Pandora Premium vs. Spotify...Who will get the universal symbol above?

To be short, you REALLY need Pandora Premium if you love music. However, here’s why you may NOT want Pandora Premium yet and why you have to have Spotify, Napster, Apple Music or related services.

Why you want Pandora Premium: Most of our clients understand how Pandora Internet Radio works. You type in an artist and you then can listen to songs from that band and contemporaries. Ex: The Cure radio will give you songs by The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxie and the Banshees, etc. However, most of our clients DON’T understand that Spotify, Napster, Apple Music, etc.  provide you with EVERY album that the Cure has ever produced. You can now listen to any album and any song at your leisure. It’s like having the biggest and best jukebox on Earth.

This is why our clients choose to pay $10.00/month for these services as they offer so much more music than standard Pandora Internet radio. The benefit to the new Pandora Premium is that it provides you with this library of artists, albums and music described above. Like the Grateful Dead? I just found 144 albums from them on Napster. Is $10.00/month worth having 144 albums from the Grateful Dead? Not if you hate them but you get the point. Any of these premium services will give you access to all this music.

Why you don’t want Pandora Premium: Do you use an iPad at home? Do you ever use your computer to listen to music? If so, forget about Pandora Premium. You can’t use the “world’s best jukebox” features giving you all of the aforementioned music with these devices. Pandora Premium at this point is only for mobile devices i.e. phones.

Pandora Premium also looks different from device to device. To keep things easy (take it from guys that troubleshoot audio/video issues every day), you want your pages to look the same for the end user, no matter if they are using an iPhone7, Samsung Galaxy phone, iPad or a laptop computer.

Summary: We would wait on Pandora Premium until they get the bugs ironed out. Many of our clients (including us when we are at our office) use iPads and computers to control their music. Until Pandora gets this right, we’d recommend going with Apple Music, Napster, Deezer  or Spotify. Which of these is best for you? Stay tuned or check back for our follow-up article describing the pros and cons of these other services.

San Diego Pandora Premium vs. Spotify experts proudly serves all of San Diego, CA which includes Del Cerro, Allied Gardens, Talmadge, Kensington, Hillcrest, Mission Valley, Fashion Valley, El Cajon, Blossom Valley, La Mesa, Lake Murray, Friars, North Park, Balboa Park, Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Imperial Beach, Pt Loma and Downtown San Diego. We also gladly serve those in North San Diego, California which includes Carlsbad, San Marcos, Vista, Elfin Forest, Oceanside, Escondido, Encinitas, Cardiff by the Sea, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe, 4S Ranch, Santaluz, La Jolla, Poway, and Rancho Bernardo. Need help in Murrieta, Wildomar, Temecula, Fallbrook or Bonsall...we're there too.

Niles outdoor speaker - This actually functions as a planter! Before and after.

Can you smell your outdoor speakers? Sounds odd but you actually can with some of our landscape speakers that double as usable planters. It’s Springtime and that means that it’s time to enjoy your backyard or outdoor area.  A great way to do this is with music provided by our planter landscape speakers by Niles and Rockustics. What a great way to show off your favorite plants!

We’ve got sales and specials on outdoor speakers, landscape speakers and planter speakers all month long. Make your flowers happy and give them some tunes! Give us a call and let San Diego’s Niles and Rockustics dealer show you what outdoor audio is all about.

San Diego Home Theater Installers Aire Theater Designs proudly serves all of San Diego, CA which includes Del Cerro, Talmadge, Kensington, Hillcrest, Mission Valley, Fashion Valley, El Cajon, Blossom Valley, La Mesa, Lake Murray, Friars, North Park, Balboa Park, Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Pointt Loma and Downtown San Diego. We also gladly serve those in North San Diego, California which includes Carlsbad, San Marcos, Vista, Elfin Forest, Oceanside, Escondido, Encinitas, Cardiff by the Sea, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe, 4S Ranch, Torrey Pines, Carmel Mountain, Carmel Valley, Coronado, Fairbanks Ranch, Santaluz, La Jolla, Poway, and Rancho Bernardo. Need help in Murrieta, Wildomar, Temecula, Fallbrook or Bonsall...we're there too. House built by Lennar, Shea, Pardee or other builders...we can help!

 RTI universal remote app controlling smart home functions

 Media room installation w/3 X 70" TVs, 144" drop-down screen and more!

Martin Logan EFX on-wall speakers with ESL center channel

On-wall iPads all throughout the house. Onyx wall with Launchport iPad dock.

If you happen to be a hiking or trail biking enthusiast or simply a lover of nature and wildlife, you may have heard of the Santa Rosa Plateau, an extension of the Santa Ana Mountains in Riverside County.  Just down the hill from the Plateau is the city of Murrieta, and nestled along the base and climbing up the mountain side is the upscale gated community of Bear Creek and the site of this Project of the Day.  We were called in for a walk-thru of the home formerly owned by the MLB’s very own Barry Bonds.  This 12,000+ sq. ft. house was completely gutted, every wall resurfaced, entire ground level flooring ripped up and replaced, and creative ideas and system designs drawn up to create quite the spectacular Audio/Video/Smart Home Extravaganza. Obviously with a home of this size and the level of construction/remodeling, our job there was not completed in a day, or two, or fourteen, or sixty, or even three hundred.  All in all, it took about a year and a half total to get this home finished entirely.  There is a joke between the owner and all of us at ATD that all his Audio/Video/Home Theater/Smart Home System only took 27 phases to complete.  LOL!  Let it suffice to say that by the time we finished we were looked at like part of the family, Holiday cards each year and all!  I want to now take you into the smart home installation of just one room.

In this Phase we were to design, install, and finish what was being called the Grand Family Rm.  This task involved working with a carpenter who was building a custom stage for music and plays to be performed on so that we could correctly incorporate the three 70” TVs, a motorized 144” projection screen, three in-wall front speakers, three Blu-Ray players, three AppleTVs, and color changing LEDs to give the stage a super cool look.  Besides all the work on the stage we were to install a motorized projector lift in the attic above the Grand Room so that a projector would drop down from the 12’ ceiling, install two large in-ceiling subwoofers, incorporate four existing in-ceiling speakers into the 7.2 Surround Sound System, program the decorative blackout curtains that were installed at each window and the back patio French doors to open and close with the touch of a button on this room’s iPad which I was to program up using an RTI processor and RTI iPad App.  This room was definitely fitting to its name….it is truly a GRAND Family Room.  Here is the gear we used for this portion of the whole-house audio video installation:

• JVC DLA 4K projector                      
• (3) 70” Sharp TVs                              
• Draper drop-down projector scissor lift
• Draper motorized 144” Screen                        
• (3) Definitive Technology LCR in-wall speakers                          
• (2) In-ceiling Subwoofers
• Martin Logan EFX on-wall electrostatic speakers
• Martin Logan ESL-C on-wall electrostatic center channel
• Integra audio/video receiver                                            
• (2) Polk Audio subwoofer amps
• Strong 42U audio/video equipment rack                       
• RTI XP8s control processor
• RTI iPad universal remote
• Binary 4x4 HDMI matrix switcher                 
• (4) Samsung Blu-Ray players          
• (4) AppleTVs
• (30’) Multi-color LED strip               
• On-wall iPad Launchport
• Motorized curtains and associated parts
• Motorized blinds and associated parts

As you can imagine with a project of this caliber, some things take longer than others to accomplish.  That being said, mounting the scissor lift in the attic/ceiling was the most involved task for sure.  It took a team of 4 of us to accomplish this in a safe and professional manner.  I was scrunched up in the tight attic space in the semi-vaulted ceiling, squatting over the square cutout for the lift staring at the tile floor 12’ below, we had 2 men on 10’ ladders, and finally one man who helped hoist and hold the lift in place using a rope and pulley system we rigged together.  There is no such thing as over-kill when it comes to the safety of our employees and the security of our customers and their families.

The finished product was truly amazing.  Our customer had the ability to watch 3 individual sporting events on the 3 TVs, or watch the same program or movie on all 3 TVs at the same time or drop the projector down and enjoy a movie on the 144” projection screen.  When it came time for his grandchildren to perform a play on the stage, he could close all the curtains in the room, turn up the stage overhead lights, and turn on the stage color LED effect lights with a few button presses on the iPad I programmed.  When he is finished using the Grand Family Room he simply pushed the Power Down button on the iPad and all 3 TVs turn off, the screen rolls up into the overhead stage cabinet, the projector scissor lift raises up and into the attic and the surround sound system turns off.  This was definitely one of our most exciting projects to date and the customer loved it.  Phase 1 completed…26 more to go.

Need smart home installation in Murrieta or almost anywhere in Southern California? Let us help with your 27 phases of smart home technology.