Darryl Wilkinson

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CEDIA 2015

Rosewater Energy Hub: The Most Power-filled Product at CEDIA

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 15, 2015 | 0 comments

I finally was able to make it by the Rosewater Energy Hub booth on the EXPO floor earlier today. RoseWater says the Energy Hub is “the first all-in-one residential and light commercial power solution to integrate three capabilities into one platform to serve the entire needs of one premises. The Hub protects all home and office electronics by delivering clean and conditioned power and offers seamless and total system integration using a dual inverter system. With everything integrated into the Hub, prewired and tested upon delivery, the potential for installation and set-up problems are greatly reduced.” While that’s a mouthful, the Energy Hub is essentially a surge suppressor, power conditioner, and UPS backup power supply for your entire house. It can also serve as a power manager by integrating alternative sources of power, such as solar and wind, into your home along with traditional AC from the power grid. This tower of power is more sophisticated than that simple description, however; and a peek inside the rack reveals designs and parts suitable for long-term industrial use. You have to have money to get all this power, though. The two-rack system on display with its included advanced lead-acid batteries runs approximately $80,000. RoseWater Energy Hubs are available for order and shipping now. It seems expensive—oh, what the hell am I saying? It is expensive. Really, really, really expensive. All it takes, however, is a few days of suffering through a major power outage or incurring a serious loss from a lightning strike to become aware of how valuable electricity is. The RoseWater Energy Hub is certainly worth the money. I just wish I could afford it.

CEDIA 2015

A PlayBox Is a Box for Playing Sonos PLAY:1 Speakers

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 15, 2015 | 3 comments

The PlayBox isn’t hard to understand. It’s an enclosure (a.k.a., a box) that allows you to mount a Sonos PLAY:1 speaker in a recessed niche in a wall.

CEDIA 2015

Origin Acoustics Continues to Be Original

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 14, 2015 | 0 comments

Jeremy Burkhardt took the stage today on the eve of CEDIA Expo to introduce multiple new products for the already massive Origin Acoustics architectural speaker product line. Notable among the bunch are two in-ceiling subwoofers that use a flexible “bass tube” to port bass from a separate enclosure containing dual-voice-coil 6” or 8” long throw subwoofers...

CEDIA 2015

Why CEDIA Matters

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 14, 2015 | 1 comments

Because CEDIA was close enough to home (9 hours), I was able to drive to Dallas rather than suffer the indignities of flying through DFW—and it was cheaper than flying, too. Since I’m cheap, I stayed at a cheap hotel in Oklahoma last night on my way here. I don’t expect much out of a hotel. A bed. Running water. Maybe a toilet, too. This particular hotel included, of all things, a DVD player and a flat-panel TV! (Bonus, right?) It also included one of the most horrendous installs of electronic equipment I’ve ever run across in a public place...

Remotely Possible CEDIA 2015

CEDIA EXPO 2015 Is Here!

Darryl Wilkinson | Oct 13, 2015 | 0 comments

Our Coverage Begins Wednesday, October 14

Better late than never. CEDIA EXPO 2015—“the global showcase of the future home experience”—officially begins this week on Wednesday, October 14, with the Tradeshow portion of EXPO opening at 9:00 AM on Thursday. Normally, EXPO takes place in September; but due to scheduling conflicts, the custom install event of the year takes place a month later. Another change this year is that rather than happening in the smaller, cozier confines of Indianapolis or Denver, EXPO is returning to a city that saw some of the earliest CEDIA conventions—Dallas, Texas. We’re sending a bevy (yes, a bevy) of editors and contributors to Big D to cover the newest, the best, the most interesting, and even the most ridiculous things that’ll be announced or on display at this year’s EXPO. Starting Wednesday, make sure you check out our CEDIA EXPO 2015 blog.

If you’re not familiar with CEDIA EXPO, it’s a fascinating custom installapalooza chockablock with all sorts of vendors involved in one way or another with custom installation (CI) tools, products, devices, and systems. Although this is ostensibly a show aimed at professional installers and designers, there are usually a number of DIY systems on display, as well. Here’s a sampling of some of the more interesting things we’ll be on the lookout for...

Remotely Possible

New Sonos Trueplay Tuning Tech and PLAY:5 Are Stunning

Darryl Wilkinson | Sep 29, 2015 | 0 comments

Sonos is already the king of the hill when it comes to “filling your home with music” (a.k.a., wired and/or wireless multi-room streaming audio systems that are convenient, easy-to-use, and sound great). But later this year, when the company rolls out the “all-new” new PLAY:5 and the absolutely stunning room-acoustic-tuning technology, called Trueplay, Sonos is likely to become—like Kleenex®, BAND-AID®, and Xerox®—synonymous with the entire product category it helped create.

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On the Bleeding Edge: New Smart Home Headaches

Darryl Wilkinson | Sep 08, 2015 | 0 comments

When it comes to digital technology, being an early adopter is almost always painful. There’s the time and energy required during the initial learning curve, the (sometimes ridiculous) expense of the gear, and the discovery of bugs that inevitably need to be squashed. Of course, there are plenty of benefits to being on the cutting edge...

Remotely Possible

Logitech Harmony Adds Even More Smart Home Integration

Darryl Wilkinson | Aug 17, 2015 | 0 comments

If you’re an AV aficionado, enthusiast, geek, or however you think of yourself, Logitech’s Harmony is most likely the first—and maybe only—name that comes to mind when you hear the term “universal remote control.” Although none of the company’s remote controls are perfect (the perfect universal remote control only exists in that magical fantasy world inhabited by unicorns and hard drives that never crash), Harmony’s remotes have been good enough to pretty much crush the competition in the $30 to $350 range. Despite their king-of-the-hill position, Logitech nearly sold off the Harmony division in 2013. It’s a good thing they didn’t, because since then the company has embraced home automation in many of its universal remote controls—and recently Harmony has turned that embrace into a giant bear hug.

Dolby Atmos Speaker Reviews Surround Sound System Reviews Bookshelf Speaker Reviews Subwoofer Reviews

Triad Atmos-Enabled InRoom Bronze LR-H Speaker System Review

Darryl Wilkinson | Aug 06, 2015 | 0 comments

InRoom Bronze LR-H Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value

InWall Bronze/4 SlimSub
Performance
Build Quality
Value

PRICE $11,050

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Dolby Atmos enabled
Natural, open character
Superb match with InWall Bronze/4 SlimSub
Minus
Atmos operation limits use in cabinets or behind a screen

THE VERDICT
Awesome for Atmos and awesome at most everything else.

Nine out of 11.4 people (approximately) reading this report are thinking, “Who the hell is Triad?” (Hopefully, fewer folks are asking, “What the hell is Atmos?” If you’re one of them, hang in there. I’ll get to Atmos in a bit.) To answer the original question, Triad is a Swiss Army Knife-like manufacturer of custom-installed speakers. That is, regardless of the particular application, Triad has a blade—er, speaker—designed and built for it (in the U.S. of A., by the way). You need in-room, in-ceiling, or in-wall speakers? Check. Invisible in-wall speakers? Ditto. OK, what kind of subwoofer do you want? The standard in-room or an in-wall design? Yes and yes. (Yawn.) Why not try something a little less common, like one of Triad’s on-wall, in-cabinet, or in-ceiling subwoofers? Then there’s Triad’s esoteric and rather sinister-looking FlexSub, which includes an expandable, flexible tube that channels the bass output from the hidden subwoofer cabinet to a remotely located grate or grille.

Speaker Buying Tips Speaker Setup Speaker Tech Home Movie Theaters

The Ultimate Test: Dolby Atmos vs. Dolby Atmos

Darryl Wilkinson | Aug 06, 2015 | 9 comments

Dolby Atmos, for you members of the unwashed and uninformed masses (yeah, you know who you are), enables film sound designers to treat individual sonic elements as virtual “objects” that can be placed and moved almost anywhere within the three-dimensional space of a movie theater. Two things are important about its adaptation for home theater. First, the soundfield—in its original, discretely encoded version, not an extrapolated one—is no longer limited to a two-dimensional plane circling around your ears.

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Darryl Wilkinson

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