Easy Home Theater

Terrific home theater made easy.

Architects urged to embrace technology – The Statesman Online

Architects urged to embrace technology The Statesman Online, Ghana - Aug 15, 2008 Somovision, the leading dealer in electronics in the country, gave prize awards of Refrigerators, Television set and home theater to Frank Yaw Yeboah, …

Vivitek Corporation Marks Entry Into Professional AV Display … – MarketWatch

Vivitek Corporation Marks Entry Into Professional AV Display … MarketWatch - Aug 13, 2008 "In addition to the highest quality, low-cost products, our commitment to 'green behaviors' is certainly one of the ways we hope to distinguish our company. ..

EPSON Ensemble HD — A Proper Home Theater-In-A-Box

Call me a Home Theater snob, but, I don’t think a room with any size flat panel TV is a “Theater Room”. There has to …

Blueline Innovations PowerCost Monitor

Last year I posted about a product called TED 1000, by The Energy Detective. It’s a power monitoring device that saved me $50 the first …

Sonos 2.0

Sonos announced several upgrades today to its whole-house audio system (my review of the original system is here ). The receiver modules have shrunk in size, have been upgraded with an upgraded version of Sonos’ proprietary wireless mesh networking technology, and the one with an internal amplifier (the ZonePlayer 120) has gotten more power. The software has been upgraded, and it now supports ridiculously large music collections (65,000 songs), OS X Leopard, and NAS devices (networked hard drives, which means you can listen to your own songs without turning on your PC). What hasn’t changed: The Controller 100 ($399) gets no upgrades. It was well designed to begin with, though it is a bit bulky. It also no longer has quite the same wow factor, as it mimics Apple’s last generation of music devices (the clickwheel iPods), rather than the current touchscreen models. A separate charging cradle ($39.99) for the Controller is an essential add-on that Sonos released a while back, but there are still no in-wall versions of the cradle. There is still no boombox option; the ZonePlayer 90 assumes you’re hooking it up to a stereo system, iPod dock, or powered speakers, while the ZonePlayer 120 assumes you have a spare pair of speakers lying around. Sonos sells a pair of inexpensive, very high quality speakers for use with the ZonePlayer 120, but I’ve always thought that Sonos ought to build self-contained units for use in kitchens, home offices, and bathrooms. There is still no weatherproof outdoors option. A complete Sonos system is incredibly cost effective when compared to custom installed wired multi-room alternatives. But it is still pricey overkill for filling just one or two rooms with sound; two iPods and two iPod docks runs less than half the cost of a Sonos. The direct competition is starting to catch up; Logitech’s Squeezebox Duet (pictured here on the right) undercuts Sonos on price and has a similar scroll wheel controller (the Duet costs $399 and includes a receiver; the equivalent Sonos Controller + ZP90 combo costs $748). One major difference is in ease of setup – Sonos wins hands down, in part because Sonos doesn’t require a PC or a wireless network. I have tested Logitech’s predecessor, the Squeezebox, and found its basic remote and user interface nearly unusable; I plan to test the Duet and future products in Logitech’s line shortly. -avi

« go backkeep looking »

About Easy Home Theater

Easy Home Theater is designed for people that want to build a dream home theater but don't have $50,000 to do it. Terrific video and audio quality can be yours for much less than you'd expect. In fact, with the right tools and information, its easy!

Subscribe to our feed


Checking schedule at 09/02/1212 16:18:51