'Best cinema in Nottingham' is in a shop

THE best cinema in Nottingham could well be the one heading for your front room – but only if you've got a budget that runs into thousands.

Castle Sound and Vision, the home electronics business owned and run by former accountant Jeff Allen, is investing £100,000 in the creation of a new home cinema division.

Its centrepiece is a room inside the Maid Marian Way shop which has cinema-style seating and digital sound quality – without the noise of rustling sweet packets.

It also features a high-tech woven screen that displays high definition images but allows sound to pass through.

The investment marks the latest stage in the development of a business that started out as a retailer of high-end hi-fi but has since branched out to offer luxury home technology which ranges from precision vinyl turntables to control systems for security and lighting.

Its customers are those willing to save up for a £15,000 CD player, or wealthy people like company owners or senior partners in business advisory firms.

Mr Allen says although business has dipped during recession, most customers are still willing to indulge themselves because of the technology he sells.

He said: "Our market is people who enjoy the best and have the means to enjoy themselves, or people who are real enthusiasts for audio equipment and home cinema and decide it's going to be a major part of their expenditure.

"If we're in the market to offer our customers the very best you can find then we have to invest in it and that's what we've done here.

"The projection system is high definition, the screen is a sophisticated piece of kit which comprises a woven fabric that is also acoustically transparent and it comes from a company that supplies a lot of the mastering suites in Hollywood.

"The colour of the snow you see on our system is the same as what the director sees when he is mastering the movie, and the whole room easily exceeds what you get in a cinema, especially on the sound side."

Mr Allen is an accountant who became an IT systems consultant for business advisory firms like Deloitte and KPMG. He launched Castle Sound & Vision a dozen years ago.

The rapid development of digital and home technology means the business now does much more than hi-fi and high-end TV systems.

While the average download track contains only a small amount of digital information, the audio and visual technology that Mr Allen sells offers significantly higher quality because it uses formats containing much more data.

"There's a generation coming through whose experience of music is poor quality internet downloads based on compressed formats," he said. "Instant access may be a wonderful thing, but wouldn't you like to hear the music as the musician intended? Our customers would, and that's where the whole quality issue becomes important.

"You can download from the internet in high quality, uncompressed formats and that's where the effort goes with the equipment manufacturers that we work with."

Mr Allen added: "But we are not just an audio visual business anymore – we can install systems that will control all sorts of home technology."