becoming true of residential cinema.
Over the past few years our industry has developed recommended practices covering everything from loudspeaker placement and room layout to objective performance verification. Collectively, the four principals of Cinema Buro were all authors or contributors to CEDIA RP22 and have continued to support the industry's development through further standards work, technical education and training.
One thing has become abundantly clear.
These documents aren't there to remove creativity or dictate how every cinema should be designed.
They're there to provide a common engineering foundation upon which creativity can flourish with confidence.
Every great cinema remains unique.
Every room presents different challenges.
Every client has different priorities.
None of that changes.
What changes is our ability to deliver exceptional results consistently.
Ironically, engineering has made my work more enjoyable, not less. There's less guesswork, fewer compromises and far greater confidence that the finished cinema will perform as intended. Instead of wondering whether a design will work, I can focus on refining it, pushing it further and delivering something genuinely exceptional.
For me, that's something worth celebrating.
Professionalism doesn't replace enthusiasm.
It gives enthusiasm direction.
It gives designers confidence in their decisions and clients confidence in the outcome.
The fun was never in avoiding engineering.
The fun is in what good engineering makes possible.
If professionalism is taking the fun out of residential cinema, then we're defining fun very differently.
Because for me, the real enjoyment isn't hoping a cinema will perform, it's the confidence that comes from knowing it will, then watching from the back of the room as our clients experience their finished cinema for the first time.
That moment, when they forget the room exists and simply become immersed in the story...
That's the fun that matters.