Industry

Accessories / Computing / HDTV / Industry

Roku Goes Retail

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

It certainly took them long enough, but Roku is finally graduating from online-only sales to retail. It wasn't doing too badly in the old business model – Roku's status as the least expensive and easiest streaming media box allowed it to rack up over a million units sold. Still, Roku always seemed something like a secret that only technically savvy people knew about – and that is not the target demographic for a product designed for simplicity. No, the ideal retail channel ought to be something like Target. Or Best Buy: Roku XD player is available for purchase at Best …

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Accessories / Audio / Industry

Headphones To Lure the Next Generation

- by Avi Greengart - 2 Comments.

Great article in Dealerscope on how custom audio shops can prepare for the future by focusing more on headphone sales. Money quote: "There are no new audiophiles entering our community any more," Abplanalp said. "For young people experiencing music, the art of building a stereo has lost its cachet. So selling headphones is a very important part of introducing music lovers to different performance levels…" The article also notes that Monster's Dr. Dre Beats line is a key sales driver for this demographic, but oddly undersells the ability to properly demo in-ear headphones in-store.

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Accessories / Computing / DVD / HDTV / Industry

Kaleidescape Ships Blu-ray Server (Sort of)

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

First a bit of background: Kaleidescape is a high end media server vendor. They make boxes you have a custom installer put in one spot, which connect over a wired network to smaller boxes your installer connects to each TV and projector in your home. You – or your installer – copies all your DVDs onto the big box, and then you can watch all your movies anywhere in your home. Basically, it's Sonos for movies for rich people. How rich? Kaleidescape was actually the reason I instituted a policy not to review anything I could not reasonably afford. Years …

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Audio / Industry

Thiel Goes Amazon – Growth, or Desperation?

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

 HomeTheaterREview (no relation) is reporting that high end speaker maker Thiel will stop selling exclusively through independent retailers and begin offering some of its entry level products on amazon.com (story here) and indeed, a quick amazon search for Thiel products shows in-walls from $900, and standalone speakers ranging from $1200 – $3,000. Founder Jim Thiel passed away in September, so I'm sure there are some who are saying that Jim must have said, "not over my dead body" and the company waited until that was literally true before making the move. I never interviewed Mr. Thiel, so I don't know what his …

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Accessories / Audio / Computing / Industry / Music

RIP Snell, Escient

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Not sure where I was when this crossed the wire back in April, but I was saddened – but not surprised – to learn that D&M Holdings shut down both Snell and Escient.  Snell was a high end speaker brand without enough brand recognition. Selling $30,000 speakers in a recession is extremely hard. Selling $30,000 speakers from a brand that only involved enthusiasts have heard of is basically impossible, no matter how terrific they measure and sound (Snell was famous for rigorously achieving ridiculously flat frequency measurements).  I suspect that the recession did in Escient, which made well regarded music …

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Audio / Industry / Television

New Onkyo Receivers Come with HDMI 1.4 and Buyer’s Remorse

- by Avi Greengart - 6 Comments.

The problem with 3DTV – aside from the glasses and the nausea and the total lack of content – is that you need to buy an entirely new equipment chain. It is not enough to replace your TV with a 3D capable set, you will also need a 3D-capable Blu-ray player, and – much to the delight of Monster Cable – you may actually need to upgrade your HDMI cables to handle the increased signal bandwidth. The typical HDMI connection in most devices today is 1.3b, but you'll need to upgrade to HDMI 1.4a for 3D.  This has implications for audio …

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Industry

The New HT Sales Environment

- by Avi Greengart - 2 Comments.

HomeTheaterReview – not HomeTheaterVIEW, which is what you're reading right now – has an interesting take on how the home theater sales environment has changed since the recession, and how to cope. It's partly a pitch for online advertising, partly a manifesto. Oddly enough, I agree with the advertising part, but he's missing a few pieces in the manifesto: Are boutique bricks-and-mortar A/V stores relevant in an amazon.com age? (Short answer: only if they're truly boutiques.) Is seated home audio relevant in an iPod/dock age? (While there are exceptions — witness the rebirth of vinyl — generally speaking the answer here …

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