US$6 Million Kipnis Home Theater Seats 3, Might Be Worth the Money

Often when we encounter these super deluxe home theater rigs, we can’t figure out where all that money goes. Not so for the Kipnis Studio Standard, the austere name Jeremy Kipnis gave to his US$6 million trial home theater, one he’s happy to reproduce for any other way-too-well-off citizen who asks. I mean, yeah, it’s totally ridiculous, but with 8.8 channels of surround sound, 16 subwoofers and video resolution four times as tight as 1080p, at least you see where your some rich dude’s money is going.

For one thing, we’ve laughed in the past at fancy home theaters that still had 720p monitors; well, this guy leapfrogs even 1080p and goes with Sony’s formerly commercial US$100,000 4K SRX-R110 projector, lighting up an 18-by-10-foot Stewart Snowmatte “laboratory-grade” screen. Ironically, the Sony doesn’t have an HDMI HDCP input, but it can upconvert all Blu-ray and HD DVD content to 4,096 x 2,160 in analog. There’s also a secondary projector, if you’re just dying for the olden days of “full HD.”

The sound system is 8.8 channel, though I can’t figure out why it’s not 9.16, or even 11.16, given the fact that there are eight Snell THX towers spaced all around, plus three Snell center-channel speakers, all powered by a combination of solid-state and tube amplifiers. As I hinted, the low end is handled by 16 Snell subwoofers. (I guess this means Snell makes the best speakers money can buy—I’ll just file that away for…never.)

All of this is crowded into a room that’s not ginormous by any means, just 26.5 x 33 feet, with a single three-cushion menage-a-trois couch as the focal point for all 11,315 watts of juice. (Fun Fact: That’s like 11,215 more watts than anything I own.)

Want one? Well, you’re in luck, cuz Jeremy Kipnis is selling this design, along with an even bigger one called the Alpha Ciné and a tinier one called the Gamma Ciné. That’s right: US$6 million doesn’t even get you the Alpha; it gets you the Beta. [Kipnis via Crave and, most informatively, Audio Video Interiors]
Thanks Steve!