John Sciacca

Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
Other Tech
Step By Step: How to Set Up an A/V Receiver
John Sciacca  |  Oct 03, 2006

A receiver is your home theater's brain as well as its brawn. It doesn't just power your speakers; it's also the switching center for your gear and decodes the various surround sound formats. After connecting your speakers and components, here are the steps to take to ensure your receiver produces all the sound you paid for.

Continue Reading >
Other Tech
Step By Step: How to Soundproof Your Home Theater
John Sciacca  |  May 05, 2007

Continue Reading >
The Connected Life
Stick it to the Man and Surf the Web Better!
John Sciacca  |  Jun 18, 2014
Because you are currently reading this, I’m going to make three assumptions…

1) You have fine taste in A/V writers.
2) You are currently alive.
3) You have a barely concealed disdain for your Internet Service Provider and would like to pay them as little as possible while retaining the maximum surfing speeds.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, American ISPs now have the lowest customer satisfaction ranking of any industry in the country. And bottoming out that grim list of corporate scum and villainy is Comcast and Time Warner, the two most hated companies in the US. So, congrats, guys! One of the reasons why we seem to hate our ISP so vehemently is the growing cost of service coupled with horrific customer service and reliability and speed issues. Read on if you want to do something about it…

Continue Reading >
Other Tech
Streaming 4K Video: What You Need to Know
John Sciacca  |  May 27, 2016
Your new 4K, Ultra High Definition (UHD) TV is finally home and now you’re ready to start enjoying 8 million pixels of next-gen, ultra-video awesomeness. But that screen isn’t gonna just fill itself with UHD. Doing so is going to take a bit of planning and logistics to ensure you wring every bit of performance you can from it. Should you buy one of the new UHD Blu-ray players? If you care first about image quality, you probably should. But what about Ultra HD streaming from Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, and others—should you write them off? Negative!
Continue Reading >
Custom Installation How-To
Sunfire TGM-100
John Sciacca  |  Nov 12, 2009
Key Features
$6,500 ($8,950 as tested) SUNFIRE.COM
 
 
• TGM-100 server rips and streams music and movies • 1-terabyte hard drive stores up to 145 DVDs or 1,600 CDs in uncompressed WAV format and supports up to 7 simultaneous streams with optional TGM- 100
Continue Reading >
Custom Installation How-To
Sunfire TGM-100 Page 2
John Sciacca  |  Nov 12, 2009
Key Features
$6,500 ($8,950 as tested) SUNFIRE.COM
 
 
• TGM-100 server rips and streams music and movies • 1-terabyte hard drive stores up to 145 DVDs or 1,600 CDs in uncompressed WAV format and supports up to 7 simultaneous streams with optional TGM- 100
Continue Reading >
Other Tech
Super Remotes
John Sciacca  |  Jan 14, 2006

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.

Continue Reading >
The Connected Life
Survey: What People Would Pay to Watch First-Run Movies at Home
John Sciacca  |  Nov 16, 2016
Last month I wrote a blog titled, Day and Date: How Much Would You Pay? which pondered how much avid home theater owners like Sound & Vision readers might be willing to pay for the privilege of viewing first-run Hollywood films at home. To give this some perspective, it’s important to point out that the only system capable of doing this is the stratospherically priced PRIMA Cinema, with hardware selling for $35,000 and a $500 per film rental charge.
Continue Reading >
CES 2020
SVS Refreshes Most Popular Sub Line Ever
John Sciacca  |  Jan 07, 2020
When a company looks to refresh its most popular, best-selling subwoofer series ever, you can imagine they would do so with a bit of care to ensure that the legacy and goodwill built over the years isn’t lost on some rev. 2 cash grab. Rest assured, SVS put a ton of thought and design into the new 2000 Pro Series subwoofers to ensure that the performance legacy of past subs is not only respected, but kicked up to the next level.
Continue Reading >
CES 2015
SwitchBee Wants You to Switch to Smart Lighting
John Sciacca  |  Jan 06, 2015
Think home automation and lighting control shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars and take a team of programmers days to install and set up? Then you are of like mind with SwitchBee, a company looking to bring simplified lighting control to the masses and bring “a quick switch to a smart home” with a one switch, one screwdriver, two minutes, $50 philosophy.

Continue Reading >

Pages

X