Bob Ankosko

Video projectors that reside in the ceiling have long been a fixture of high-end home theaters and are usually accompanied by a screen that retracts into a wall-mounted sleeve or disappears behind a curtain—everything controlled by remote control. Flat-panel TVs can benefit from the same sort of crafty concealment.

Price $40

At A Glance
Plus
Stupidly simply setup
Multiroom music on a shoestring

Minus
Doesn’t work with landline, DSL, or Internet phone service
Limited by the number and location of phone jacks in the house
Subject to the vagaries of existing wires running through the walls
A less-than-hi-fi solution

The Verdict
Moxivo provides a low-tech, down-and-dirty way to shuttle music through dormant phone lines, but don’t expect audiophile quality.

In “A New Use for Old Wires” we described Intellegg’s Moxivo multiroom music kit, which is nothing more than a set of inexpensive cables that lets cord cutters use dormant phone lines to spread music around the house. It sounds great in theory but I was curious to see how well the “system” actually works, so I sought out a cord cutting household (I have Internet phone service at home, which is a no-no). As a new homeowner, my twenty-something son has no intention of signing up for traditional phone service, so his 18-year-old two-story home offered a perfect environment for the test.

Walking into the GoldenEar Technology demo room at CEDIA 2013 was like stepping into an intimate jazz club. The mellifluous voice of Jane Monheit accompanied by guitarist extraordinaire John Pizzarelli filled the room. I immediately thought, Wow, those new tower speakers sound damn good. Little did I know until the demo ended that I was actually listening to Invisa HTR 7000 speakers—mounted in the ceiling. As GoldenEar founder Sandy Gross explained, “That’s the idea.” A mind blowing experience.

Toshiba will no longer develop and sell TVs in North America as part of a restructuring and will license the TV business to Taiwan’s Compal Electronics. According to a press release issued in Tokyo, Compal will begin delivering Toshiba brand TVs to the North American market in March.