Distributing Digital Audio
Last month we received our anxiously awaited Sonos Digital Music System. After our initial reviews and those of our first few customers, its a...
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Last month we received our anxiously awaited Sonos Digital Music System. After our initial reviews and those of our first few customers, its a...
Hospitality legend MGM Grand has joined forces with manufacturer Bang & Olufsen to provide custom electronics for the Skylofts at MGM Grand, a new...
Some technologies have flown under your radar since CES. But when the do surface they will have an impact on your business.
Inventory is probably the biggest and most detrimental impediment to the flow of the value that your business delivers.
Why are college students now phoning home with their PCs instead of traditional telephony companies? The answer is the same reason custom installers are...
Many of the best-selling brands in the world are successful because they had a compelling story to tell in their marketing. Perhaps one of...
Its been coming for the past 10 years. It all started in the mid 1990s with a few convergence products that combined multimedia capabilities...
Think about it. Our job is to provide the complete package of design, installation, project management and coordination of every single detail of the...
Maximizing the flow of value is at the heart of just-in-time production principles.
Microsoft is offering products in the control category that challenge the dominance of established veterans.
My dad called me the other day from the home electronics department in his local Sears dealership. Apparently, there was a bargain on an...
A reasonable home theater experience really needs a dedicated room.
PlaceLab, a unique live-in research facility, may help scientists draft a clear picture of the relationship between humans, their personal space and technology.
At CEDIA EXPO last fall, I had lively discussions with more than a hundred companies about how they create proposals. I found newer companies...
Even with all of the attention given to sending audio, video and data through the air, it will be a very long time, if...
The custom residential electronics industry is unique, yet it has one thing in common with any other industry. Namely, every business on the planet...
At the start of a new year it is a compelling challenge to predict the digital products and solutions that will have the greatest...
You may recall my revealing admission a couple of months ago regarding my DVR. Im not going to recant any of those statements this...
Readers of my column know by now that I think that Microsofts Media Center PC will become a viable control platform for the data,...
New THX Program will Provide Designer/Installers with Home Theater Design Specifications
These days, subwoofers are studded with controls, inputs, selectors. I think its all about keeping up with the Joneses, and thats a really bad...
Our industry is known to cater to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. When high-quality products like this become truly affordable, we have...
Dont Get Disconnected When You Eliminate the Connections
Recommendations for Creating a Robust Home Technology Integrator Channel
How Does the CI Business Deal with DVD as a Must-Have and a Commodity Product at the Same Time?
Each year that CEDIA EXPO is held in Indianapolis, I procure guest passes for my dad and a couple of his friends to attend...
The custom installation industry hasnt heard from PHAST founders Eric Smith and Will West since 1997, when they sold their home automation technology to...
In last months column, we covered a lot of really technical stuff about speaker directivity and examples of directivity in some typical speaker designs....
Cabling Technologies, a system integration company, has formed a symbiotic relationship with Advanced Electronic Systems LLC, a security firm.
The problem design is that it is quite intangible. Which is why it is a challenge for custom installation firms to charge money for...
Learn what products rated the best in the first definitive test-lab comparison of video servers.
Trends in music consumption point to more portability and distribution over home networks.
Too many custom installation businesses have gotten into the bad habit of collecting deposits that are too large, too early in their projects, then...
Jonathan Knapp hopes that his new management software will provide dealers with benchmarks for their staff members, helping them become more efficient on the...
It would be a wonderful world if there was only one compression format for all audio and video files and they could be played...
Youre a salesman. You live or die on the bid that you write. Its your future, and its all in the bid. I have...
Hard drives are becoming the de facto standard for audio/video content. This translates into epic potential for the residential marketplace. Or does it?
Now is the time to consider what your vendors will try to convince your customers to place under the Christmas tree this year.
One way to counteract increasing competition in your market is to sell products that feature superior industrial designs.
Sure, you would like to sell anything your client asks for, but forget about it. Best Buy sells a zillion dollars of A/V gear,...
Everyone seems to share the same vision that the home of the future will have some centrally located gigantic hard drive where all the...