John Sciacca Writes...

Over the years, I’ve had my share of customers that used odd vernacular to describe things that I had to interpret what they were actually trying to say. One client called up complaining that his monitor wasn’t working. “Monitor?” I asked. “You mean the TV?” “No, not my TV, my monitor.” “Which TV are we talking about?” “My monitor! Not TV, Monitor!” We went back and forth for several minutes before I was ab...

As I write this, I am clicking “accept” from the “so and so has indicated you are a friend and wants to be a connection” thing on LinkedIn. This brings my total number of connections to well over 500+ (I think 823 is the actual number). Of that, the overwhelming majority have indicated they want to “connect” with me because we are “friends.” In actuality, I have never heard of 90% of these people.

Like many of you, I received a postcard from CEDIA the other day getting me pumped for the 2013 EXPO.

Honestly, not much pumping is required. I love the EXPO. And by “love” I mean I frickin’ love the EXPO

Since the dawn of man, few things have united us spindly bipeds like our common, loathsome, blind-rage hatred for black bars in our video. Black…frickin’…bars?!  Instead of the movie?!? How dare they?! HOW…DARE…THEY?!?

This is America where we want more of things, not less. We want 244-ounce sodas with unlimited refills, and hamburgers with numerous patties and covered in enough sauce and cheese ...

(To be honest, I think a better, more accurate title would be “The Rise of the Multi-use Space,” but that’s not nearly as eye-grabby . . .)

When my wife and I went shopping for our first home years ago, I looked at each space with an eye toward not how we would live in the house, nor which would offer the best resale value, nor how much natural light would we get in the space. No. All of those thing...

Remember the Iraqi Information Minister? He was that guy during the first Desert Storm that would get on TV and make those awesome declarations about how the Iraqi army was doing. With jets streaking overhead, bridges blowing up, tanks being obliterated and US troops holding hands and hopscotching into Baghdad, good ole Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf kept a stern face and proclaimed such awesomeness as:

For a site that bears Theo Kalomirakis’s name — a man who whose multiyear love affair with cinema could be considered borderline obsessive — you wouldn’t think there would be so much bashing about the cinematic experience. Or, maybe because the site does have Theo’s name on it — the

My recent post on Prima Cinema’s game-changing day & date home-delivery system elicited a comment from DarkOrion69 that got me thinking. As background for appreciating Mr. 69’s comment, the Prima hardware currently sells for $35,000 and each movie viewing costs $500. The comment was:

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With all of the talk of 4K/Ultra HD TV and OLED coming out of CES this year, you might be fooled into thinking that people actually care about things like picture quality and performance. You might think that we wouldn’t keep getting these new formats and technologies that can deliver resolution so high that

Let’s be honest—the movie-theater experience isn’t as rosy as it used to be. For lots—and lots—of reasons, seeing movies at home just makes more sense for a lot of people.

In fact, since I invested in my home theater system a few years ago—extravagant by some standards, merely modest by others, but always awesome to me—I rarely go out to the movies anymore.

There’s no question that Amazon is moving a lot of TVs. I mean, they frequently sell them at prices that are at or under wholesale, you can browse through dozens of reviews and find the set with the most “THIS IS THE SET THAT I OWN! SO IT’S THE MOST AWESOME! ANY OTHER SET IS FOR LOSERS AND NEWBS! ANY OTHER COMMENTS ARE FROM SPAMMERS AND HATERS! THIS SET IS THE BEST!!!!” comments by it and then click-to-order. All of this while sipping a beer at 2 in the ...

In a blog post by Gene Newman titled "Just play the damn movie!" he mentions his distaste for all the propaganda that’s forced upon viewers before the movie starts, including the threats of being “thrown in jail for sharing this movie because piracy is a major crime.”

While I agree with Gene th...

...and a Jerk can’t change his true nature.

Many years ago, when young(er) John was just starting out in this home theater industry, he crossed paths with someone we’ll call Mr. Menace.

Menace was building a fairly large new home and expressed extreme interest in having all of the latest and coolest technology of the day: A dedicated media room with front pro...

Lest you all think that I just sit around at work all day listening to the sound of my arteries hardening, trolling the Internet for the latest The Gregory Brothers autotuned masterpiece, or working on some new 2500 word blogging manifesto, I thought I’d share not one but TWO calls I received yesterday. These share the kinds of “oh, this crazy, crazy world we work in!” stuff that I imagine custom...

When you think about it, there are really only a handful of people out there that have the good great fortune to be able to review audio/video gear professionally. And I’m not talking about the people that post the exhaustive, five-or-more minute, “I just got a new gizmo! Watch me unbox it and pull out all of the manuals and accessories! And I’ll show you the front and rear panel and describe each connection!” videos, or the ones that tr...

For years Best Buy has been the daunting Goliath of the consumer electronics world. With market moving pricing (thanks for killing the entire video segment, by the way!), vast selection and massive buy-now/get-now inventory, they frequently rolled into towns and quickly dominated other companies right out of business. They’re huge, with more than a tho...

My Padawan-learner, Heather Sidorowicz, put up her first blog this week at Resi Systems on the topic of Earning ‘Extra Mile’ Respect in Custom Installation. (I suggest that you read it and acquaint yourself with Heather; something tells me that we'll be reading more from her in the future.) (In fact, please to read

A couple of weeks ago, I was called out to look at a job. The house had already been pre-wired and now that the customer had moved in, he was ready to have some audio installed to – to borrow an over-used phrase – “make the house a home.” (A nice housewide audio system has a way of doing that though, don’t ya think?)

So I’m going through the home with him and he is explaining what he’d like me to...

"In Asian and Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang, which is often referred to in the West as 'yin and yang,' literally meaning 'dark and light,' is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only exist in relation to each other.” -- Wikipedia

In any healt...

As I write this, I am looking out the window of a rented home at powdery white sand the consistency of confectioner’s sugar and blue-green, rolling, crashing waves. I’m thankfully on vacation this week and SO glad to have ducked away from my custom installation offices for a brief respite.

I can also imagine that while I write this, the phone is continuing to ring off the hook at Custom Theater; both lines tag-teaming each oth...