OTHER TECH

Electricity Practically runs through Kevin Post's veins. (Sometimes it literally does, like the time he swapped out some outlets without cutting the power - a shocking experience that melted the end of a perfectly innocent screwdriver.) Working in the Hawthorne, New Jersey, electrical contracting business his grandfather started in 1948, the 33-year-old has also been "a nerd" (his words) in his high school's Projection Club, as well as one of the guys who engineered audio for his church. So Kevin seemed a natural when Sound & Vision launched a search for a reader to max out some gear by using HomePlug - the new technology that lets you send audio and video through your house's electrical wiring (see Power Play). We wanted to know how good this stuff works in a real family environment, and - in leafy, lawny Wyckoff, New Jersey - Kevin had one: A 54-year-old four-bedroom colonial that, with the exception of his basement home theater, is free of any kind of A/V wiring. (Kevin built the home theater - which stars a Sony 42-inch LCD rear-projection TV, a Denon AVR-2105 digital surround receiver, Polk RT600i speakers, and actual movie theater seats - mostly based on tips he culled from S&V's Web-site forums.) Sharing this domicile-cum-testing lab with Kevin are wife Denise and their 2-year-old twins, Sean and Rachel. (The family is very blond.) Let's see how they do.