Features
Acoustics Refresher: Boiling Down Room Treatment Essentials
Hopefully, most of you are already up to speed on acoustical treatment and could just use a refresher. For those who aren’t—maybe this is...
Features
Features
Seth’s Stone Soup
Seth Rubenstein doesn’t have many fond memories of attending Hebrew School as a kid.
Back to Business
Who’s on Your Front Line?
Go to your dentist to get your teeth cleaned, and a certified dental hygienist does the work.
Features
Luxury Markets Take Discipline
Several years ago we were invited to deliver a talk to the senior class at a local interior design school.
Features
Action Plan
Any company looking to improve its business operations first needs to analyze its weaknesses before creating an action plan for improvement.
Behind the Business
Boosting Your Signal
Consider this scenario: your high-net-worth client, for whom no expense is ever spared, hears his cell phone ring and immediately runs outside to answer...
Features
Taking Total Control
In May 2011 URC director of business development Mitchell Klein said that his company’s new Total Control line of IP-based AV distribution products would...
Features
Architects as Your Allies
In my early days as a product manager at Infinity, John Stiernberg* was the ultimate boss.
Features
What Lies Beneath
Sometimes it really pays to take that final cruise around the exhibition floor.
Features
Closing the Sale
Ask any custom integrator what they love about their job and chances are, “I love asking customers for money” won’t top their list.
Features
What’s Your Mobile Strategy?
I was recently pondering what my integration company’s mobile platform strategy should be.
Features
Seamless in Seattle
Located in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods of Seattle, the Station at Othello Park is a large 420,000-square-foot, mixed-use facility offering 351 luxury...
Features
Expanding Efficiency
The days when simply turning your lights off when you’re not at home to save energy are long gone.
Features
Commercial Success
Drew Balsman has recognized two key differences between residential and commercial AV integration.
Features
Profit Time
Ben and Thad Forrester are fans of the Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible, a reality show that attempts to overhaul America’s struggling restaurants through creativity...
Features
Putting on a Show
My wife and I were both excited when our neighbor invited us to attend a live concert in their home.
Features
Connecting the Dots
One of the biggest challenges facing our industry is finding a way to simplify connectivity and control for the sophisticated systems that we design...
Behind the Business
Some Light on the Subject
CYRON, a Chatsworth, CA, company with more than 20 years of experience in semiconductors, design, manufacturing, and distribution, now manufactures and distributes solid-state lighting...
Features
The Ultimate Networked TV
I am writing this column on my PC in my home office, just as I have done for Residential Systems for each of the...
Features
Coffee Talk
People of a certain age begin monitoring the obituary section in their local newspaper to make sure they don’t miss the passing of an...
Features
Show-off Space
From Manhattan to Memphis, Kansas City to California, designer show houses, meant to impress potential clients with the skills of interior designers as well...
Features
Crash, Boom, Bam!
I’ve been guilty in the past of saying that explosions and carnage do little to show off a speaker system’s fidelity, but let’s face...
Features
Debugging and Tuning
It happened again. I went to configure and calibrate a home theater and ran into a quagmire of unexpected issues that caused a failure...
Features
Protect and Provide
In my experience teaching system integrators how to structure and realize the benefits of service contracts for CEDIA University, one topic that typically receives...
Features
Evolution of the App
Now that most manufacturers offer a control system app for mobile devices, the looming question is, so what now?
Behind the Business
Bob Carver LLC Startup Has a Blast While Braving the Economy
“Life is too short to not do exactly what you want to do,” Bob Farinelli, president of Bob Carver LLC told me. Farinelli,...
Features
Going from Good to Great
It’s not quite Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and there probably won’t be a dramatic “move-that-truck reveal” moment like on that ABC reality show, but...
Features
Dedicated to Quality
Our industry often finds itself performing a delicate dance in the way it markets itself.
Features
Are You In It to Win It?
For CEDIA members looking for an inexpensive way to get ahead marketing their expertise to potential clients, it’s time to consider a “lifestyle” change.
Features
The Right Tool For Every Job
Ask any custom installation professional what he or she cares about most and you’ll likely get the response, “my tools.”
Features
Selling High Performance
Recently, I attended a webinar about building sales techniques and strategies for selling high-performance video solutions for home theater projects.
Features
The Art of Advanced Subtlety
“I used a lot of solder when I was kid,” said Brian McAuliff, in describing himself as a longtime electrical hobbyist.
Features
Do You Know IP?
Many residential integrators are lacking a fundamental technical skill that could be the difference between success and failure four years from now.
Behind the Business
Expanding Resources
As the story goes, SnapAV is the vision of Jay Faison, a former custom AV integrator and owner in Charlotte, NC, who in 2005...
Features
The App Isn’t Everything
The impact of the Apple iPad on the custom home control market has been well documented–almost all of our clients want a Crestron, AMX,...
Features
Smarter Storage
Network routers and storage devices may not be the most glamorous products in the consumer electronics industry, but they play an essential role in...