Custom Installation Equipment Reviews

Everyone likes the idea of wholehouse audio. Who doesn't want the ability to access their music library in any room of their home? It's in the implementation that things get tricky. Do you invest a couple of grand in a dedicated audio server for your gear rack, plus amplification and speakers for each room and all that wire you'll have to run through the walls to connect everything? Or do you opt instead for the $150 digital media player that taps into your PC's music library? Of course, you'd need one for each room. . .and several audio systems, too. Oh, and knowledge of home networking is kind of important. For many, neither path is a realistic or desirable option.

Silly girl. My wife thinks our home theater system ought to sound great and be easy to operate. She also wants one remote control to work the gear, the lights, and whatever else she desires dominion over.

We've been writing about digital music and the various hardware options, including home audio servers and portables, for several years now. Among portables, there is no denying that the iPod is king, with a popularity that transcends mere market share. People have even taken to wearing the distinctive white headphones with any old portable stereo, in an attempt to achieve that iPod look, while many old-school iPod owners (yes, it's been around long enough to give rise to different schools) have switched to more traditional ear gear, just to eschew any sense of jejune trendiness. The iPod is standard issue here in New York, along with a little vial of pepper spray and a big scoop of attitude. Thanks to Hewlett-Packard, iPod technology is now available to the teeming PC throng, although we have never had an appropriate occasion to cover the iPod in the pages of Home Theater before.

Every year, predictions that the fully connected home has almost arrived resound across the country. To hear it told, someday soon, we'll all look back and laugh at how barbarian we were back in the dark ages before we could walk into a room, hit a button, and instantly be swept up in music or movies that originate in a remote closet or basement that never offends the eye with its black-box contents. Why does the optimism continue year after year without blockbuster results? Because it is true. Wholehouse audio/video and home networking are going to explode; it just hasn't happened yet.

Three computers and one broadband Internet connection in my house means that there's a computer network in my future. Right now, it's a hypothetical network, since my ISP (Prodigy) has only succeeded in providing hypothetical DSL service. I know it's coming, though, and I'm looking forward to installing the network about as much as one looks forward to shaking hands with his proctologist. My life is complicated enough without the added grief that a router, a switcher, numerous runs of CAT-5 cable, and unsavory terms like Ethernet and TCP/IP will bring into it. I want something elegant and simple that will provide me with the intended result—in this case, Web pages that load before I've finished typing in the URL and the ability to steal hard-drive space from my kids' computer—without requiring me to complete a doctoral thesis in connectivity and network administration.