For the past 8 years, I've been installing home-entertainment systems at Custom Theater and Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and for the past 5 years, I've been writing about custom installation for Sound & Vision.
Marantz introduced its DAvED (Digital Audio via Electrical Distribution) system at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and I was immediately wowed by the concept of sending audio over a house's electrical wiring. So I jumped at the chance to play with a pre-production sample.
For all of the benefits the digital revolution has brought to music - like streaming, unprecedented portability, and the ease of sorting and managing large collections - some people see it as not only a travesty but also a threat. Granted, these are usually the same people who lament the supposed lack of any advancement in audio quality since the birth of vinyl. But do they have a point?
Considering the rapid way A/V technology evolves, I'll bet Charles Darwin would have been a Sound & Vision subscriber. And survival of the fittest and natural selection are definitely alive and well in my equipment rack. In fact, all you have to do is look at it to see the history of recorded video at a glance.
To quote Janet Jackson (Ms. Jackson if you're nasty), "This is a story about control." And whether your lifestyle is Joe Schmo, Average Joe, or Joe Millionaire, control is something we can all use a little more of in our lives. Fortunately, achieving some level of control over our A/V systems is easily done.
Forget about DLP vs. LCoS or Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. The biggest battle heating up in the home-entertainment world right now is over who's going to rule the next generation of gaming. And Microsoft just launched the first strike - 100 megatons worth of silicon known as Xbox 360.
With HDTV, 6.1-channel digital audio, and streaming audio and video files now theoretically at our fingertips, we truly have a bonanza of entertainment options! But let's face it - more often than not it's the fingertip part that becomes a system's Achilles' heel.
Remember back in high school? It seemed like everyone went to the Senior Prom. But as the party started winding down, the cool kids pulled away in rented limos and headed off to hotel rooms around town to continue partying the night away.
