What type of speaker is best for your whole house audio system? 

Music is loved, transcends cultures and countries and has been an important part of our lives since we were cavemen whacking on rocks with sticks. These days, most of don't live in caves anymore but we do have a desire to get quality music throughout our homes and in our outdoor living spaces. Below, we discuss some GOOD>BETTER>BEST ways to get whole home audio and some considerations to be aware of.

Marantz SR8015 AVR - This is an awesome heart of your new surround sound system

Happy 2023! It's a new year and you may be looking for a new AVR to power your surround sound system. Marantz would love to fill this need? Why Marantz? See our article at the link >>>Marantz Products

Marantz is introducing their new line of surround sound receivers and one of these may have your name on it! See below for some features and differentiating factors.

Leon Speaker dealer in San Diego

Leon soundbar installation in Santaluz custom home

Designer-friendly speakers from our friends at Leon - Leon Horizon soundbar

Some would argue that this is high fashion and elegant design...     

Yamaha 2022 AVENTAGE receiver acts as the heart of your whole-house entertainment and surround sound system

It's probably been a while since you've bought a new audio/video receiver or maybe I'm being assumptive and this is your first foray into surround sound. No worries...we'd be happy to help. Your audio/video receiver is the heart of your surround sound and whole-house entertainment system. Making the right choice here assures sonic excellence and also provides you the flexibility to hook up future components. However, dealing with the big-box stores or attempting to figure out what to buy on the Internet can be painful (aside from this article, of course). Here's a quick guide to picking the right audio/video receiver. This goes over some of the new 2022 Yamaha AVR models.

What is it: Your Yamaha AVR (short for audio/video receiver) acts as the hub of your audio/video system. All of your components like cable boxes, video games, Blu-ray players, streaming devices, etc. hook into the receiver and it provides the sound for your speakers. Pick your receiver based on:

Our latest video review is in! See the above for our opinions on the Martin Logan ESL-X electrostatic speakers. We think these speakers are magic (something our founder repeats 12 times during the review for emphasis) as they produce music and movies in a way that conventional speakers can't. Whether this is good or bad depends on your ear but we think that they sound absolutely incredible! Some highlights are:

Denon 2022 AV receiver line-up and options

2022 Denon Receiver and AVR Line-Up

In 1910, a guy named Frederick Horn had an idea..."Hey, let's make the best 8K, high-current HDMI switching audio/video receiver possible!"

Actually, he wasn't that forward-thinking. He invented cylinder media which you can think of as an old-school record. He was successful with this endeavor and it morphed from record manufacturing to disc and tape recording to eventually (and why we're writing this), hi-fi audio components. The advent of Nippon Denki Onkyō Kabushikigaisha in 1910 now known as Denon (much easier on the tongue) has made it possible for us to be proud San Diego dealers for Denon receivers, Denon Heos and Denon's other audio products! 

See above for our latest KEF speaker review

 After lots of deliberation, we decided to become San Diego KEF speaker dealers! Why? See our latest video review that goes over some of the benefits of the KEF audio line. In a nutshell, the pros and cons of the KEF speaker line and specifically the KEF Q950 tower speakers are:

Pros

2021…it looks like we're coming around the corner here from the nightmare that was last year. If you saw our "Best TV of 2020" article from a year ago, you'll notice that it looks very similar to this list. This isn't a cop-out...we promise! There wasn't much product build and introduction with Covid so there wasn't a ton that changed. We’re listing below our own personal “Best of 2021” list for televisions, surround sound receivers, home speakers, WiFi products, universal remote controls and more.

What crossover point is good for big, bad tower speakers?

A very popular question on many of today's audio/video websites and blogs is:

"What should I set my tower speakers to...large vs small? What frequency should I set them to?"

Being that the wife was out on this Saturday afternoon and the surf hadn't hit yet, I had a few hours to kill. Time to do some speaker testing! There is a lot of misinformation about these questions so we wanted to clarify the history of speaker set-up, the reasons why, what we heard during our demos today and reasons you might want to configure your home surround sound speakers in one way or another. Read on!

Origin Acoustics outdoor speaker masquerading as a light fixture

Origin Acoustics Bollard outdoor speaker when it isn't in the ground - It's like an iceberg with the substantial portion hidden

Outdoor audio with another color option from Origin