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From higher performance, smaller-aperture, designer-friendly architectural speakers to installation-friendly structural enhancements and higher performance components, manufacturers of loudspeakers in the custom integration channel are working hard to stand out from [...]

Residential Systems named its Best of Show winners for CEDIA 2017 in San Diego last month, honoring outstanding products exhibited at the show. Manufacturers submitted products for nomination prior to [...]

CEDIA 2017 saw strong growth in attendance in San Diego, with more than 20,000 home tech professionals participating in the event. Major exhibiting brands, including Lutron, Control4, SnapAV, Z-Wave Alliance, [...]

Residential Systems named its Best of Show Awards for CEDIA 2016 in Dallas this past September to honor outstanding products exhibited at the show. Manufacturers submitted products for nomination prior [...]

We've been doing stories similar to this one for several years now, and the same thing usually happens. We ask an industry manufacturer to reflect on their biggest success of [...]

As in any technical trade, continuing education is critical to maintaining a workforce of trusted advisors for end-user clients. This is especially true in the custom integration channel, where technologies [...]

Last fall at the HTSA meeting in Chicago, veteran AV retailer David Wexler, owner of The Little Guys in Mokena, IL, was reminiscing about his early years in the audio [...]

At last month's International Builder's Show in Las Vegas, a new company founded by custom integration industry veterans George Walter, Theo Kalomirakis, and David Rodarte, presented a fully functional luxury [...]

Installing the greatest projector, the most capable matrix switch, or most intuitive control system means little if there's no one around to answer questions when something inevitably goes wrong. With [...]

by Jeremy J. Glowacki No disrespect to veteran integrators that win CEDIA awards and avail themselves to the trade media, but some of the best custom integration companies in the [...]

This story is part oral history and part business start-up tutorial on how to revive once-mothballed audio brands using only U.S.-based design, engineering, labor, technology, and materials. More specifically, it's [...]

When homebuyers in Houston, TX, are considering Taylor Morrison as their developer, smart home technologies are just as important a part of their discussions as wood flooring, granite countertops, and [...]

App-based control systems can be a great option for consumers who prefer using a tablet or smartphone to control everything. But most consumers would still rather cozy up to a [...]

For some custom integrators, the road to business improvement has involved applying lessons learned about setting employee performance standards at CEDIA Business Xchange. For others it has meant joining a [...]

For years, innovative AV products have drawn integrators and their customers to the custom installation channel like proverbial moths to a flame. But, if responses from leading industry professionals are [...]

Media servers may have evolved into something unrecognizable from five years ago, but their 'offspring' represent a vibrant product category. Here's a thumbnail sketch of some of the latest developments [...]

Most product categories that were once the exclusive domain of the custom installer have eventually migrated down market, into the mainstream and far away from price protection. Fortunately for CEDIA [...]

Premier Designs CEO Jason Barth wanted to create a truly custom experience center for showcasing his company's electronics integration services. After forming product partnerships with 30 local artisans, focused on [...]

In the CEDIA channel's 20-year history, two technologies have served as the foundation upon which much of the residential AV integration industry has been built. In-wall speakers are often considered [...]

In Madison, WI, one of America's quintessential university towns, a small college sits in the proverbial shadows of the much larger and more well known state university. This diminutive college, [...]

The beginning of the year is a good time to assess what worked and did not work from the previous year. While admittedly there is no great panacea for every [...]

The impact that tablets, smartphones, and apps have had on the dedicated touchpanel market was seismic. But what started out as absolute disaster in terms of lost sales for control [...]

When Puls CEO Eyal Ronen and president Itai Hirsch started discussing the idea for the company they co-founded three and a half years ago, the pitch was very simple: 'Can [...]

The era of buying groups as 'line collectors' is over. The leaders for the three main organizations within the custom integration channel have become training and education partners for their [...]

LumaStream's CEO Eric Higgs believes that LED is the future of lighting... and that a low-voltage, wired infrastructure is the future of LED lighting in homes. His company's patented system [...]

All technology companies must diversify to survive. This is equally true in the projection screen category, where Screen Innovations moved into the window shades market for the first time at [...]

In my very early days with Residential Systems, Harmony sent me my first programmable remote control. In those pre-smartphone days, all of the programming was done via the Harmony website [...]

During Crestron's three-city CTP Summit tour this past November, the Rockleigh, NJ-based AV products manufacturer previewed many of the products that it will be introducing by the end of the [...]

Residential Systems' fifth-annual Stellar Service Awards reader poll honors manufacturers and distributors for their exceptional customer service and communication, sales and marketing support, training programs, warranty policies, and websites in [...]

There's a small AV processor and amplifier company, whose story you probably don't know much about, even though its audio brands have familiar names. The company, Indy Audio Labs, is [...]

A goal for any integration company should be to establish best practices and repeatable processes to drive sales and to increase profits on every project. Part of that mission involves [...]

I'm fortunate to have grown up with parents who were great role models. My mom instilled in me a sense of self-reliance and compassion for others, and my dad's work [...]

In this age of nearly ubiquitous streaming media access from the internet, consumers now expect to have all their subscription and purchased content available instantly--wherever they are--without manually moving files [...]

For manufacturers of in-wall and in-ceiling architectural speakers, aesthetic details as essential as ever, but many of the major players in the category also have begun turning their attention toward [...]

Energy management was seen, for a time, as the custom integrator's great hope for renewed relevance in a post-recession, increasingly DIY-centric, app-based home automation market. Although this so-called green movement [...]

App integration has become a fundamental requirement for any home integration client with a smartphone and/or tablet. In the past few years, all control systems manufacturers have learned to meld [...]

'Staying relevant is like breathing. If you don't, you will die,' stated veteran custom integrator, Scott Fuelling, when describing the products and technologies that help keep his business competitive in [...]

Improvements in the median salaries of pulp and paper employees reflect overall industry growth, according Pulp & Paper's 1995 reader compensation and opinion survey. The median salary for pulp and paper workers increased from $60,000 in 1994 to $62,000 in 1995. Downsizing and corporate restructuring have contributed to low job morale among pulp and paper employees., THE NORTH AMERICAN PULP and paper industry remains in a slow growth pattern that began in 1994 when production and prices increased across all grades. Industry salaries reflect this pattern [...]

The Environmental Protection Agency has selected Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co to participate in its Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) to help pulp and paper manufacturers better comply with environmental protection requirements. ELP plans to develop incentives for companies to lower pollutant emissions, promote quality environmental self audits, and a 'adopt-a-supplier' program to increase collaboration between paper mills and their suppliers on environmental issues., FOR NEARLY A YEAR, SIMPSON TACOMA KRAFT Co. has been actively involved in a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pilot project that could shape the way industry works with regulating agencies [...]

Great Lakes Pulp and Fibre (GLPF) is scheduled to start operations in June 1996. The $220 mil Menominee, MI-based mill will emphasize its status as a pulp supplier, rather than simply as a deinked pulp producer. Mill financing includes 60% limited partners and 40% general partner local investors. Wastepaper availability and quality will be key concerns for GLPF as nationwide shortages continue., LIKE A HANDFUL OF DEINKED PULP FACILIties that have come online recently or will start up this year, Great Lakes Pulp & Fibre in Menominee, Mich., will help reshape the [...]