Electronic rec rooms: custom-designed entertainment centers are the new wave

Ebony, Sept, 1990

Electronic Rec Rooms

Custom-designed entertainment centers are the new wave

The family room has gone electronic. Many Black homeowners are no longer willing to trip over speaker wires and worry if the TV is too close to the sofa. More and more Blacks are custom-designing media rooms with large-screen or projection TVs and high-fidelity stereo equipment built into elaborate consoles. Babyboomers with a love of "technotoys" and a lack of leisure time are pampering themselves with recreational areas that allow them to relax and enjoy the latest videos, electronic games, and compact disc and laser disc releases in the privacy and comfort of the recreational rooms in their own homes.

"A lot of people want to hear music, but they don't want to see it [the stereo system]," says Robert Sullivan, an Atlanta audio-video consultant. The greatest demand is for all-around sound and remote-control stereo systems, which can run upward of $30,000. Additionally, many audio companies are developing remote-control stereo systems for the entire house that are a great improvement over the garbled doctor's office systems of years ago, according to the American Association of Home Builders.

But whether motivated by acoustics, aesthetics or time, an increasing number of Blacks don't consider their dwellings complete without a recreational area that's outfitted with the latest gadgets.

PHOTO : With the customized stereo system he'd "lusted over" for years, Dr. R. Lewis Ricks of

PHOTO : Atlanta prepares to insert a disc into the CD player. It is connected to an audio system

PHOTO : that pumps music through the house via an audiophile amplifier, pre-amp, surround-sound

PHOTO : processors, sub-woofer and three sets of electrostatic and other speakers. "When it comes

PHOTO : to music, I am as interested in the sound as the material," says the gynecologist.

PHOTO : Dr. Ricks relaxes in front of a 10-foot, high-definition projection TV system, equipped

PHOTO : with surround-sound audio. The audio-system buff says he listens to the jazz mastery of

PHOTO : Miles Davis as well as the funk of "Kid 'N Play" on the sound system that took 10 years to

PHOTO : assemble.

PHOTO : Singer Luther Vandross' favorite rec room feature at his plush Beverly Hills hideaway is a

PHOTO : lacquered, leather pool table, which illuminates from underneath. The room also has a

PHOTO : pinball machine to provide an entertaining alternative to billiards. Boxer Thomas Hearns

PHOTO : (below) takes electronic games to another level. In his Detroit home's recreational area

PHOTO : are a number of video games, including his favorite, Ms. Pac Man.

PHOTO : Dr. Castoria Seymore (left), a Los Angeles anesthesiologist, has a sound system which is

PHOTO : enclosed in plush wood paneling and includes two compact disc players and a laser disc

PHOTO : player. Below, George Robinson, a U.S. Customs inspector, chats with wife Pamela (inset)

PHOTO : at the rec room bar, the focal point of their entertainment center. In addition to a

PHOTO : reel-to-reel tape deck, the easily accessible audio system includes a built-in CD player

PHOTO : and changer, with an equalizer, reverb unit, high-quality amp and nine speakers.