All Articles Tagged Joe Whitaker

Julie Jacobson | 02/15 08:04 AM, 4 Comments

If you love playing guitar, why not be able to enjoy the music in every room of the house? That’s exactly what home systems integrator Joe Whitaker was after when he engineered a “whole-house guitar distribution” system in his St. Charles, Mo., home. Whitaker got the idea while installing a home automation and whole-house A/V system for a client. “I couldn’t help but notice the guitars placed all over the home,” he says. “In the basement were a couple of decent electrics; in the hearth room sat a really nice… View this story

Joe Whitaker | 12/02 09:37 AM, 0 Comments

We have been blessed lately with a plethora of HDMI switchers that solve some of the worst deficiencies of HDMI: key limitations, switching lags, EDID support, and so many others. Indeed, I’ve written glowing reviews of some of them. But for the most part they don’t solve a big problem that plagues home entertainment systems in general: pesky IR emitters and RS-232 contraptions on the A/V components themselves. Start-up HydraConnect solves all of these problems with the new HSS-1 HDMI switcher ($9,000), shipping this year (specs below). I discovered this… View this story

Joe Whitaker | 03/22 11:07 AM,

If you’re thinking about trashing your customers’ old legacy HDTV sets just to get a 3D picture … think again. Instead, you might want to sell them the 3D Manager from Just Add Power, one of the original developers of HDMI-over-IP. The new solution, introduced at the Electronic House Expo last week, turns virtually any HDTV with an HDMI port into a 3D-enabled display. I interviewed JAP principal Ed Qualls before EHX 2011 and the solution sounded pretty good. As described, the technology could potentially save clients thousands of dollars,… View this story

Joe Whitaker | 12/03 08:11 AM, 2 Comments

As its name suggests, Stealth Acoustics usually makes loudspeakers that disappear behind the walls. So imagine my surprise when I discovered some visible free-standing speakers during a recent visit to the Stealth offices. The forthcoming Monolith line, available in early 2011, is like an invisible speaker that you can see. And I sure like what I see, both inside and out. Instead of ugly cloth grilles, the face and all sides of the flat speakers are covered with wood grain or your choice of finishes if you select the paintable… View this story

Joe Whitaker | 11/29 06:01 AM, 2 Comments

With the widely accepted iOS platform from Apple, the proliferation of iPads, and now the invasion of the Android tablets, we are mourning the days of true profit from dedicated home-control touchpanels. These new touchscreen-enabled devices are certainly cheaper and arguably more elegant than the current crop of touchpanels in the CE pro channel. And with inexpensive control apps, they can be just as capable. Several niche home-control developers, such as Control UI, are offering control apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry platforms, making our customers and us wonder if… View this story

Joe Whitaker | 09/08 06:54 AM, 14 Comments

It’s difficult for a manufacturer to distinguish itself in the A/V receiver category these days. After all, just how good can a 7.1 surround system sound? But Sony manages to bring plenty of innovation to the new STR-DA5600ES (Elevated Standard), available only through specialty A/V retailers and custom integrators. It sounds amazing, but it also networks beautifully via an on-board four-port Ethernet switch, and offers the best Control4 integration I’ve ever experienced with a third-party A/V component. The audio performance of the receiver is rivaled only by the video, with… View this story