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The original "Frey Theater" was first conceived in late Summer of 2006, and was setup in the unfinished basement of my old house in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.  Its humble beginnings actually originated with a simple but very respectable stereo system I put together to listen to my favorite music, much of the time at very "intense" audio levels!  In the Spring of 2006,  one of my hobbies was collecting vintage stereo equipment from the 1970's and 1980's, mainly from eBay auctions.  At that time, I had collected a very nice, matching stack of Carver stereo pieces from the early 1980's, and a half-dozen pair of Large Advent Loudspeakers from the late 1970's.  The system boasted two Carver M-500t stereo amplifiers with 250 watts RMS of power per channel, and each of those four channels drove two of the Advent speakers stacked one on top of the other and wired in parallel.  In addition to the 1000 total watts coming from the two Carver amps, I also attached a new 12" JBL subwoofer with an internal 400 watt RMS amplifier, to boost the bass frequencies whenever I desired.  My "simple" home stereo system had an impressive 1400 total watts of power, which was more than enough to adequately fill the 30 x 40 foot open basement area with plenty of sound! 

This is the original layout of the audio system in my basement in 2006.  The two Carver amps drove 8 of these Advent speakers.

 The third pair of speakers seen just to the left of the JBL subwoofer are not hooked up and were in the process of being auctioned on eBay.

The black box hanging on the wall with the circular partterns of LEDs is a home-made "color organ" I had designed for an electronics course.

The basement had unfinished concrete block walls and a poured concrete floor, with a few pieces of old carpet laid down for comfort.

The Frey theater was first setup in August of 2006.  It is seen here in a it's "bare-bones" format. I added an 8-foot screen,

an Adcom 5.1 Surround preamp, a small Advent center channel speaker, and a ceiling-mounted 480p projector

to the audio system to create this cozy little setup.

 A view from behind the seating area of the theater.  The Advent speakers have been paired off and moved to the four corners of the listening area for front and rear surround channels. 

Here is a close-up of the audio and video equipment used in the original Frey Theater.  From the bottom up:  two Carver M-500t power amplifiers, a Carver C-7 preamp, a Carver C-1 preamp, a Carver DTL-200 CD player, a Koss All-region DVD player with PAL converter, An Adcom GTP-750 5.1 Surround processor, and a Technics SL-7 linear-tracking turntable.  A third M-500t amp was added to this stack to provide amplification of the center channel audio, but is not pictured here. The black cabinet with glass door is from an old Technics stereo system;

 I bought it at a yard sale for $10. 

My first ceiling-mount projector was this 480p DLP Optoma H31, which actually cost

less than $1,000, quite a good buy for a home theater projector at the time.

The video connection from the DVD player was via a 3-wire RGB component cable.

Notice my creative, home-made mounting system for the exposed rafters in the ceiling...