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Blog

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Audio/Video System

January 10, 2023 By Mark Hudzinski

Perhaps you’ve recently upgraded to a new Ultra HD-capable television or immersive surround audio system, or are thinking about doing so in the near future. The best gear in the world is always going to be limited by the quality of the media sources that you play through it. In this short article, we hope to provide you with the tools to help get the most out of your investment in high-performance audio and video equipment.


Streaming Services
With streaming music and video services being the preferred method of content acquisition for the vast majority of our clients, we thought it important to detail an issue that most people don’t seem to be aware of, but is critical to getting the best experience out of your private cinema, media room, or music systems. Most people are now subscribers to at least a few different media streaming platforms. Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, and Apple TV (the channel, not the device) are the major players in video. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora are the most common music platforms we see people using. What many people don’t understand is that almost all of these services offer multiple tiers, some free and most paid- for their services which offer not only omission of advertisements or additional features, but in many cases can have dramatic impacts on the picture and sound quality they provide.
For example, as of this writing, Netflix offers four different plan options:


For the purposes of this blog, we’re only concerned with the audio/video differences between the different plans, which are pretty dramatic. The “Basic” plans only support 720p resolution video, which falls somewhere between DVD and Blu-Ray quality for picture; the “Standard” tier bumps up to 1080p video, which is close to the quality of a Blu-ray Disc picture; only once you get to the “Premium” tier do you actually get full “4K” video quality with HDR color on certain content.
Most all current model TV’s beyond the most basic models support 4K and HDR color, and it makes a dramatic improvement in picture quality compared to the lower resolution options. However, if you’re not paying for those higher-level tiers with the video services you subscribe to, you’re not going to get any better picture than what you could have gotten from a system 10 years ago.
If we look at the music-focused services: Apple Music currently has 4 different plans, Spotify has 2 plans, and Amazon Music has 3. In all cases, you need to subscribe to the upper-tier plans to be able to play your music in sound quality that even matches what we were used to with CD’s. Most services now offer an HD-audio tier that provides a sound quality that is higher than what was offered via CD…if you’re listening through the earbuds that came with your phone or a portable bluetooth speaker it probably won’t benefit you at all. But if you’ve invested in some better quality audio gear at home, or higher-end headphones, the benefit is worth the extra couple bucks.


Cable and Satellite Service
Most of our clients still utilize cable or satellite TV service in some degree. Both of those delivery methods are having some growing pains with delivering content in full UltraHD quality, and for most people it is worth checking to verify that your cable or satellite receivers can support the better quality signals. Odds are good that if you haven’t changed out the cable or satellite boxes in the last 4 years, you probably don’t have a box that supports the best quality possible.


The best movie experience: Kaleidescape
If you truly love movies, nothing beats Kaleidescape for quality. Kaleidescape is the only download-based product that provides true reference-quality picture and lossless audio. The audio and video have bitrates that are 10x higher than most streaming services, providing truly identical quality to the studio masters of the movies. Kaleidescape actually downloads the entire movie to it’s own storage before starting playback, so there is never any chance of “buffering” or downgraded quality due to internet speed fluctuations.


Physical Media
Discs still provide a great experience, and they also still work if your internet service is out. UltraHD Blu-Ray provides the finest quality picture and sound available (equal to Kaleidescape and better than any streaming service). For many people, the ritual and warmth of vinyl is a great way to enjoy music, and modern turntables have never been easier to get a great experience out of.

Filed Under: Blog

Control4 recognizes Evolved Home with the 2022 Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award!

October 3, 2022 By Kory Roth

Control4 has recognized Evolved Home with the 2022 Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award for being a leader and innovator in the industry, delivering high-quality solutions in our market since 2009.  This designation was announced at Cedia EXPO 2022 tradeshow in Dallas, TX.

We at Evolved Home are proud of our continued partnership and heritage with Control4, and creating relationships with all of our wonderful clients in our region and continually bringing others into the fold.

Thank you for the recognition Control4!

Filed Under: Blog

Realistic Expectations For Wi-Fi Speeds

July 9, 2020 By admin

Why doesn’t my phone have a Gigabit Wi-Fi connection?

WiFi LIfestyle

Recently Evolved Home has been fielding a lot of requests for upgraded wi-fi performance in homes.  This is no surprise, given the dramatic increase in demand that remote learning, working from home, and media streaming we are all experiencing over the past few months.

At the same time, we have been seeing a major push from the internet service providers in our area to upgrade folks to Gigabit speed service.  Unfortunately, a lot of people are underwhelmed with the upgrade, as they don’t experience full gigabit speeds on their phones, tablets, and other connected devices.  In this post, we will try to shed light on why that is the case.

The Problem Icon

The Problem

There is a common misconception that wireless devices such as most phones, tablets,
or laptops have the ability to achieve an actual Gigabit connection to a Wi-Fi access
point. We know through a combination of math, physics and properly engineered
Wi-Fi standards-based safeguards that the achievable connection for most mobile
devices in real-world situations is typically 30-40% of the negotiated connection rate.
So how do we explain this in easily understood terminology?

WiFi Definitions
Technology Icon

The Theory

Most mobile devices have a 2×2 antenna setup- 2 antennas send data and 2 receive data at any given time.  Devices negotiate what is called “connection rate” based on distance to the wi-fi access point, interference, and wi-fi standard being used.  This is merely the negotiated, theoretical-maximum connection rate, and doesn’t represent real world speed.  Basically, both the device and the wi-fi system have agreed to talk and have agreed what the fastest speed they could possibly talk will be.  For example, we know that the maximum connection rate of an iPhone 11 is 866mbps on Wi-Fi 5 (assuming some standard configuration settings).

WiFi Icon

How It Actually Works

When environmental interference and device proximity come into play, we know that the realistic speed is typically 30-50% of the negotiated connection rate.  This speed is dependent on the wi-fi standard being used (Wi-Fi 6 is better than Wi-Fi 5, etc), the distance to the wi-fi system antenna, and the sources of interference in the space (other wireless devices, building materials types, your neighbors wi-fi).  As you move around your home, your mobile devices are constantly renegotiating the connection rate depending on the wi-fi antenna they are connected to.  Devices also have near complete control of which wi-fi antenna they are connected to, and are generally slow to jump antennas unless absolutely necessary.

House WiFi Icon

How To Get The Best Performance

In larger homes, the best way to achieve the highest connection rate is by having multiple wi-fi antennas spread throughout the home to create a blanket of coverage.  Ideally those antennas are hard-wired, opposed to operating in a “mesh”.  Mesh networks can be great problem solvers, but they are nowhere near as capable of passing high speed data as a properly connected system.  Typically, you will want at least one antenna per 1,500 square feet of space- if you have a lot of stone or metal in your construction you will need more, and if you have a very open floor plan you may need less.

Using wireless antennas with higher levels of performance will also yield greater performance.  Evolved Home has been specifying Wi-Fi 5 antennas for all of it’s installations for at least 5-6 years.  The newest generation of Wi-Fi 6 antennas hit the market last year.  Wi-Fi 6 promises slightly higher speeds (roughly 30% higher maximum), but the real improvements are in how they handle multiple devices.  They are capable of delivering more data to more devices simultaneously, help extend battery life in mobile devices, and are better at mitigating interference from other nearby wi-fi networks.

In addition, not all wi-fi hardware is created equally, even if the right acronyms are on the spec sheet.  Evolved Home specifies and implements true commercial-grade hardware with features that improve things like wireless roaming (when your device needs to jump from one antenna to another, the wi-fi system helps “kick” it to a better one), airtime fairness (slow devices don’t get as much speed as fast devices), and higher performing interference mitigation.

If you would like to explore upgrading your wi-fi to get the best performance possible, please reach out to Evolved Home today.

*Information provided by Access Networks

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Filed Under: Blog

Evolved Home Collaborates With Interior Designer

May 26, 2020 By admin

Evolved Home has made it our mission to provide the best in technology solutions seamlessly integrated with the architectural design of the building. We design and integrate systems that enhance our clients spaces by bringing them increased comfort, safety, and entertainment. Recently we were asked by one of our vendors to participate in a video conference discussion about integration of technology and design. The other guest is a great friend of ours, Robin Fisher, of Robin Rigby Fisher Design.

Mark Hudzinski, who represented Evolved Home in the video, is a CEDIA Certfied Outreach Instructor. We offer lunch-and-learn events that provide continuing education credits for AIA, NKBA, IDCEC, NARI, and ASID. We provide lunch, bring the training to your place, and everyone leaves with a better understanding of the latest technologies. If you are an architect, designer, or builder, and would like to learn more about how Evolved Home can help you make the buildings you work in better, please reach out. As of May 26th, 2020, all of the above organizations are approving credits for classes taught virtually (via web conference). Please reach out to schedule an event today.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: architect, interior design, smart home

10 years, and counting!

January 10, 2020 By Kory Roth

Evolved Home celebrates its 10 year Anniversary in 2020!  It has been an amazing decade of launching our business, and growing with the industry and clientele who have welcomed us into their projects.  From our first system to our most recent, we have striven to be a leading partner in our industry and market, and continually explore improved processes and experiences for our clients.

Here are a few milestone professional recognition and accomplishments we’ve received from the last ten years!

 

2009

  • Evolved Home founded by Mark Amayao and Kory Roth in Q4 of 2009

2010

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2010 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.  This is the FIRST Control4 Platinum dealer ever awarded in the NW Region of the US (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana)

2011

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2011 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2012

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2012 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2013

  • Control4 awards MVP Dealer of Excellence award to Evolved Home
  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2013 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2014

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2014 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.
  • QMotion Advanced Shading Systems awards Gold Level Status to Evolved Home

2015

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2015 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2016

  • Control4 awards Platinum Dealer 2016 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2017

  • Control4 award Top Performing Dealer award to Evolved Home in the Western Region of the US (NW Region and SW Region combined)
  • Control4 awards Diamond Dealer 2017 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.  This is the first year a Diamond Level Dealer status is created nationwide.

2018

  • Control4 awards Pinnacle Dealer Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region for lifetime achievement.
  • Control4 awards Diamond Dealer 2018 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2019

  • Control4 awards Dealer Circle of Excellence award to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.
  • Control4 awards Diamond Dealer 2019 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

2020 – so far!

  • Control4 awards Diamond Dealer 2020 Status to Evolved Home in the Northwest US Region.

We appreciate all industry professionals, clients, contractors, architects and designers in helping us reach these accolades!  Thank you!  The next decade looks bright as Evolved Home, evolves!  Stay tuned and join us for the journey!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Control4, Crestron, Home Automation, Nest, Portland, Ring, Savant, Sonos

Triad Factory Tour

September 11, 2017 By admin

I always enjoy taking tours of our vendors factories, because it helps you understand not only their product better, but who they are as a company.  After only 10 minutes or so of talking with their employees , the first thing you realize is these folks don’t make speakers because they think it is a good way to make a living, they make loudspeakers because they are passionate about sound. They make individually, hand crafted speakers that are not only great sounding, but beautiful to look at.  And they make them in such an efficient way, that they are competitively priced with mass produced “cookie cutter” speakers that are made overseas.  Triad has a 30 year history of making world class speakers right here in Portland, OR.

We started our tour by getting an overview of their product lines from Trainer Steve Colburn.  We then entered the factory floor, where we were able to see the entire process a speaker goes thru from being cut out on a precision CNC router machine, to custom paint or veneer finishes, to final assembly and packaging.  One of the components I was surprised to learn they make in house, was the crossovers for each speaker.  This important step gives them a great deal of control over the final voicing of the speakers, to bring out the optimal performance.

If you have spent any time studying loudspeaker design, one of the first things you come to understand, is that making a great sounding speaker is a combination of Science and Art.  Many companies focus exclusively on the Science part, and are satisfied if the speaker measures a flat frequency response in an audio test.  Triad takes things a step further.  They not only test and refine the performance of their speakers in their own custom built anechoic chamber, they also evaluate the speakers with two very sophisticated pieces of test equipment. Their ears!  This helps bring out the intangible qualities like imaging and transient response that separate good speakers from great speakers.

We ended our tour… how else…listening to music and movie clips in their dedicated listening theater. The recent development of Dolby Atmos has breathed new excitement into the home theater realm, after a relatively quiet period.  Triad has been deeply involved with this advancement in cinema sound, working as a Dolby Labs Atmos  Development Partner.  As we started to watch the first movie clip,  I quickly became lost in the intense action sequences and drama of the movie Unbroken.  We sampled some music tracks and other movie clips as well, on a full Silver System.  It was nothing short of fantastic.  With a custom solution for almost any room or application, Triad is a great choice for any listening environment.

Filed Under: Blog

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New Beginnings. Second Home for our client family New Beginnings. Second Home for our client family that Evolved Home has had the privilege of being a part of. The approach is certainly the same, but at the same time, certainly different. 

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4040 SE International Way,  Suite E-107 Milwaukie, OR 97222 – USA.

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