When former New York Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer approached Todd Anthony Puma of The Source Home Theater Installation & Design in New York, NY about an upcoming home renovation, his primary goal was building the quintessential man cave: an uncompromised space in which to enjoy his passion for sports, movies, music, and video games to their fullest. The renovation also involved the gym, the master bedroom, three guest bedrooms, two kids’ rooms, the kitchen, dining area, office, and the living room—which would also include a surround sound system—but it was the sound system in his entertainment space that was the focus of Toomer’s full fervor.

 
Amani Toomer’s Ultimate Man Cave will be profiled on NBC’s “OPEN HOUSE” program airing the Sunday morning of the big game, February 5th at 8:30 a.m. Images are available on The Source Home Theater Flickr page.

“For this room, above all else, I wanted a surround sound system that made me feel like I was right in the middle of that action,” Toomer says. “That’s the one thing I’ve never loved about surround sound: I’ve never felt like I was actually there. I’ve always felt like I was almost there. I don’t want almost. If I’m watching a game, I want to feel the attack.”

 
The Source Home Theater Installation & Design founder, Todd Anthony Puma, has been designing state-of-the-art systems for discerning customers in the tri-state area for the past decade. “This is our second project with Amani and he was very familiar with Paradigm from visiting other team members’ systems I’ve installed,” Puma says. “So there was never any question that the speakers would be Paradigm. The only question was: which Paradigm speaker would work best with the mix of sports, music, movies, and games that Amani loves?”

 
For the newly architected man cave, Puma zeroed in on Paradigm’s Studio series of floorstanding loudspeakers for their ability to “do everything well,” and for the fact that they beautifully complemented the room’s Wolf projection system and Screen Innovations Black Diamond Zero Edge screen. The rest of the home features Paradigm Signature 1.5R in-ceiling speakers to weave a consistent and seamless audio experience as you move from room to room.

 
Toomer already had a surround sound receiver he wanted to use in the man cave, so Puma set up a demo system with that receiver, powering a full 7.1-channel setup with Studio 100s, a CC-690 center channel, and a Studio SUB 12. “I played the system for about an hour, and he said to me, ‘this is the perfect sounding speaker,’ but I wasn’t done wowing him yet.” After a quick change to Anthem’s MRX 700 receiver, Puma auditioned the system for Toomer again. “He said to me, ‘I thought there was no way it could sound better. But this is so much fuller. This is what you want when you’re listening to sports. You want that fullness. You want that oomph. You want to feel the action. You want to feel the roar of the crowd’.”

 
The MRX 700’s Anthem Room Correction system also proved to be indispensible in tuning such a powerful speaker system for what’s ultimately not a very large space. The room seats six to eight comfortably, but at only 400-or-so square feet, Puma was concerned that even a single SUB 12 could overpower the space. “The combination of ARC and the SUB 12’s Perfect Bass Kit made tuning this room so much easier,” Puma says.

 
It isn’t just performance and room-tuning capabilities that made Paradigm and Anthem gear perfect for this project. “It’s the relationships that Paradigm builds with its dealers that make the most difference for the customer,” added Puma. “It’s the way they communicate with us, answer our questions, and help us understand their products based on room acoustics. That knowledge gets passed on to the customer. It’s changed the way Amani enjoys his sound system. That kind of communication makes all the difference in the world.”

 
For more information on Paradigm or Anthem, please visit www.paradigm.com or www.anthemav.com.