Product Reviews

Lutron RadioRA2 HVAC Controllers By John Sciacca, February 3, 2012 Ask 100 integrators what they think of when they hear “Lutron” and chances are you’ll get the same 100 answers: “They’re the lighting control company.” More..
VOCO V-Zone Voice-Controlled Wireless Music System By Dennis Burger, February 3, 2012 We live in the future. These days, a few $30 Zigbee light switches, a $50 program on my PC, and a $10 dollar iPhone app pretty much deliver a reasonably comparable experience to what was only available via multithousand- dollar More..
MartinLogan LX16 Bookshelf Speaker By Dennis Burger, January 3, 2012 When I think about MartinLogan’s Motion Series loudspeakers, I can’t help but compare them to the indie harpist and freak-folk songstress Joanna Newsom, as much for the contrasts as the similarities. Just as Newsom’s first More..
Russound AirGo Outdoor Speaker By John Sciacca, January 3, 2012 Often when a client posits adding a new area of music, the custom installer’s mind fills with all manner of complex possibilities: amplifier requirements, retrofitting speaker wiring inside walls and through the attic, which More..
URC MXW-920 and MX-780 Remotes By John Sciacca, December 8, 2011 Quite simply, no matter how good the components are, a poor controller means a bad system. A wellprogrammed control system is the glue that ties the crazy-expensive projector, over-the-top surround system, hard disk movie More..
NAD C 446 Digital Media Tuner By Dennis Burger, December 8, 2011 You know those optical illusions that look like one thing until you shift your perspective ever so slightly? Like the gigantic skull that’s really a Victorian lady peering into a vanity mirror, or the old gypsy hag that’s More..
SurgeX XC18 Space Saver Surge Eliminator By Dennis Burger, November 8, 2011 You’re on a flight to Vegas. A flight you’ve taken dozens of times. Boring. Routine. But you happen to glance over at the passenger seated next to you and it’s... is it? Yes, it’s Anne Hathaway! She winks. You flirt. One thing More..
Paradigm Cinema 100 and 200 loudspeakers By Dennis Burger, October 7, 2011 Affordable cone-and-dome speakers give me anxiety, and not in that irrational Billy-Bob-Thornton-antique-furniture-phobia kind of way, or like my best friend’s intense fear of frogs. No, it’s more like, at this point, what’s More..
KanexPro Wireless and HDBaseT HDMI Extenders By John Sciacca, October 7, 2011 Now that the analog sun has set, the days of housewide HD video over component cabling are over, done, kaput. And if legislation weren’t enough to inform you of this, one look on the back of modern receivers and source More..
Wisdom Audio’s LS4 Line Source Loudspeaker By Dennis Burger, September 7, 2011 I wonder if the folks at Wisdom Audio ever stop to think about the fact that they make my job more difficult. After all, they merely have to handcraft some of the finest sounding speakers I’ve ever heard in lovely Carson City, More..
Lexicon’s DD-8 Multiroom Power Amplifier By John Sciacca, September 7, 2011 With technology, bigger is not always better. Giant cell phone? Lame. Fat laptop? Ditto. But with amplifiers, bigger is generally preferred. Traditional wisdom holds that amplifiers be encased in vault-like chunks of metal, More..
Seymour Screen Excellence Enlightor 4K Projection Screen By Geoffrey Morrison, August 3, 2011 Screens have a problem: you can’t see through them. Ok, so this isn’t a problem per se, but more like a feature that allows them to function as a screen. The light from a projector has to bounce off something for you to see More..
WallWizard SA52 Large Motorized Swing Mount By John Sciacca, August 3, 2011 Let’s be honest. There are few things installers play with less glamorous and sexy than TV wall mounts–some sheet metal with a collection of judiciously placed holes, a big bag o’ screws and bolts, some adjustable arms, and More..
Sunfire SRS-210R SYS SubRosa Flat Panel Subwoofer By Dennis Burger, August 3, 2011 With all the hoopla over ultra-thin electronics–TVs for which depth will soon be measured in microns, gaming consoles and Blu-ray players that have “slim” right there in their product names, and, of course, all of the on-wall More..
Crestron By John Sciacca, July 12, 2011 SWAMP-24X8 Sonnex Multiroom Audio System My first exposure to Crestron’s new Sonnex multi-zone audio distribution system was an advertisement in Residential Systems magazine. The ad showed two AV racks; one was packed with More..

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