Latest Trends in Home Theater and Hifi
Home theater systems are trending upwards, with a lot of upscale homes dedicating entire rooms to the purpose of home theaters. But this can cost anywhere from $30,000.00 to $1,000,000.00. The average consumer simply wants an attractive system that can be contained in a den or family room and allow them the luxury of enjoying their downtime.
While it is undeniable that the LCD flat screen television is by far out-selling any other piece of equipment as a stand-alone item, certain companies have offered a projection screen system that acts as an entire home theater system successfully for a price range between five to eight thousand dollars. Most notably among these is Epson’s joint venture with Atlantic Technology called the Ensemble HD Home Theater System which brags a choice of projector models, either their high resolution choice or a more affordable version, the difference in the overall system being $5,000.00 or $7,000.00, a one hundred inch motorized retractable screen, an integrated DVD players, a state-of-the-art speaker system from Atlantic Technology, a gorgeous 5.1, 150 watt sub-woofer, and a universal remote control that makes the entire system easy to manage. Just a nice is the fact that Epson decided to package all of the mounting brackets and wiring you will need to set the system up, so no having to run out to an electronics store and spend a few hundred extra dollars on cables and mounts.
The front projection screen instant home theater system is a trend that is going to remain strong as companies attempt to compete with the ever growing LCD flat screen television market, which is clearly the front-runner. Plasma televisions and rear projection microdisplays have suffered set-backs, possibly because of the cost differential happening between LCD television and those formats. The trend seems to be that consumers want high quality at medium range prices, and the LCD and front projectors make sense in that regard.
In that same regard, a number of home theater systems that are attachable to the television instead of being packaged with it are widely available by leading manufacturers. Easy to find through internet web site retailers, they range between $100 and $300 and are led by some of the biggest names in electronics manufacturing. Companies that provide excellent affordable models include Coby, Magnavox, Panasonic, Philips, and Pioneer. These systems typically come situated with CD/DVD capacity, have a full speaker system including sub-woofer that range between 300 and 600 watts of power, and are easy to connect to state-of-the-art television technology.
The primary function of the “All in one” home theater package is to combine high quality speakers with an A/V receiver, and these come in all shapes, sizes, and ranges. The moderate models, as described above, are made for the general consumer who wants a good system but doesn’t need all the bells and whistles, while the upscale models are all trending towards the addition of HDMI 1.3a connectivity and the addition of Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, most of which were previously unavailable with the leaders in that category being systems from Pioneer and Yamaha.
