Do you need a home theater designer? You can likely cobble together a home theater; many DIY enthusiasts do just that. With no shortage of fast playback TikTok and YouTube videos to show you how to build your own theater in 20 minutes, it must be a snap.

Somehow, how-to videos notwithstanding, people still hire us to design and build home theaters. Of course, we're joking that you can build a home theater in 20 minutes, and neither can we, even though we've been at it for over 30 years. The truth is a real home theater is a complicated project. Just like building a home is a big project, a home theater is one too. People hire architects and builders to build a house in Cumming, GA, and people hire home theater designers – like GHT Group – to create home cinemas. 

So, what do home theater designers do? Keep reading below to find out the basics.

Will Congress enact the Sunshine Protection Act and save us from the trauma of clock changes and daylight savings time? We don’t know, but that one extra hour of daylight late in the day won’t get you out of maintaining your landscape lighting! It’s spring, everything is blooming, and it’s also time to get your outdoor lighting ship-shape for the season. 

Outdoor lighting should be part and parcel of your overall landscape. As you and your landscaper clear out weeds, leaves, and old mulch from beds to get ready for flowers, annuals, and fresh plants, don’t ignore the lighting. It usually needs a little help too. Here are four tips from an outdoor lighting company to get your outdoor illumination spring-ready in Alpharetta, GA.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re interested in smart home automation, and likely you’ve heard of Control4. When you look for a Porsche dealer, you want the one with the best reputation for sales and service. Of course, being local counts, but there are several Porsche franchises in the metro Atlanta area. If you’re looking for a Control4 installer for a smart home automation system, you also want one with a reputation for expertise and after-sales support.

So, how do you choose the right Control4 installer for your Woodstock, GA smart home project? Keep reading below for the most important characteristics.

Once upon a long time ago, there were three TV networks, movies were still on film and in theaters, and you could have as many channels of sound as you wanted as long as it was mono. Clearly, we’ve come a long way in entertainment since the days of a 25-inch living room TV with an antenna.

Today, we have more entertainment to watch and enjoy than we could consume in a lifetime. Thanks to ever-advancing technology, we can create an immersive entertainment experience in the comfort of any home living space. Of course, most people do have a home media room of a sort, from the perfectly functional to the wonderfully wild.

Thanks to technology, recent events, and the way people are doing more at home, the media room is evolving too. Here are three of the most interesting media room trends we’re seeing – is it time to update the one in your Cumming, GA home? Keep reading below!

What is a whole-home lighting control system? Simply put, it’s lighting control for your entire house in Cumming, GA. We’re not being facetious with the explanation. You don't have to add lighting control everywhere to enjoy the benefits. Some smaller systems can do one room or several rooms. There are DIY products where you can make a few bulbs and switches smart but leave the rest of the lights alone. But a whole-home lighting control system gives you so many more options for control, aesthetics, energy efficiency, and automation with other smart features.

Lutron’s Homeworks is like the Cadillac (or Mercedes or whatever your preference) of lighting control systems. It’s the system that can pretty much do it all when it comes to managing lighting. What do we mean by doing it all? Space here doesn't allow us to do it complete justice, but we'll tell you about five of the best features in this blog. Please stay with us below!

The world is awash in smart devices and automation. Your new refrigerator and washing machine might now come with wi-fi connections to tell you the wash is done or that your water filter needs changing. Why do you need a home automation company with all this intelligence around you? 

Maybe you don't. You might be quite happy with your smart home features and a DIY approach to them. But we view the smart home a little differently. The washers and smart refrigerators have a ways to go before they become fully integrated into an overall smart home experience. But we do know how to create a smart home that works for you in other ways. And we can do it without you having to understand all the ins and outs of networking issues, multiple control apps, what functions work with which interface, and much more. 

So, what can a home automation company do for your Duluth, GA home? Keep reading below. 

Buying a new TV just got harder. Why? Because flat-panel TV technology just keeps getting better and better. And the sizes of the panels keep getting bigger and bigger, too. Of course, the power of choice is a good thing.

Samsung has just upped the ante in flat-panel TVs with the new QN90A Neo QLED Smart TV. We know, that's a mouthful. But this gigantic 98-inch display is the pinnacle of the Samsung QLED TV lineup, and it's nothing short of extraordinary.

Keep reading below to see if this is the TV to get for your media room or entertainment space in your Atlanta, GA home. 

If you’re considering adding a lighting control solution to your Atlanta home, you need to consider both the functional and aesthetic factors. On the functional side, you want a lighting control solution to offer many ways to control lights through apps, sensors, schedules, and wall-mounted controls. On the aesthetic side, you’ll consider the color temperature and dimming capabilities of lights and the look and style of the fixtures.

When it comes to those lighting wall controls, they need to meet your most stringent criteria – are they easy to use, save you time and effort, and look good doing their job? Lutron dealers like GHT Group understand these needs and have the full set of Lutron solutions available to meet your needs.

Lutron offers seven styles of wall-mounted controls, ranging from wired models to wireless models that use RF (radio frequency) for ease of installation in existing homes. We’ll cover three of these popular wireless styles below, so we hope you keep reading!

Is there such a thing as a no-compromise solution? In reality, there are very few, but we think we have one of them for you. If you’re thinking of custom window treatments for a new home, remodel, or just a little redecorating, we highly recommend (implore, plead, urge, beg) that you consider making them motorized. Why? We’ve written at length on this subject and think motorized window treatments are like sliced bread in the smart home. In all seriousness, the benefits in convenience, luxury, comfort, and efficiency will pay dividends for many years. 

But you might think, don’t motorized window treatments involve wiring and installation foibles? Interestingly, we find that misconception still exists. Wireless motorized shading is as easy to install as regular window treatments and requires no special maintenance.

If your Buckhead, GA home leans modern, industrial retro-modern, or mid-century eclectic, you'll want to know more about the new wireless option for Lutron’s Palladiom motorized shades. Read more below!

If you’re expecting a bit of a downer like HBO’s Scenes from a Marriage, we try to keep it upbeat here at GHT Group. Our scenes are all about lighting control, and these scenes will put a smile on your face every time you use them! 

If you’re not familiar with lighting scenes, it’s all about controlling many lights at the same time with the ease of automation. You can do it with the push of a button or even by just arriving or leaving your house. Scenes are the “killer app” of whole-home lighting control systems – if you’ve got your entire house and property automated, the sky’s the limit. Here are four of our favorite ways to use lighting scenes in homes in Rosemary Beach, FL. 

We’ve often extolled the virtues of custom motorized shades on these pages. There are so many ways they make life more convenient and make your Miramar Beach home more efficient. Naturally, window treatments like motorized shades serve multiple purposes in the house, managing the Florida sun as well as enhancing privacy. 

Motorized shades and window treatments step up the privacy and security benefits by working hand in hand with other smart automation features. Learn three ways you can make your home more private and secure with automated window treatments. 

Naim may not be an audio name everyone knows, but it’s certainly familiar to hi-fi enthusiasts. Naim has never been a company to just follow the trend and make the same products as everyone else, nor do they sell products that need upgrades or replacement in a few years. Naim is a classic British hi-fi company that’s all about the sound.

GHT Group is proud to be one of the select Naim retailers in the Atlanta area. Keep reading below to learn about the Naim Uniti line, a streamlined solution for music streaming and playback that makes hi-fi audio simple. 

Want to know a little secret? There’s more to achieving great sound quality in a home theater than just having high-quality speakers, subwoofers, and electronics. Many DIY home theater buffs have experienced a “huh?” moment when they fired up their expensive sound systems and were less than overwhelmed with what they heard.

The truth is that room layout, furnishings, ceiling height, materials, and other factors all influence the sound in a home theater. Sometimes, despite the equipment, it’s fatiguing sibilance from higher frequencies or overwhelming bass in one corner with almost none in another. One of the ways that professional home theater designers overcome these aural issues is with acoustic treatment.

At GHT Group, we work with Vicoustic for easy-to-implement acoustic treatment solutions that help tame room audio ills. Keep reading below to learn how we get your Marietta, GA home theater to fulfill its full home cinema promise.

Is it absolutely necessary to spend a fortune to enjoy high-fidelity audio quality at home? We think not, but many will differ in their opinions on what constitutes high-fidelity audio – and how much one needs to spend. But what happens when a real hi-fi company decides to make a truly excellent speaker that delivers hi-fi level performance without the nosebleed prices? We say audio lovers everywhere should rejoice and take notice.

Focal is that company, one that sells speakers as expensive as Porsche 911s. With the Chora range, they decided to make an affordable speaker line that delivers true hi-fi sound that leverages their 40-year history in acoustic research and innovation. Learn more about the Chora range below, and we welcome you to experience Focal home speakers for yourself at our Marietta showroom.

In the world of high-end audio, most innovation is evolution rather than revolution. This isn’t to say there’s no innovation in hi-fi today—far from it. But the analog technology side of hi-fi is tried and true, and it doesn’t change that much from year to year. That’s why Mcintosh Audio, on its website, says that the lifespan of its components sometimes exceeds human ones. And they’re not exaggerating. Decades-old McIntosh amplifiers are passed down in families and prized by lovers of vintage audio.

Digital audio technology, however, changes more rapidly. In the past few years, high-resolution digital formats have evolved, and so has the HDMI connection standard, to name a couple. Streaming has become the standard for daily music enjoyment over digital downloads and physical media. So, it’s possible that a digital audio product from 10 years ago isn’t up to date in 2022.

McIntosh Audio doesn’t like to design products that last only a few years. That’s one reason that they have devised an upgrade path for the digital connections and capabilities of their integrated products. That’s one of the things that makes the new MA9500 integrated amplifier stand out. The analog side of this powerful amp is ready for decades of use, McIntosh style. And the digital connectivity and processing side is upgradeable when you need it down the road.

As a premier McIntosh dealer in Alpharetta and Metro Atlanta, GHT Group is excited to see this product evolution, as an integrated amp like the MA9500 might be the last one you ever need to buy for your listening room! Of course, we would hope to see you again.

Read on to learn more about the new McIntosh MA9500 integrated.