Custon Installation Equipment Reviews

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Mark Elson  |  Jun 27, 2003  |  First Published: Jun 28, 2003  | 
A little motorization can add a lot of enjoyment, both functionally and aesthetically.

Plasma TVs swing and pivot in midair with the help of articulating arms. Motorized speakers unhinge and then retract. Projectors and screens gracefully descend from ceilings and then magically disappear. TVs rise and fall with the help of hydraulic lowboys. Drapes open and close at will. Seats (and parts of your anatomy) move and shake. Think your equipment needs to stay still? Think you need to stay still? Think again.

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 30, 2001  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2001  | 
This A-BUS makes it easy to "Take the 'A' Train" in any room in your home.

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.

Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jul 18, 2000  |  First Published: Jul 19, 2000  | 
A Touching Experience: The Crestron CNX-PAD8 wholehouse audio-distribution processor helps your A/V system reach out to other rooms.

Which is easier to find: an honest politician, an easy-to-use wholehouse A/V system, or a woman who's so in to electronics that she has the A/V gear installed in her new home before the furniture has arrived?

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

When I was wandering through websites looking for speakers to review in this test, I found companies I'd never heard of. Most were selling generic outdoor speakers, but one - OSD Audio - offered something with an unprecedented mix of cool and creepy: an outdoor speaker styled to look like a life-size German Shepherd."Special purpose," indeed.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

As I mentioned at the outset, bass is hard to do outdoors. You don't have "room gain" - i.e., the tendency of typical residential rooms to boost bass. Everyone seems to want their outdoor speakers to be about 1 foot tall, and it's hard to get deep notes out of such small boxes. Adding a subwoofer outdoors is complicated.

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