by Theatron | Dec 23, 2015 | Control4, Home Automation, Home Security, Home Theater, Lighting Control, Our Blog, Security Cameras, Smart Thermostat, Touch Panels, Whole House Audio
With the holiday decorating, shopping, and cooking in full swing, there has never been a better time to automate your home. Home automation can help you manage the wonderful chaos, entertaining your family when they come to visit, setting that special ambiance that inspires the holiday spirit, and keeping your valuables and loved ones more secure than ever. Control4 can help you custom design your smart home to sync with your existing products and spread the holiday cheer.
Light Up Your Home
Home automation allows you to step up your game when it comes to holiday decorating and setting the vibe for the season. You can sync your lights to your holiday playlist, customize your holiday tunes to play at certain times of day, and completely control the light patterns and colors to fit your decorating visions. Home automation can help you make all of your holiday decorating dreams come true.
Share the Classics
An automated home theater system helps you share the classics like never before. With the push of a button on the Control4 Touch Screen, your living room sets itself up for prime viewing. The shades lower, the lights dim or turn off, and the movie begins. If cooking and other activities are going on throughout the home, no one has to be left out of the viewing-you can stream the classics to all of the rooms. If you prefer newer movies, you can also stream the latest hits or newest holiday releases.
Spend More Time with Loved Ones
With smart timers, alerts, and synced appliances, you can spend less time turning things on and off and more time enjoying the company of your loved ones. With the right oven, you can keep an eye on what’s cooking, control your oven and stove settings, and receive alerts about the food right from your phone. You can also control all of the lights in the house from your Control4 Touch Screen and set up timers to lock doors, change the temperature, raise or lower blinds, and many other functions.
Sleep in Peace
When it is time for bed, an automated home can set security systems, lower blinds, and lock doors with the push of a “Goodnight” button. With compatible cameras tied to the Control4 system, you can look at security views or check in on the baby, right from the Control4 App. You can also adjust fans and make sure all lights are off from the comfort of your bed.
If you are interested in finding out how a personalized Control4 smart home can make the holidays more enjoyable—along with every other day of the year—give us a call at 703-883-0970 or contact us.
by Theatron | Aug 25, 2015 | Product Reviews, What's New, Whole House Audio
Now Yamaha makes it easy to bring music to every room in your home wirelessly.
Whether you start with a single speaker or the ultimate home theater, MusicCast expands to fit your needs, providing wireless multiform audio playback controlled by a simple app.
MusicCast uses the existing Wi-Fi network to stream music wirelessly throughout your home.
Play different music in each room, combine rooms or get everyone listening to the same thing.
MusicCast devices support both Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet connections, so you can also choose to build an all-wired network if desired.
The FREE MusicCast app puts control of the whole home listening experience in the palm of your hand.
Quickly select the room or rooms they want to use, select the source, browse the library and control music playback.
Download the iOS or Android App and take a DEMO tour of this intuitive and beautiful interface.
Access streaming music and Internet radio stations, music files on your mobile devices and computers,Bluetooth sources and EVEN external sources like your TV, Blu-ray Discs, CDs and vinyl records.
Since Bluetooth is such a ubiquitous technology, it makes sense that it would have a home with MusicCast.
BLUETOOTH INPUT
Stream ANY audio via Bluetooth from a smartphone or tablet and play it on a single MusicCast device or MULTIPLE MusicCast devices in linked playback mode.
EVEN BLUETOOTH OUTPUT
MusicCast devices can stream out to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones, making it a convenient way to enjoy and expand the reach of the system, even with existing equipment.
MusicCast supports high-resolution audio formats to deliver more accurate reproduction of sonic details, presence and atmosphere.
All models support:
Apple Lossless (ALAC) up to 96 kHz / 24-bit
FLAC, WAV and AIFF up to 192 kHz / 24-bit
by Theatron | Jun 26, 2015 | Whole House Audio
Architectural speakers are the latest and greatest in audio equipment. Remember when stereo speakers were like pieces of furniture and weighed just as much? As the years have gone on, they’ve gotten smaller and smaller while the sound just gets better and better. But only if you purchase the right product. Otherwise, the hardware might be modern enough to fit in your pocket, but the sound might be more reminiscent of an old-time Victrola.
Many homes are wired or retrofit for the ability to hear music in every room, but you still need to find a place to put the speakers. They might be tiny in comparison to what they looked like in the 70s, but they can still put a kink in your décor, especially if you have gone the minimalist route. Wireless speakers are a great invention and make placement easier, but the sound quality can’t compare to hard-wired models, which can leave nests of cables tangled in the corners of every room. Enter: recessed architectural speakers.
Indoors or Out
Architectural speakers can be installed in the walls or ceiling of any room in your home and they will seamlessly blend with their surroundings so that the music appears to be coming from the air! Aluminum, rust-proof grilles make it safe to install these speakers in kitchens, bathrooms, saunas and other high-moisture areas. They come in white to match most ceilings, but if you want them installed in the walls instead, they’re paintable so you can have an exact match. The superior sound quality of top-of-the-line architectural speakers lends a live quality to the music you stream. They are perfect for basement home theaters, where the authentic cinema surround-sound can fool anyone into thinking they’re at the multiplex.
But why limit your enjoyment of music to the inside of your home? Architectural speakers can be installed outside as well, allowing you to play some classical music for a romantic dinner al fresco, some old-time rock-n-roll for a baby boomer backyard birthday party, or modern tunes for your teenagers’ pool party.
Great for Offices
These nearly invisible speakers are also perfect in an office setting. And today’s models are not like the tinny ones you remember from your dentist’s office — this is high performance, state-of-the-art sound. Individual controls allow you to play music for clients in some areas while allowing for different music for employees in other areas. Or music can be turned off altogether in rooms where workers need quiet for meetings or to focus on their work.
Theatron Home Theater and Smart Homes is the expert in outfitting homes and offices with architectural speakers in Northern Virgina & Washington DC — call them today to find out how you can get beautiful music from speakers that are heard and not seen.
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by Theatron | Jun 12, 2015 | Whole House Audio
Klipsch Horn Loaded Speakers Technology
In a Klipsch blog post, an excellent overview was posted about Klipschorn technology. This article is a great starting point to those unfamiliar with the brand and an excellent refresher for those that have used it for years. Let’s take a look at how Klipsch Horn Loaded speakers work:
“You hear Klipsch talk about our unique horn-loaded speakers that create louder sound with less distortion, but do you know how Klipsch horn loaded speakers technology works? Don’t worry! You do not need to be an audiophile to learn this stuff. Let’s start with the basics.
Klipsch Horn Loaded Speakers 101
The larger the radiating diaphragm of a speaker (that’s the circular portion of a speaker that moves back and forth to push air), the more air will be moved and the greater the sound energy. However, large diaphragms are inconvenient and heavy. By using a flared transmission channel (a horn) the effective radiating area of the source of sound can be increased to that of the mouth, thus creating greater air coupling (louder sound).
Because of the gradual change of the diameter of a horn, the source of sound at the throat engages all the air in a horn. We can think of a horn as having an imaginary, massless diaphragm at the mouth. This “virtual” diaphragm is no less effective for being imaginary – the molecules of air are vibrating back and forth as if a diaphragm the size of the horn’s mouth were actually there.
Notice the size of the horn throat where the sound originates versus the size of the horn mouth where the sound leaves the horn and is amplified.
There may appear to be an unreal quality about the action of a horn in that it seems to get something for nothing, making a soft sound into a loud one. A horn is purely a passive device, and does not inject additional energy into the system. But the reason that a horn is able to increase the radiation of sound from a given source so dramatically (by factors of 10 or more) is that most sources of sound have only a very poor bite on the surrounding air, and do not succeed in changing much of the mechanical energy into acoustical energy.
The horn allows the mechanical power capabilities of the source to be tapped much more efficiently. In the case of horn-loaded speakers, neither the electromechanical efficiency nor the power capability of the speaker itself is changed, but the transfer of mechanical to acoustical energy is greatly increased. This is why our speakers can produce louder sound efficiently, thus pissing off your neighbors.”
In the latest Reference Premiere product from Klipsch, you will find the redesigned Tractrix horn from a 60×90 horn to a 90×90 horn for a wider dispersion area. This square horn mouth is paired with a circular horn throat for enhanced sound staging, while maintaining the dynamic, powerful sound of a Klipsch speaker.
The former Reference II speaker horns were composed of ABS plastic. To decrease horn resonance for a smoother, warmer high frequency response, the Reference Premiere horns are made of compressed molded silicone – also displaying a sleek design contrast against the brushed polymer veneer baffle finish.
To learn more about Klipsch technology and the new Reference Premiere line of speakers in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC, please contact Rick@thtva.com.
by Theatron | Jan 20, 2012 | Whole House Audio
Have the ability to control multiple zones of audio equipment from anywhere around the house.
Imagine having a stereo in every room of the house! With a Theatron whole house music distribution system, you can. Choose the basic option of volume control knobs, or replace those with sleek iPads offering many additional control possibilities. With an iPad, at each location you have the flexibility of choosing preset radio stations,SiriusXM satellite, music streaming from services like Pandora,Spotify,Rhapsody TuneIn and Slacker
Simple Operation
Operation of our systems is simple, with navigation easily learned by even a non-technical person in a matter of minutes. You also don’t have to listen to the same thing throughout the entire house. Choose a source for each room if you like, and give multiple listeners the chance to enjoy different sources.
Flexible Fit (Yes we can add this)
Theatron multi room home stereo systems can be done in new construction, and can also be retrofitted for most existing homes. By using a multi room audio system, you have more elegant design possibilities. You can locate all of your equipment in a remote location. You can then place speakers inconspicuously on bookshelves, or in the walls or ceilings of your rooms, and use a keypad in the wall of each room to control the system.
Throw the Coolest Parties
With a Theatron system, parties become easier and more entertaining. Have you ever tried to fill a house with music, and had to have the system so loud it drowned out all the conversation? With our systems, you can go to the keypad in each room and adjust the source and volume accordingly. Or if you like, with a one-button push, the entire home music system can be shut off.
Unlimited Control
Theatron’s systems are limited only by your imagination. Whether you want basic volume control or iPad control your system is custom designed to meet your needs and to provide the level of control you desire.
Many systems now allow you to start out with a basic multi room home audio system and expand it later to include the convenient home automation features of lighting control, climate control, camera control, and much more!
