Clive Davis, the legendary record exec who discovered and signed such diverse acts as Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Aerosmith and Billy Joel, has a passion for entertaining. His night-before Grammy's party is a hotter event than the Grammy Awards itself. And when he entertains guests at his summer home in Westchester County, New York, he won't settle for anything less than the best.
Whether it's holding private screenings for movies, watching Yankees games, or simply catching the latest documentaries on Netflix, Mr. Davis wants to be able to enjoy every last detail in the picture. The luxurious and capacious home theater in his guest house has seating for a few dozen of his closest friends in comfy padded seats, but he has hosted more than 70 friends and family in there on special occasions.
When the theater was first built, it used a traditional long throw front projector to create the image. But projectors can sometimes be a little finicky. They take a while to turn on and warm up, not to mention the maintenance requirements of replacing the bulb after every few thousand hours of use. And even the brightest projector needs the lights dimmed for best image quality.
So Mr. Davis called his friend Ernie Wohlleben, president of Architechnology Designs (a high-end custom A/V installation firm) and asked what his options were. Ernie recommended a new display from Samsung called The Wall. The Wall is a modular micro LED display that can be assembled into a display screen anywhere from 88 inches to 292 inches diagonally.
Unlike consumer "LED TVs" which are actually LCD panels lit by LED backlights, Samsung's The Wall uses true self-lit LED (Light Emitting Diode) elements for every single pixel. This allows each individual pixel in the image to be turned on or off, or set anywhere in between. This results in near infinite contrast, stunning black levels and bright saturated colors. The technology is similar to OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TVs, but micro LED TVs promise even longer life (up to 100,000 hours or more) as well as higher brightness.
For Mr. Davis' home theater, Wahlleben recommended the 146-inch screen size, with full 4K Ultra HD resolution. List price of the set is $480,000 and installation can be a bit challenging so it's best left to the pros. The Wall is comprised of individual LED display panels that measure roughly 36.5" diagonally. The modules have no bezels and are precisely machined and magnetically aligned to fit together with nearly invisible seams. The 146-inch model includes 16 screen modules (4 up, 4 across). Even up close, it was really difficult for me to spot the seams when the TV was powered off and virtually impossible to see when the TV was on.
Mr. Davis (Clive to his friends) was so pleased with how things turned out with his new TV that he agreed to let Samsung host a small private media gathering at his home earlier this week. Clive explained how thrilled he was with the picture quality and the reliable operation, and said how much he enjoys watching movies and sports events on his TV with family and friends. Mr. Wahlleben said the old projector-based system had led to several late evening phone calls when things in the system weren't working as expected. A few weeks after completing The Wall installation, Wahlleben saw a call coming in from Clive... Uh, oh! But when he answered, Clive said, "I'm just calling to say thank you!" That's every custom installer's dream.
While sinking into a plush chair and nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie from Levain Bakery (perhaps the best cookies in the world), I got to see a few clips on The Wall. This included a scene from the new biopic, "Whitney Houston: I Want to Dance with Somebody." As an aside, Clive is portrayed in the film quite effectively by Stanley Tucci. The 12-foot+ image was bright and detailed, with none of the uniformity artifacts you see on a traditional LED/LCD TVs and none of the screen washout that can plague projector-based systems. Black levels were deep and rich, colors bright and saturated and moving images were reproduced cleanly with no blur or smearing of the image.
Not just for movies, and sports, The Wall also serves a more critical function at Clive's soirees: Karaoke! And unlike the old projector-based system, guests brave enough to step up to the mic in front of this golden-eared music industry guru won't have to worry about being blinded by the projector bulb. The Wall looks like a flat panel TV and acts like a flat panel TV, only bigger... much bigger. And, of course, a bit pricier.
So one may ask, "Why does Clive Davis have a $480,000 TV?" The answer, of course, "Because he can!" For ease of use, Wohlleben's firm set up Clive's system to be controlled via apps on Clive's iPhone and iPad, as well as via a custom-programmed Crestron tablet.
A Samsung rep at the event told us that the latest version of "The Wall," dubbed the "All in One" offers much simpler installation, which helps to bring down the cost. Instead of needing to assemble each individual screen module, the All-in-1 Wall comes in pre-assembled columns. In a 146-inch size, the installer only needs to affix 4 columns together, instead of 16 individual panels. Also, a pre-built wall bracket mount allows the panel to be hung slightly out from the wall, which eliminates the need for a perfectly flat and smooth mounting wall. Wiring is also simplified where the new All-in-1 version only requires two separate power plugs, each with a circuit rating of 10 amps. The earlier version required a power plug per panel, which meant 16 separate plugs for Clive's TV.
Samsung says the new All-in-1 version of The Wall can be set up and installed in about 2 hours. Pricing of the new version starts at around $80,000 for a 110-inch HD version (that's 9 display modules delivered as three individual columns) or $220,000 for a 146-inch 4K version. The Wall is available worldwide through high-end custom installers.
Special thanks to Samsung for the invitation (and the cookies) and to Clive Davis for graciously welcoming us into his home.
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