Building in audio-video; ready to bring your system really up to date?

Sunset, June, 1991

Building in audio-video You've remodeled your kitchen and your bath; now maybe it's time to remodel your audio-video system.

What audio-video system, you say? Well, those big speakers in the living room you bought years ago that you keep bumping into, and the stack of components (probably recently joined by a CD player) that were once de rigueur on your bookshelves, and that big TV that the salesman assured you would deliver real hi-fi sound from your VCR (but never quite has) are, if you stretch the definition, your audio-video system.

But not really.

Since you bought those components, a new generation of audio-video entertainment gear has entered the Western home. With one of today's top-notch systems, you can easily listen to and control audio and video signals in several rooms in your house. Equipment is built into custom cabinetry; speakers are built into the wall or ceiling, becoming virtually invisible and taking little or no space away from the room.

Sound for your television can be fed through the audio equipment, and digital surround sound processors produce movie theater sound, or, if you're listening to music, "concert hall," "stadium," "night club," or any number of other audio environments.

Here's an introduction to this relatively new phenomenon with some guidelines to help you be a knowledgeable consumer.

Custom home electronics: a return to

that console we grew up with

Not only has the equipment evolved, but the way it's integrated into the house has also changed. There are designers who have followed every twist and turn of the home electronics industry and also understand house design and construction. They choose, sometimes even devise, and build in audio-video equipment to meet a client's needs in a particular house. Where did they come from?

Custom electronics designer Chris Stevens of Phoenix Systems in Foster City, California, told us the marketplace created them. "By and large, my clients aren't hobbyists. They don't care about watts per channel, lines of resolution, or any of that stuff. They just want a good-looking, great-sounding system that's easy to use. "It's like a return to the console stereo of the early '60s. That console performed well, it fit into the home and it was simple to use. It also had 65 percent market penetration.

"As components took over and got more and more complicated in pursuit of better and better sound, people dropped out--and market penetration went down to 30 percent.

"The '80s gave us CDs--great sound and simplicity again; the A-V dropouts who grew up listening to that console started coming back."

They came back to a staggering array of possibilities, and not only in the vast choice of media available--CDs, high-fidelity video cassettes, laser disks, audio cassettes. They can also have all this equipment interconnected, fed through remote controllers, and sent to virtually every room in the house.

Also, audio and video have merged. Witness stereo TV, video disk--CD players, surround sound decoders, super hi-fi video cassettes, and remote video monitors.

Not quite as simple as plugging in that console.

How do these designers work?

For the sake of argument, let's say that an audio-video system is as important to your house as, say, the configuration of your kitchen or bathroom. It's not the focus of the house, but it's a significant part of family life.

The idea, then, is to incorporate high-quality audio and video into the overall design of the house.

Architects routinely work with interior designers, security consultants, landscape architects, and specialty contractors. Homeowners often call directly on the same people. Perhaps electronics designers should be added to this list.

Custom home electronics designer-installers bring specialized knowledge and skills to bear on a project, and engineer appropriate solutions. They are experienced at coordinating custom installation jobs with house construction or remodeling, or interior design projects.

A good custom installation can improve the resale value of a house. And, if the gear is built in, it's all mortgageable.

Getting an idea of what you might want

Getting back to the old console idea, first set three basic ground rules: the system must sound good, the system must look good, and the system must be easy to use. You then have to figure out a few things. In which rooms do you want music? How high a quality does the sound need to be in each room--serious listening or background music? In which rooms do you want linked video? What about the sound for the TV: do you want theater quality? Would you want to control more than the volume from more than one room? Would you want a system that provides different audio or video in different rooms at the same time?

And, finally, do you want to see the stuff? One fellow we spoke with definitely did: "For the kind of money this costs, I want to see what I paid for."

This will cost ... WHAT?!

You were no doubt surprised when you found that remodeling that little bathroom of yours cost as much as it did. Well, you're in the same general ballpark here, and sticker shock is a common malady.