Monthly Archives: February 2009

B&W Launches the XT8

B&W’s highly anticipated XT8 is ready for orders and will be shipping from Bowers & Wilkins in late February. The retail price for a pair is $3500.

• Numerous performance improvements equals “best in class”
• Brushed Aluminum finish rejoins Gloss Black in all XT models

The XT series arose from B&W’s desire to offer a high performance theater system that would look completely at home along side flat panel TVs. An immediate hit with consumers around the world, the XT Series brought B&W quality into a market category associated with mid-fi sound. The engineers at B&W are never content to rest on their laurels, however, and the have further improved the XT concept in the form of a new flagship, the XT8, to provide even better performance through upgraded materials and crossover design.

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Professional Display Calibration — Maximizing Your Investment and Big Screen Experience

(Parts of this article origially appeared in the Sencore Newsletter.)

Home theater enthusiasts expect the most from their big screen investment including the best possible picture images, the longest possible display life, and optimum energy efficiency. Professional display calibration can deliver these benefits.

Why Calibrate a Display? There are many factors that degrade the big screen viewing experience and influence how the big screen display looks and performs. Here are some examples.

• Factory display settings are established by marketing experts to attract buyers. These settings degrade the picture, shorten the display life and waste energy. Furthermore, improper settings can lead to viewing fatigue.
• The viewing environment greatly impacts the big screen viewing experience. Room lighting influences how our eyes perceive picture contrast and colors.
• Component aging within the display causes degradation in light output and often shifts color background or greyscale.

Display Calibration analyzes and treats these issues to bring out the BEST video images the display can offer. Professional Display Calibration delivers the following benefits to the consumer.

• Provides a sharper, more focused, film-like picture
• Brings out more visible detail in the darkest or lightest parts of the picture
•  Improves color accuracy for a lifelike color reproduction (flesh tones, grass, sky, and sports jerseys)
• Optimizes the display settings for room lighting and to reduce eye fatigue
• Expends the display’s useable life (up to 2x longer than factory settings)
• Reduces energy consumption by an average of 10-20%. (Go Green)

Allwired Technologies provides Professional ISF Certified Calibration to customers in Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville and North Georgia.

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Rotel 10 Series Specials Are Coming To You

As Rotel rolls out the new line of 15 series products (RSX-1560, RSX-1550, etc.) there are some good deals to be had on the award winning 10 series. As things tighten up in the economic world this is a good time to score superior audio equipment before it’s all gone from Rotel. You can save hundreds of dollars, even thousands depending out what you buy. Contact Allwired Technologies or your local Rotel dealer to get more details. Act now while these limited supplies last

Rotel’s Web Site

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Return to Allwired Technologies & Chattanooga Home Show

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to take a moment out of my busy day of prepairing for the Tri-State Home Show here in Chattanooga, Tennessee to let everyone know that I have returned to my home at Allwired Technologies.

As everyone may have noticed, in my absense, some changes have been occuring at Allwired over the past year. These changes include the addition of some of the best lines in the  audio/video industry such as B&W (Bowers & Wilkins), RTI remote control systems, Speakercraft, McIntosh,  and Colorado vNet. These new lines help Allwired and me help each client reach their home theater, A/V, and automation goals. We are commited to the best service and value for our residential and commercial clients.

With the Tri-State Home Show in Chattanooga coming up this weekend (Feb. 12 - 15), I encourage you to stop by our booth and visit with us. If you are not able to see us at the Home Show, please feel free to come by our Design Center/Showroom or give me a call at your first opportunity. You can reach me by phone at 423-954-9888.

I’m looking forward to seeing and talking with you in the near future.

Best Regards,

Don Adams

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CEA Announces Mark of Excellence Finalists

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) today announced the finalists for the 2009 Mark of Excellence Awards, presented by CEA’s TechHome Division.

Arlington, Va., February 6, 2009 - The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) today announced the finalists for the 2009 Mark of Excellence Awards, presented by CEA’s TechHome Division. Winners will be announced at an awards dinner on Friday, March 13, 2009, during the tenth annual Electronic House Expo (EHX) Spring 2009, which returns to the Orange County Convention center in Orlando, Florida, March 11-14.

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Last Chance to Own B&W Signature Diamond Limited Edition Speakers

The Signature Diamond was introduced to celebrate Bowers & Wilkins 40th Anniversary. It was our first true “limited edition” product, and the finest 2-way speaker we have ever offered. On every level, the Signature Diamond has been a stunning success. The North American allocation of 200 pairs (out of 500 pairs produced for the global market) was filled on a “pre-order” basis but not every sale was completed, an understandable circumstance given the events of the past year. Consequently, we have a few pairs available in both the Wakame and White finishes. If you are interested in owning this unique and rare loudspeaker, please act quickly as the Signature Diamond will not be manufactured again.

The Signature Diamond name is not referring to crappy ‘blinged’ up products where diamonds are used for garish decoration, but the use of synthetic diamonds to create a purer sound. Celebrating 40 years in the business, the diamond series is a two-way speaker with a Kevlar midrange bass driver housed in its cylindrical cabinet. Perched on top is the ‘crowning glory, a marble tube-loaded tweeter, whose dome is made from synthetic diamond. B&W claims that it delivers high frequencies with “jaw-dropping precision and clarity”.

B&W explains the diamond tweeter as this: “No other material gets closer to the perfect behaviour of a hypothetical tweeter dome, one of infinite stiffness and zero mass. Created by crystallising a ‘carbon frost’ into the shape of the dome at temperatures approaching those of the sun’s surface, the diamond dome makes the sweetest-sounding tweeter you’ve ever heard.”

Call Allwired Technolgies or your local dealer to get one of the last pairs of this fine speaker.

(More information on B&W speakers)

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First Rotel 15 Series Award and Review – RSX-1560 and RSX-1550

We are delighted to announce that the new Rotel 15 Series has received a CES Innovations award and its first review!

The RSX-1560 won an Innovations award from CES for its innovative Class D design in a surround receiver. As you are most likely aware by now, the RSX-1560 features 7 x 100 watts into 8 ohms and nearly doubles its output capability into 4 ohms. It also embraces all of the latest surround sound technology and can decode Dolby True-HD, Dolby Digital Plus, dts HD Master Audio, and DTS HD Hi-Resolution. In addition, all of the new Rotel 15 series surround receivers and preamp/processors incorporate HDMI v1.3 processing.

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LifeSize Announces Availability of LifeSize Control version 4.0

LifeSize is pleased to announce the availability of LifeSize® Control version 4.0.  This feature-rich software release further differentiates LifeSize as the market leader in HD video, delivering a total infrastructure solution.

LifeSize Control simplifies the administration of video communications by delivering powerful automation tools that are easy to install and use.   In addition, this release extends scheduling functionality to end-users.  Now with LifeSize Control Microsoft® Exchange? integration, the entire organization can reserve video conferences using familiar scheduling tools.  LifeSize Control Microsoft Exchange integration requires no Microsoft Exchange patches and no Microsoft® Outlook? plug-ins, enabling simple and seamless integration into IT environments.

In addition 4.0 software delivers:

• Drag-and-drop call scheduler:  A feature-rich administrative scheduling tool giving control over endpoint settings, schedule times, and re-occurring meetings.
• MCU cascading:  With the drag-and-drop call builder and MCU affinity assignments, administrators can now build multi-vendor, multi-tiered cascaded calls.
• Live conference manager:  Adjust volumes, mute microphones, invite or terminate participants, and view live snapshots of each system?s video in real-time.
• HDX and Edge series codecs:  With this release we expand on our commitment to deliver multi-vendor management by adding management for the Polycom HDX and Tandberg Edge systems to the 3rd party devices that we support.

Allwired Technologies is an authorized LifeSize dealer serving Chattanooga, Nashville, and Atlanta.

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Basic Acoustic Treatment for Your Home Theater

Treating a room to improve its acoustic properties is a combination of art and science, especially for the home acoustic engineer on a budget. Every room has different challenges, but if you’re building your podcasting studio or improving your home theater the same problems need to be solved. Sound transmission into and from the room needs to be reduced and the room’s acoustics are probably less than ideal.

“Acoustic isolation” is trying to reduce sound transmission out of the room. Improving internal acoustics is a matter of reducing sound reverberation. Completely eliminating reverb is not always desired. Even with today’s sound processing technology, concert halls are still designed to use natural reverberation to improve sound for live performances.

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Stewart Filmscreen Ranked #1 by Inside Track

Torrance, CA – February 3, 2009 - Stewart Filmscreen Corporation®, the industry leader in precision projection screen technologies for the residential and commercial markets, announced that once again Stewart Filmscreen has ranked #1 in Overall Supplier Loyalty among Home Video/Screen companies.

According to Gisela Schoell, the Editor of Inside Track, “Stewart Filmscreen has captured first place Overall in the H.V./Screen group of the inside track survey for 11 consecutive years. That’s one measure of the company’s formidable stature.  Stewart’s most demanding task therefore, is to keep improving its own performance along with all the parameters we measure.  And Stewart Filmscreen definitely delivers here, too, since this year the company not only achieved 13 parameter first places, they also improved their scores over last year on 14 of our 16 parameters - as well as their Overall score.”

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LifeSize Continues 2008 Growth; High Definition Video Delivers Value in Today’s Economy

Companies choosing LifeSize as global enterprise standard; Travel savings, productivity gains accelerating global adoption

Austin, Tex. – Jan. 28, 2009 – LifeSize Communications, the global leader in high definition video communications, recorded record sales in the second half of 2008 and close to 150% growth for the full year as more and more companies, governments and organizations turn to HD video conference & telepresence solutions to reduce travel expenses, increase productivity and improve business performance.

“We are pleased with our industry-leading growth and believe that the opportunity for HD video to deliver value has never been greater,” said Craig Malloy, CEO, LifeSize Communications. “Because the benefits of HD video are so clear, compelling and measurable, many LifeSize customers are accelerating their video communication system deployments.”

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Crestron Green Light Dimmer Module Now Shipping

Universal Dimmer Expands Lighting Control for Wide-Range of Voltages and Larger Capacity

ROCKLEIGH, NJ, January 27, 2009 – The CLS-EXP-DIMU universal dimmer expansion module is the latest addition to the Crestron Green Light™ family of environmental controls. The CLS-EXP-DIMU enables Crestron iLux™ integrated lighting systems and other Crestron lighting dimmers to add reverse phase type loads. It also supports larger loads and a wider range of voltages.

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