Our music consumption habits have always changed with technology.  The venerable vinyl record is still with us, and is, in fact, enjoying a nostalgic resurgence.  Vinyl gave way to the convenience and resilience of digital CDs, and they are still with us too.  Today, the most convenient way of accessing a vast library of music and listening to it anywhere – in our cars, our portable devices, and our homes – is music streaming over the Internet. 

The old Apple iPod slogan of 30,000 songs in your pocket has given way to 40 million songs in the cloud that you can hear anytime, anywhere - as long as you have an Internet connection.  As we know, several popular music services that offer the capability of hearing your favorite tunes on demand.  But are they all just different peas in the same pod? 

The short answer is yes, and no.  If you are looking to invest in a whole-house music system in Portland, you might want to know a little more detail about the most popular streaming services. While all of them can be easily used in your system, the more you use and customize a particular service the more useful it will be to you. 

With that in mind, let’s do a brief roundup of five of the most popular services and some of their features and wrinkles.

We love home theaters.  There’s nothing like settling in to watch a great movie on a large screen with incredible sound to match. But today’s home theaters are no longer rooms that are built to resemble commercial movie theaters.  Today’s homeowners are doing more than watching movies in their home theaters – they’re binge-watching Netflix shows, multiple NFL games on Sundays, and playing music videos as background in a media/game room. 

Home theater design is evolving to meet multiple entertainment purposes. Of course, you can still build the completely enclosed, windowless theater in your walkout basement room complete with movie-themed décor and comfortable theater seating.  But the theater can be in any room you want to make it, and today’s technology allows more  flexibility than ever in designing the perfect home theater or media room.  Take a look at five current trends in home theater design to make any room into a state-of-the-art entertainment oasis in Portland.

Since Amazon released their voice control assistant, Alexa, more than 10 million people have purchased it—including the Echo, Dot, and Tap control devices. Google, Apple, and other companies are trying to compete with their own versions, but there isn’t a main competitor yet that rivals Alexa in the voice control department. While this intuitive device has opened up many new people to the realm of home automation, those who already have a control system can still benefit from it by integrating Alexa into their home system. Keep reading this blog to discover what features you can benefit from with voice control in your Vancouver, WA area home.

The vibrant music scene in Portland doesn’t have to be limited to live concerts. You can get the same great sound right within your home by investing in a high-quality sound system. Of course, there are tons of different types of systems and equipment out there, which can make it difficult to find the best setup for your home. That’s why we’ve put together this quick guide that goes over the possibilities for whole house audio.