Da-Lite Acoustical Imager Projector Screen Review

Acoustical Imager Concept & Build Quality

Installing a full-blown front projection system in a home can be a rewarding yet frustrating experience. Having the room and the budget to accommodate a large screen, speakers, and a projector in a home is difficult. Selling the idea to your better half may be impossible. All of you that have significant others with minimalist design criteria know what I am talking about. The conversation about your new home theater still rings freshly in your mind "Honey that 27 inch TV and those little cube speaker would be perfect in our family room!" Ugggg!

Fortunately for those of you with a smaller budget and design concerns from the other half, a new product recently introduced by Da-Lite may make your dream of having a cinema-sized screen in your home a reality. Da-Lite Screen has partnered with JBL Audio and recently introduced the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager Screen. This is a fixed wall mount screen that incorporates the front left, center, and right speakers directly into the frame of the screen. The screen also comes complete from the manufacturer with a 10 inch, 150 watt powered subwoofer and two small satellite speakers to be used as the surrounds. This ingenious innovation now makes it possible to have a front projection system in just about any room for about the same price as a cube speaker system.

For the purposes of this review, I wanted to keep the budget to an absolute minimum. I ordered the 45 x 80 (92 inches diagonal) 1:78:1 screen with the High Contrast Cinema Vision material. This is a light gray material with 1.1 gain. This is the perfect size for my family room and my seated viewing position of about 15 feet back from the screen. From this distance one of the new low priced 854x480 models like the Optoma H31 DLP Projector will yield spectacular results. If you have a primary seated viewing position that is closer, a smaller screen may be necessary with a lower resolution projector. Smaller and larger sizes are available from Da-Lite.

Build Quality

Before unpacking the screen I recommend laying down a clean soft cotton bed sheet or drop cloth to prevent damaging or marring the velvet coating on the screen frame. Make sure you have clean hands or wear clean soft cotton gloves when handling the fame or screen material.

Upon opening the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager Screen box I found the contents well packed. The box contained the screen frame, screen material, frame mounting plate, instruction manual and five pieces of 18 AWG speaker wire. The manual is well written and easy to comprehend. The speaker wire supplied with the screen will work but I recommend the use of a larger gauge OFC wire. Laying out the frame upside down on the sheet, I noted that the frame was very well built. The speaker terminals mounted on the back of the frame are 5-way binding posts Though 14 gauge wire was the largest size that could be threaded though the  post hole. If you use large diameter wire you will need to use spade or banana connections. Using a low torque cordless screw gun I was able to assemble the screen frame in just a few minutes.

Moving along, I carefully unpacked the screen material, leaving it rolled up. I began snapping it to the frame, unrolling the material a little at a time and alternating from top to bottom as I snapped. Using this method you are less likely to scratch the screen. Installing the screen frame was pretty straightforward. You will need at least two people to accomplish this task because the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager screen is fairly heavy. With the weight in mind, you will also want to attach the supplied mounting bracket to at least two wall studs and use heavy-duty wall anchors for any mounting holes that do not line up with studs. Once the wall bracket was attached to the wall, leveled, and at the correct height, the screen could be lifted onto the bracket.

Now that the screen frame was assembled and the screen material installed on the frame, I gave the front of the screen a close visual inspection. The Screen frame is contoured like a picture frame and the black Pro Trim velvet coating made the entire frame look elegant and refined. The black velvet Pro Trim not only looks nice but it also absorbs spill-over and reflected light. The center bottom frame rail and the center side frame rails house the JBL speakers. The speakers incorporate dual 3-inch midrange drivers and one 0.5-inch titanium laminate tweeter. The grills are removable but leaving them in place allows them to blend perfectly with the black Pro Trim, making them virtually invisible from the seated viewing position. Only a small JBL logo on each grill gives away their location.

I then unpacked the second box which contained the 10 inch subwoofer and the two surround satellite speakers. The satellite speakers use the same D'Appolito driver topography as the speakers mounted in the screen frame: two 3-inch midrange drivers and one 0.5-inch titanium laminate tweeter. Frequency response is listed as 100Hz-20kHz (-6dB) with a sensitivity of 88dB and nominal impedance of 8-ohms.

I want to be the first to congratulate and pat the back of the persons responsible for the design of this system. With regards to the satellite speakers, Da-Lite has thought of every possible installation scenario. The satellite speakers can be stand mounted or wall mounted. Da-Lite has even included the flexible wall mounts.

Here you see the speaker stand and the flexible ball mount provided with the kit. I commend the forward thinking by Da-lite for providing these options for installation. Standing only 11.5" tall x 4" wide x 3.5" deep, the satellite speakers' small, unobtrusive footprint make them easy to incorporate into any décor. Their elegant shapely design and modern silver/gray color should please even the most sophisticated designer.

The stand provided with the satellite speakers included cable management and concealed the spring post speaker terminals.

As is expected at Audioholics, we like to see how products, regardless of cost, are constructed. Removing the hidden screws and separating the enclosure, revealed the inner workings of the satellite speaker.

I was very surprised and even a little taken aback to see very good components used in the construction of the speakers, considering the cost of the kit. Note the use of enclosed shielded drivers and crossover placed between the midrange drivers and above the tweeter. High quality, high strand count speaker wire was used from the connection terminal to the crossover. The ABS molded enclosure was very solid and well-built.

Acoustical Imager Speaker System

The 10-inch subwoofer included with the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager Kit matches the color scheme of the satellite speakers. The subwoofer is a ported design, measuring 20" high x 14" wide x 16" deep and weighing 35lbs.

On the back of the subwoofer is the 150 watt RMS plate amplifier. The subwoofer amplifier has a dedicated LFE input, right and left analogue inputs for older Pro Logic receivers and pre-amps, speaker level inputs, an auto on/off input sensing switch, subwoofer gain control, and main power on/off switch. The line level inputs are gold plated - another nice touch.

The 10" woofer is mounted on the bottom of the enclosure. Notice that the woofer is recessed into the enclosure instead of being surface mounted. Large rubber feet support the subwoofer and allow the consumer to place it on just about any surface. Removing the woofer, I found the build quality to be very good - surpassing my expectations by a wide margin. The enclosure is made from 0.75-inch MDF and has one shelf brace in the center of the enclosure. Note the use of a fluted port and polyfill on all sides of the enclosure to prevent resonance. Finding these design features in a subwoofer that is included in this kit was quite a shock. It was very refreshing to once again see Da-Lite's quality-oriented thinking.

The woofer installed in the enclosure was not massive but was well built. It features a stamped metal basket, a large spider and motor structure, and a vented pole piece for cooling. Note the use of a rubber gasket around the woofer basket: this helps control resonance and seals the woofer against the front baffle.

Reassembling the speaker components, I began prepping the system for a viewing and listening evaluation. With budget always in mind I wanted to use components that were budget-oriented, though I believe this system would do just fine with higher quality components. I used the RX-V1500 receiver to drive the speakers, but realistically any of the good entry-level receivers would be sufficient (the RX-V557 or Pioneer VSX-1015 would be great entry-level choices at $399 and $499 respectively). The DVD player I used is the new Yamaha DVD-S657 DVD-A/SACD progressive scan player which has a $229 MSRP.

The current projector I have in my family room is the 1024x576 (Matterhorn) Sharp XV-Z200U projector with 6-segment, 5-speed color wheel. This is the unit I used for this evaluation, but any of the new 854x480 Dark Chip 2 projectors would be a great budget choice for this screen. Many of these new lower resolution projectors surpass the contrast ratio of my older Sharp projector. The absolute hot ticket for a portable "put-away" home theater system would be to combine this Da-Lite screen kit with the ultra-convenient Optoma MovieTime DV10.

I began the evaluation after placing the satellite speakers in the typical configuration for a 5.1 system (see below) and corner-loading the subwoofer. Two additional satellite speakers can be purchased, if desired, to accommodate a full 7.1 system. Using the internal subwoofer crossover on the Yamaha RX-V1500, I selected 120Hz and set all speakers to "Small" which seemed to be the sweet spot for the system.

Acoustical Imager Listening Tests & Conclusion

DVD: Dinosaur
The first DVD I selected was Disney's Dinosaur . This is a near reference video quality DVD with excellent audio sound effects and music score. As I began to play the opening chapters of this DVD in my light-controlled room, it was readily apparent that the Da-Lite High Contrast Cinema Vision screen material was a great choice. The colors were very saturated and vibrant. It was as though I was looking at a box of brand new Crayola Crayons. The blacks were inky black and the whites looked natural. Walking around the room I noted that the viewing angles were very wide at about 35 degrees. This indicates that this screen material would also be a great choice for rooms that have multiple seating positions that are off axis to the center of the screen (or viewing positions that are above or below desired screen heights). This also makes this screen very desirable for those needing placement flexibility in the event you need to mount the screen up high or down low.

Starting up chapter 6, "Meteor Strike", and turning the volume up on the Yamaha RX-V1500 to about -18dB, I began to listen as the chapter started. The sound of the system totally shocked me. The sound quality was right up there with any of the higher-end micro satellite systems on the market. Dialogue from the center speaker was clear, concise, and natural sounding. The music score sounded a touch dry from the right and left speakers but still very good. Surround sound information was easy to hear and sounded very spacious in the rear surround satellite speakers. The little 10" woofer filled my room with generous amounts of LFE as the meteors began to hit the island. The subwoofer did sound a little less composed and compressed compared to my reference subwoofers; but it still did a Yeoman's job of handling the LFE effects. What really surprised me was the amount of sound that this small system was able to generate in my room. It was more than enough to satisfy my listening level needs. As I sat there evaluating the speakers, it was hard to believe that I was listening to a small micro system and the thought occurred to me that this is definitely a cube speaker killer. The sonic performance of the Acoustical Imager thoroughly surpassed my expectations.

DVD: Sin City
Next, I wanted to try the near perfect reference quality DVD Sin City. Many can debate the quality of the storyline, and I am not a movie critic, but what is not debatable is the near flawless quality of the video and soundtrack of this DVD.

Viewing this DVD on the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager was an addicting, hypnotic experience. The more I watched; the more I wanted. The opening scene: black and white with only the woman's lips and dress colorized was eye candy for the videophile. The DTS soundtrack sounded absolutely wonderful. As the DVD played I found myself really getting involved in the movie, not really paying close attention to the video or sonic characteristics of the system. That is a good sign that the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager did its job of faithfully conveying what was on the DVD.

DVD-Audio: Blue Man Group: Audio
Wanting to get an idea of how the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager did with music, I loaded up the DVD-Audio disc Blue Man Group Audio . Selecting track two "PVC IV" the Acoustical Imager screen did a pretty respectful job of reproducing the music. On that track the drum hits had definition and the pipes sounded balanced. The music was a little bit dry and shallow; but I am used to hearing this track on reference speakers that cost three times more than the whole Da-Lite system. Overall I would rate the sound with multi-channel music as respectable.

CD: Patricia Barber: Café Blue
Replacing the DVD-A disc with the Redbook 2 channel CD Patricia Barber, Café Blue and selecting Pure Direct on the RX-V1500, I began listening to only the front right and left speakers. I am going to come right out and say if you are a die-hard 2-channel audiophile this is not the system for you. It's not meant to be. The simple fact is that none of the micro satellite speaker systems are going to satisfy the 2-channel aficionado. Selecting analogue two-channel on the Yamaha RX-V1500 reactivates the subwoofer. In this configuration the Da-Lite did a respectful job of reproducing Patricia Barber's voice.

Conclusion

Concluding the review of the Da-Lite Acoustical Imager screen, I think of words like innovative , highly engineered , ingenious , quality , flexible and value . This is the perfect product for anyone that was thinking of a large flat monitor and small satellite system.

Or, this system is for someone that lives in an apartment or condominium. The unobtrusive, minimalist design should please even the hard-core designers. The build quality of the components surpassed my expectations by a very wide margin. For less than the price of a large TV and cube speakers, you can be enjoying a true cinematic home theater in your living room. The engineers at Da-Lite deserve an " atta boy " for their forward-thinking and the inclusion of everything necessary to make this an easy installation process. The Da-Lite Acoustical Imager will be on my list for a'Product of the Year' Award for innovation.

Highly Recommended!

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Soundstage
Dynamic Range
Performance
Value