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Arlene Rigdon and her late husband wanted a room in their gracious Kansas City home that would feed all of their senses — a room filled with books, art, music and a view nothing short of a real-life van Gogh canvas. A longtime Kansas City physician, Arlene’s husband was a well-known and respected symphonic and classical music aficionado. He envisioned a room that would transport them to some of Europe’s and America’s finest concert halls.

The product of his dream — the so-called Music Room, as dubbed by Arlene and her husband — has become a delicious hideaway, with niches carved out for five important paintings, gleaming shelves for noteworthy art and music books and the pièce de résistance — acoustics that are as good as Carnegie Hall, allowing lucky listeners perched in vintage Eames chairs to focus on the pastoral, nature-made stage outside the room’s windows.

“There’s nothing to do but listen,” notes Arlene, whose inclination leans toward popular music like Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and the dynamic contemporary folk singer and songwriter Ray LaMontagne. “A couple of things I learned from my husband about the true test of a good sound system, including its ability to use the whole scale and how the voice is delivered, is that each instrument can be identified and that the listener hears it from the exact way the orchestra is sitting. And in the case of vocals, it seems the singer is right in the middle of the soundstage behind the speakers.”

Jim Seluwsky, architect and world-renowned acoustical designer, calls the one-of-a-kind room his “Baby Carnegie.”

“Arlene’s husband had an incredible sense of musical appreciation about him, and when he approached me about recreating a Carnegie Hall-like room in his home, I knew immediately it would  be the most sophisticated residential acoustical environment I had ever done,” Jim says.

The 40-foot by 20-foot room is advanced in its design; there’s not one  parallel wall  in the whole interior, and the ethereal sound is delivered from two  state-of-the-art Wilson X-1 Grand Slamm speakers. Jim, who has worked on famous concert halls across the globe, says Baby Carnegie allows Arlene and her guests to listen to music of all pedigrees with the highest level of appreciation and enjoyment.

It used to be, decades ago, a quasi-measurement of a homeowner’s  music sophistication was large stereo equipment — chunky speakers, tuners and other pieces that sent a hip and cutting-edge message to guests. Sometimes it didn’t matter what music sounded like to the ear — the quest was for the most current techno toys, and lots of them.  People who truly sought out the best in order to have a transforming musical listening experience — like Arlene and her husband — were rare.

Today, even nonaudiophiles know bigger isn’t better and money doesn’t always dictate a superb home sound system. The advent of small hand-held devices  like iPods have definitely revolutionized the way we regard music — it’s more attainable, it’s part of who we are, it’s part of our busy lives, albeit many times merely background noise. Even luxury car owners sometimes are as concerned with their automobile’s sound system as they are the silkiness of its ride.

“The iPod made music ubiquitous,” says Rick Milam, owner of Audioport in Overland Park, a respected name in high-end audio components for the discerning buyer. But if you want to sit down and really listen to music and be swept away by its texture and intimacy, whether it’s classical, jazz or crossover, or be immersed in a home theater movie because of its ability to deliver real sound, then experts say you need to educate yourself and be a wise consumer not just in terms of dollars but in terms of value.

It all comes down to personal taste, objectives and yes, the ever-present pocketbook. Rick says the onus is on him and his associates to show a customer how to successfully reach those goals.
“There’s so much misinformation out there when it comes to quality home sound systems,” he says. “Our goal is to educate you and have your end musical or video sound experiences completely transcend the actual equipment purchased.”

Rick, an industry veteran, remembers the trendsetting David Beatty Audio and Sound store in Kansas City in the 1950s; Beatty was considered a pioneer in audio phonics, or as Rick puts it, “the grand old days of hi-fi and two-channel.” Of course, many years later, homeowners’ tastes in music has evolved, and with the appearance of home theater on the entertainment scene, Rick says the playing field has changed in enormous ways.

Audioport, for instance, doesn’t compete with box and department stores; it’s a retail store that provides an experience. People who want high-performance, flawless sound systems and whole-house audio need specialized consultants for the best possible scenario given their individual objectives and personal taste. 

“Typically, our customer doesn’t walk out the door with a product in hand,” Rick observes, adding that many of his clients want complex systems to allow them control of both music and video from one single source, with speakers distributed throughout the house. The next step up from that is whole-house audio with  multi-room and multi-zone capabilities, allowing the homeowner to select different sources of entertainment, from CDs to video, from a “smart” panel in a room. 

“We’ve come from rotary-volume control to choosing sources of entertainment from a command center,” he says. “Now we can go to more elaborate control interfaces like touch panels, menus on a touch screen and even different lighting scenarios for a room like task, movie, TV and ambiance.”

Overall, Rick, Arlene and Jim feel that the more attention any home sound system draws to itself, the more it detracts from its primary function. Rick is passionate about music and sound and says the system is the medium to get you to the entertainment.

“The very biggest compliment we get from a satisfied customer is when  they walk through our doors with very dark circles under their eyes,” he says, laughing. “That means they’ve been         listening to that violin phrase or spending hours putting together CD play lists for their different moods.”