In consumer electronics, it is easier than ever to build a new product. But some companies sweat all the details, pouring money into research and development to bring innovations to market first. They don’t settle for off-the-shelf components; they build their own to bring that extra edge to their products.

In the consumer electronics world, that company is Sony. The long list of firsts they have developed is much too long to discuss here. Their expertise in audio and video technology is unparalleled. They are also unique in that the company also owns significant pieces of the content side of the business. They have the most holistic view of what it takes to deliver an exceptional aural and visual experience from the creative side all the way to a cinema, your home theater, or your TV.

Why does that matter? Because it’s all in the details.

Sony understands the challenges of recreating the experience that the movie producers envisioned in your own living room. So if you are looking for a new projector – or an upgrade – to your home theater or media room in the Sandy Springs area, we’re going to explain why it should be a Sony.

Ready to learn more about the Sony projectors difference? Let’s continue.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

Get to Know Crestron’s New TSR-310 and HR-310 Remotes

Our world is full of touchscreens. According to Statista stats portal, 2.8 billion touchscreen devices were shipped worldwide in 2016 alone. You have to work hard these days to find a human being on the planet that hasn’t been exposed to one. The reason is straightforward: Touchscreens present intuitive interfaces for people to accomplish tasks without resorting to a help manual. The smartphone in our pocket proves that they work for a host of applications.

As much as we all love touchscreens, there are some times when they are not always the best control experience. Touchscreens require us to look at the screen to make a choice or perform a gesture.

When it comes to A/V control, the majority of remotes still have real buttons. Vendors have added app control to smart devices – from sophisticated devices like A/V receivers to simpler ones like Roku Streamers – to extend the control capabilities and allow for an alternative form of control. There are people, particularly of younger generations that grew up with touchscreens, that might prefer the smartphone as a remote control, as it is virtually always with you.

For A/V control, sometimes the touchscreen is not the best option. For many people, adjusting the volume is easier by feeling for the right button on a hard-button remote. That way, you don’t have to look down at a screen or light up a darkened room during a movie. Transport functions like play, pause, and fast forward can sometimes be more intuitive with real buttons too. Lastly, your smartphone is doing other things than remote control, and switching or starting apps for a simple function can be tedious.

Crestron has been in the A/V and home automation business since it began. They understand the control of devices and systems thoroughly. In this age of the screen, they still offer hard button remotes to allow the freedom to control your environment the way you want.

Read on to learn more about managing your A/V and home automation systems in the Roswell area with the the new, advanced TSR-310 and HR-310 remotes for your Crestron control system. These are not your average complicated remotes though – they are designed to be customized for you.

Dolby Atmos was introduced to much fanfare for home theaters in 2014. The new format was trumpeted as one of the biggest advances in multi-channel audio in years. Indeed, it brought a more immersive 3D sound to home theater. Consumer electronics partners jumped on the bandwagon early, and products like speakers, receivers, and UHD Blu-ray players started appearing in the market over the next two years.

While new technology is great, you need things that take advantage of it. For Dolby Atmos, the content was slow in coming. The first movie for home viewing released in Atmos on Blu-ray was Transformers, Age of Extinction. Video games like Star Wars: Battlefront followed as Dolby worked with content makers to make full use of the new format. While these titles were excellent showcases for the format, others were slow in coming.

Fast forward to 2019, and all that has changed dramatically. For one, there are over 4400 theaters in the U.S. with immersive Dolby Atmos sound, exposing millions of theatergoers to new levels in cinema audio. Almost every new AV receiver and surround processor now sports support for the format, with most supporting its competitor DTS:X as well. Apple recently announced Dolby Atmos support for the 4K Apple TV and is upgrading its iTunes movie rental offerings to Atmos as well. Amazon's latest streaming stick also supports the sound format. Speakers from respected brands like Bowers and Wilkins and Klipsch are available, both in surface mount or architectural styles designed expressly for delivering those three-dimensional height and positional overhead effects.

You may be thinking: What can I watch with a Dolby Atmos surround sound system in my Roswell or Metro Atlanta home’s media room? The answer is plenty - read on to learn more.

It’s April, the taxes are done, the weather in Atlanta is comfortably warm, and our thoughts are turning to the outdoors. Of course, it’s also a time when we want to spruce up our outside areas as well. We’ll uncover the patio furniture, plan for the landscapers to plant annuals, prune the rose bushes, mulch the beds, and get the patios power-washed. When it's all cleaned up and ready, we admire the result and think of what else might make the outside spaces even more inviting.

Chances are you have an outdoor grill on your patio, and perhaps it’s built-in. Maybe you have an outdoor kitchen. If not, now is the perfect time to install one just in time for summer barbecue season. Are you thinking about a swimming pool to beat the humid Georgia heat? There’s still time before summer hits.

Regardless of what improvements you have planned for your outdoor living spaces, you should consider one upgrade that will enhance any of your activities - adding music. With an outdoor speaker system in your Roswell-area patio, you will make all your swimming, lounging, sunning, entertaining and grilling activities that much more enjoyable.

Read on for some ideas to enhance your outdoor space - and if you already have outdoor audio, you may want to upgrade it!

Abbey Road studios has a long and fabled history. It is perhaps best known for the 1969 namesake Beatles album, the band’s 11^th studio album and the last in which all of them participated. Abbey Road Studios, however, predated the Beatles.

In 1931, the Gramophone Company – the predecessor to British record label EMI – converted what had been a century-old Georgian townhouse into a recording studio. In 1934, the inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony at the studio. Abbey Road Studios also became known for the innovative recording techniques pioneered in the 1960s by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Cliff Richard, with the help of imaginative producers and sound engineers like George Martin. Today, the studio is owned by Universal Music Group, one the world’s largest record labels.

Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) has a remarkable history of its own, if not as long as Abbey Road Studios. In 1966, John Bowers and Roy Wilkins started building loudspeakers out of a workshop in the back of an electronics shop. In the early days, the firm made public address systems, building their expertise in speaker design. By 1972, the firm had its first research facility with anechoic chambers for detailed testing. Over the decades, B&W has established its name at the forefront of high-end audio reproduction, and in recent years the company has extended its sound know-how into headphones, automobile audio, wireless, and architectural speakers.

For 15 years, Abbey Road Studios used the B&W 800D Mk1 as studio monitors, because of their incredibly accurate sound reproduction. Abbey Road recently underwent the most significant transformation in its history, adding two new studios in 2017. In 2018, the companies announced a new partnership of the venerated audio brands, where B&W is the official speaker and headphone of the famed studio.

Read on to learn more about Bowers & Wilkins speakers at Abbey Road studios. If professional sound engineers at Abbey Road use them, imagine how good they will sound in your Dunwoody-area home’s listening room.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

When you think of home automation and smart home technology, do you imagine something that sounds both complicated and expensive? No doubt the underlying technology is sophisticated, as is most of today's consumer technology upon which we rely every day – like your smartphone.

Most likely, you find your smartphone as a device that is not complicated to use, and a boon to your daily life. That's because the system and apps use technology intelligently to simplify everyday tasks – whether it’s communication, managing your calendar and tasks, getting information on your finances, or the myriad of other things smartphones bring to the palm of your hand.

Home automation sounds complicated, but it is much the same as the smartphone. Some sophisticated technology under the veneer of a simple-to-use interface makes it easy to manage a host of functions in your home. The good news is that home automation systems are not an all-or-nothing thing; you can start small and scale up in functionality and size. It's much like your smartphone: You can do many things in the digital realm with them, but some people stick to basics like communication and taking pictures. You can always add more apps to do more, but you don’t have to.

If you haven’t dipped the proverbial toe into smart home technology, there’s no reason not to. You can start with something as simple as taming the pack of audio-video remote controls sitting on your coffee table. A Control4 home automation system would banish all those remotes in your Alpharetta-area family room to a drawer and replace it with a clean interface that makes your A/V setup work just the way you like it. But of course, it can do much more.

Keep reading to see how a Control4 smart home system can cinch those quick 8-yard slant passes, but also go long for the touchdown, automating your whole house.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

Klipsch is one of America’s oldest names in HiFi audio. Started in 1946 in a tin shed in Hope, Arkansas, by Paul Klipsch, the company has been finely honing its patented horn-based designs for decades. Paul Klipsch’s goal was to recreate the sound of live music in the home, and it remains the guiding principle of the company to this day.

Klipsch speakers have always had a forward, lively sound, one that holds true to the company's goal of audio that sounds like you are really in the room listening to the artist record music. It tends to be a sound that you feel, with deep bass and high frequencies that remind you of a live performance and not something that has been filtered in some way.

Today, Klipsch is still headquartered in the U.S., and the Hope, Arkansas, shed is the site of the factory that produces classic speakers like the Klipschorn or the Klipsch Heritage Series. Klipsch Audio Technologies now manufactures speakers at a variety of price points and also owns the brands Jamo, Athena, Mirage, and Energy. The company understands how to build both high-end and lower-end speakers that outperform their price points – and usually people's expectations as well.

Klipsch’s newly redesigned Reference Premiere RP-600M bookshelf speaker is a case in point. Its performance has surprised and astounded professional reviewers considering its amazingly affordable price of $550 a pair.

If you are looking to upgrade your HiFi stereo system in the Vinings area or are looking to build one in your home without spending next month’s mortgage payment, let’s take a closer look at the RP-600M.

A home theater can be a significant investment. Like a bathroom or kitchen remodel, it can also be a big job. There's a lot that can go into a home theater. There's the screen, the projector, the speakers, the audio receiver, processor or amplifier, control capability, lighting, seating, décor, and more to think about.

Of course, your home theater area might be a setup designed around a living or family room, or it can be a full-boat dedicated home theater in an extra or purpose-built room in your house. Either way, the details must be sweated to make it into a theater experience that feels special. Those details involve the right size and scale for sound and picture, the acoustics, the methods of control, and perhaps how the home theater ties into other smart home features.

It might seem daunting, right? Georgia Home Theater is here to help. As our name implies, home theaters are a core competence at our company. To make it easier for customers to see and hear what a home theater setup can be like at your home, we have built one in our flagship theater demo area in our Marietta showroom.

Did you miss the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody at the theaters? We have set the film up as a demo in our showroom, as the musical soundtrack can really show off a high-end sound system. And the visuals are equally stunning. The demo theater features some of our best brands – Anthem, Bowers and Wilkins, Sony, and more. At our Marietta showroom, you’ll get a much better sense of what to expect from a professional home theater installation in your Alpharetta-area home.

Keep reading for a brief look at what you’ll experience in the showroom – and what you could have in your own theater.

This blog has now been updated; you can view this updated post here.

Spring is finally here, and our thoughts are turning to warmer weather and outside activities. The cold temperatures of winter are over. And soon, it will be warm – and humid – again.

Since we are blessed with a relatively mild climate in the Metro Atlanta area, we get to use our outdoor patios, yards, and pools much more than our neighbors to the north. And because of that, we can plan more activities outdoors. But sometimes, our indoor entertainment beckons to us to stay inside – a great movie, the latest Netflix show, or screaming at the TV in an attempt to will the Hawks into the NBA playoffs. It doesn't have to be that way.

We have no solution for the Hawks at the moment, but we do have an answer for taking your entertainment outside. Why not outfit your Buckhead-area patio with an outdoor TV installation? You can watch the NBA playoffs this spring on your patio this spring, with or without the Hawks. You can cheer on the Braves toward another National League East title on balmy summer evenings. And of course, you can do fun summer movie nights with family and friends.

We’re not talking about just any outdoor TV installation here. We’re talking about the next level in complete outdoor audio-visual entertainment – the Stealth Acoustics Patio Theater.

What is the Stealth Acoustics Patio Theater? Just keep reading to learn more.

Wall-mounted control options are popular among homeowners since they are readily-available, customizable and easy to use – all in convenient locations throughout their homes. Our clients love that their Control4 system lets them manage lights, climate, music, and more without having to use a remote or a smartphone app. Everything is accessible on keypads or touchpads just a few feet away.

Interior design-conscious homeowners are understandably not as eager to fill their walls with gadgets. After all, it’s reasonable to think that a Control4 system can result in a lot of unseemly wall clutter throughout your Sandy Springs-area home. Not only do wall-mounted devices protrude from the wall, but frequently they're also a different color.

So, how can you enjoy the intuitive controls that a Control4 system offers without ruining your interior décor?

Enjoy the best of both worlds with flush-mount installations that help your in-wall controls camouflage seamlessly with their surroundings. Learn more about these solutions and the partners we at Georgia Home Theater work with to help homeowners achieve a more stylish smart home.

In 2016, Rega went back to its roots and brought back the Planar name that made it a household name in the 1970s. The move coincided with vinyl's resurgence around that time. As the music industry moved to digital in the form of MP3s and streaming services, a lot of music fans turned back to vinyl records.

The tactile feel of holding a record offered such a better experience than pressing a button to play music from a playlist. That's not even considering the immense jump in quality when going from digital to analog recordings. But for some newcomers to HiFi audio, it can be daunting jumping to a vinyl world filled with dedicated music enthusiasts.

That’s the great thing about Rega’s Planar turntables. They’re easy to install in your Roswell-area home without needing prior expertise and come in a variety of price points to appeal to newcomers and music enthusiasts alike. If you’re looking to add some vinyl to your Georgia home audio installation, test out their main models in our Marietta showroom: The Planar 1, Planar 3, Planar 6, and Planar 8.

Unused rooms in your home offer a world of potential. Recent retirees may have an office they no longer need, or empty nesters may want new ways to transform their kids’ rooms. Fitness rooms, library rooms, and libraries are some of the more popular choices. Recently, we’ve also seen a lot of clients reach out to see if these spare rooms in their Vinings-area homes are big enough for a successful media room design.

Entertainment spaces used to require a lot of equipment that could easily overwhelm a small room. Over the past few years, however, technology advances have made it so you can create the ideal viewing and listening environment almost anywhere. From motorized shades that reduce glare to speakers that stay hidden from view, we outline some of our favorite features below.

You may recall the early days of video conferencing. It wasn’t that long ago. Video conferencing has been around in some form since the 1980s, but it was an expensive, slow, and often tedious experience. The equipment was bulky and complicated to operate, the video was grainy, and your meeting could include video or audio, just not both at the same time. It was often easier to default to a phone call.

Fast forward to modern times, where almost every smartphone has the camera and audio capability to make an excellent videoconference device. Today it's easy and often free-to-use collaboration solutions from laptops and mobile devices, with excellent video resolution and audio capabilities thanks to today’s powerful and sophisticated hardware and software. A host of collaboration applications like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft’s Skype, Google’s Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and many others offer the ability to see and hear the other party, as well as share just about any digital information from a computer and collaborate on it in real-time.

That’s great for the individual in an office – or on a beach – but what about getting a group together in the conference room? The dynamic is different, as your group may be collaborating with another group in another part of your company, or it can be a client or partner on the other side of the world. We want the same ease of use from our laptops and mobile devices when we are meeting and collaborating in a group setting.

If you’ve heard of the term BYOD (bring your own device), it means that workers want to use the tools they use every day – laptops, tablets, and smartphones – for business collaboration, without having to learn complicated new software or processes. If you’re stuck with yesterday’s technology in your conference rooms, you’re not set up for today’s fast-paced collaboration. If all you have in your conference room is a speakerphone, then you have an excellent opportunity to upgrade.

Crestron, a long-time leader in both home and commercial automation, has the solution to modernize your Alpharetta or Midtown meeting spaces instantly. Crestron Mercury is an integrated hardware and software solution that can bring your conference room into the 21^st century.

Ready to see how Crestron automation can elevate your conference room right now? Just keep reading.

Sometimes we have champagne tastes, but our budgets tend to favor the price of beer. Music enthusiasts with big budgets are known to spend significant dollars trying to extract that last ounce of performance from their system. Whether it's the speakers, the amplifier, the preamp, the music player, or the cables, the HiFi enthusiast’s quest is for the perfect sound. Sometimes the search is never-ending, but indeed, that's part of the fun and the hobby.

But what if you are a music lover with other responsibilities and can't devote a large piece of your disposable income to the search for your perfect sound? The good news is that we are in a bit of a "golden age" for audio, with a plethora of great sounding gear available at affordable prices.

One of those pieces of gear comes from Paradigm. Paradigm is a Canadian company with a rich history of speakers. The company's founders believed in custom-designing their speakers based on science, not the prevailing conventional wisdom. They used audio research from the National Research Council of Canada to guide their original designs. The other major tenet the founders wanted to uphold was accessibility – they wanted to make audiophile speakers regular folks could afford.

While Paradigm now makes some high-end speakers like the Persona Series, the company is still known for delivering serious audio performance for the dollar. If you are an HiFi enthusiast on a budget in the Vinings area, Paradigm speakers should be on your short list to evaluate.

Let’s take a closer look at the Paradigm Monitor SE Series, where high-performance audio and affordability happily intersect.

Spring is almost here, and we're ready to be outside. Warmer temperatures and sunny skies will lure us outside. But March Madness is just around the corner too, and the NBA playoffs and our beloved Braves will soon follow, as well. We do want to spend time outdoors, but there are some important things we want to watch too.

Fear not, we have a solution. An outdoor TV installation can help you enjoy all the sports and shows you don’t want to miss, and you can do it all in the fresh outside air – even in the sun on your Roswell patio if you like. You might ask if a standard indoor TV can be placed outdoors. The answer is yes, but they're not designed to do so. First, the screens may not be designed for outdoor lighting levels. Second, swings in temperature and humidity might affect their performance, or cause them not to work at all. Finally, those pesky bugs have a way of finding their way into regular TVs and creating problems.

We at Georgia Home Theater believe indoor TVs should stay indoors. There are outdoor TVs – just like outdoor speakers – that are designed to provide years of service outside. We work with two of the best outdoor TV manufacturers - SunBriteTV and Séura – and each has the weatherproofing and screen designs to perform brilliantly outdoors.

Ready to learn more? Read on to see what outdoor TV fits your style.