It is never easy to predict where technology for the home is headed. Fortunately SmartHouse magazine is privy to information that provides a forecast of what sorts of systems and products we might see hit the home electronics scene in 2003.
In a nutshell, we will see tremendous advancements in the world of home entertainment and home control. Products and systems of 2003 will do more and perform those tasks better and easier than before. Also encouraging is that prices of almost everything proposed for 2003 will plummet, making even the newest digital TVs finally affordable.
Digital Music – better storage, better sounding
CD players introduced an army of homeowners to the wonders of digital-quality music. We love it, and it shows. Many homes in the late 1990s were installed with multiroom music distribution systems so that CDs (as well as other music sources) could be easily shared and played in all rooms of the house. As nature would have it, though, the oomph of a digital recording dissipates as songs travel from a CD player to remote speakers.
Systems of 2003 promise to maintain the digital quality from start to finish. Part of the solution has to do with the type of wiring over which the tunes travel; the other responsible party is a new type of amplifier that powers the music more efficiently than traditional amplifiers.
Digital Audio Wiring
The newest breed of multi-room music system preserves the digital quality of CDs by transmitting music over Category 5e cabling (the same type of Ethernet cabling used to network computers). A number of manufacturers, such as Channel Vision, Onkyo, Harman Kardon, JBL, Opus Technologies and UStec expect to begin shipping A-BUS music distribution systems in 2003. ABUS, an industry standard developed by Australian LeisureTech, is a simple yet efficient alternative to conventional audio distribution, with installation time significantly reduced as only a single Cat5 wire is run to each location.
Because these whole-house music systems utilise Ethernet cabling, they are best installed while a home is under construction. Recognising the demand for multi-room music, several manufacturers now offer music distribution as a new feature in their high-speed wiring systems.
In order to preserve the digital quality of the distributed music, systems of 2003 place a small, efficient amplifier at each set of
speakers, rather than using one big amp at a central location (the traditional design of a whole-house music system). The amplifier is typically installed inside the keypad that controls the music from each room, so it's completely hidden from view.
