So what is “whole house audio”? You’ve heard people talk about it, you’ve maybe heard friends brag about it. So, what exactly is it? Simply put, it’s a way of being able to experience your favourite music all over the house, regardless of what room you’re in.
I say “simply” because companies like HEOS from Denon have made it simple. And cheap. And mind-warpingly clever! But that wasn’t always the case…
A quick history lesson for a laugh!
Roll the clock back a mere ten years and the answer to “What would it take to have sound piped all over my home with the ability to control it all from a touchscreen?” would be: MONEY. Lots and lots of money. A middle of the range touschscreen from companies like Crestron would have set you back $US6000 and, unless you could programme them yourself, you’d be up for that again to have a specialist do it for you. And then you’d need the central control system (the brains, if you like) and then hundreds and hundreds of metres of speaker and networking cable running through the walls and ceiling. Oh yeah…getting an electrician in was another expense unless you were happy to punch holes in the walls and crawl through your hot and dusty roof-space yourself.
But all that started to change by 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone. No one in the hi-fi industry could have dreamed of how a touchscreen mobile phone would open extraordinary possibilities for home audio. But it did.
Suddenly, the need for thousands of dollars in speaker cable and Cat-5e was out the window. The requirement for a central hub of control electronics branching out to all corners of the house were rapidly becoming obsolete. You would soon be able to do this all wirelessly. From your phone!
Back to the future
So welcome back to 2017. The ability to not only stream music from somewhere in your house but somewhere thousands of kilometres away from a library of online music so vast it makes your eyes water is no longer cutting edge. It’s expected. And so unbelievably cheap!
But now we want that music to follow you around your home, whether you’re cooking up a storm in the kitchen, in the office working or chilling on the couch with a drop of your favourite. How exactly do we make that happen?
Enter HEOS from Denon.
With a range of wireless speakers – from small stand-alone units for the smaller rooms to full-blown 5.1 surround systems for your living room – HEOS gives you every option you could wish for. All you have to do is pick a speaker, stick it in the room and…well, you’re kinda done! Controlling those speakers is as easy as turning your phone on and managing it from a $US6000 app. Oh…wait…no…that’s free!
Want the volume up in your bedroom? Then grab your phone and slide the volume up for that room. Kids asleep? Cool, slide the volume down in their room now. Having a party and want the same tune pumping in every room? You guessed. It’s easy.
The cost?
Well that’s kind of down to you. If you just want a room or two, then a couple of hundred dollars. If you want the full home theatre experience in your TV room and have the whole house filled with sound, then you’re up for a little more. But still way less than what it would have cost you for that touch-screen remote control ten years ago!
Come and see us today and we’ll show you through our range of speakers to suit each room and show you how easy and cool the (free!) app is to use. A warning though: once you’ve experienced the affordable luxury of whole-house audio, there’s no going back. You WILL want it!
Give me a call or pop into the store and let me show you how Whole House Audio will knock your socks off.
– Shane Potter.
