The beautiful new Elite HDTVS

Last week Karrie and I went down for our annual Pioneer Elite Dealer training session which is always great, but there was an increased level of anticipation for the event this year; it was the first chance to evaluate the recently unveiled Pioneer Elite HDTV display line. Videophiles who demand the best have been a little perplexed that the new Elite displays will feature LED technology and we have to admit we were quite curious over the last year to finally see how the next gen LED sets compared to the revered KURO plasma displays, which remain an industry benchmark to this day.

Keep in mind that we weren’t able to evaluate the set for an entire day as we performed an ISF calibration on it, so this article is our first impressions. The 60″ Elite used for the classes was hooked up using out of the box settings in the “PURE” pic mode and it certainly impressed! Unbelievable black levels, detail and color saturation. Long story short, we would agree with the handful of early reviewers out there who call the new Elite sets the best looking LED display on the market.

Visit the Elite HDTV website here. Or, enjoy this early evaluation review by legendary calibrator Kevin Miller, who was also involved in the development of the Elite displays. The new Pioneer Elite LED displays are a collaboration between Pioneer and Sharp Electronics, are available in 60″ and 70″ sizes and are currently in stock at the distributor if you want one now. Our customers are welcome to take a trip with us to the distributor’s showroom where they already have one on display for you to experience……… until we get our own that is!

The legend…….enjoy your content with the same speakers Lucasfilm, Disney, Dolby Labs and more use to create your entertainment.

Here is all the exciting MK Sound news for 2011:

• The legendary S150 THX Ultra models are still available in limited supply, and MK Sound has now redesigned it as the S150 MKII to be paired with the new S150T Tripole surround. Expected shipping on these is mid-March and they feature THX Ultra certification and use the same newly redesigned monitor tweeter first introduced in the 950 LCR.
• A completely new model will be the MP7, a slimline onwall LCR speaker designed for use with flat panels that will ship mid-March. 
• New MX8, MX10 and MX12 subwoofers will ship by July 2011, with the current line of awesome MK subs available until then.
• And we have waited for this one: new floorstanding tower models of the LCR750 and LCR950 speakers that are due September, 2011 with attractive cabinet designs-can’t wait to see these!
• The MX1000 Reference subwoofer, one can only imagine what a subwoofer called “Reference” by MK Sound would be like…….
• MK has also completely retooled their active amplification studio monitor series with new MPS-1611p, MPS-2150p and MPS-2401p beginning to ship in March. Visit MK Professional here.

Just in case you hadn’t seen this elsewhere, the MK Sound 950THX system got a lot of attention at this years’ CES show and received a glowing review in Home Theater magazine this February. In our experience as integrators, the 950THX offers a special combination of value/ performance that is not available elsewhere and the 950 is our top-selling speaker system for THX Select2 rooms. Make an appointment so you can experience the MK Sound 950LCR speakers at our showroom.

      Make sure to follow this link to read what the experts say about the quality of this amazing HDTV voted the Best Electronic Device of 2010 by Popular Science Magazine. Right now is a great time to upgrade your system to 3D capability with this Ultimate pack and a reference Pioneer Elite 3D capable AV receiver from Theater Design Northwest. And don’t forget Theater Design is a dealer for reference-quality MK Sound speakers.

      Make sure to follow this link to read what the experts say about the quality of this amazing HDTV voted the Best Electronic Device of 2010 by Popular Science Magazine. We hope you all enjoy a great Holiday Season and keep us in mind for those quality tech products and services, big and small, that bring your digital entertainment to life.

Here’s one real story from us: A new client of ours who had already purchased equipment elsewhere hired us to do speaker layout/wire infrastructure on their projection room. The first question they asked was if I knew of a private company that repaired AV electronics. They had bought the top of the line Yamaha AV receiver from a discounter online, and as in many gray market purchases, had no idea they were not buying from a dealer. In the first year one of the front channels went dead and when they went to get it repaired there was no warranty coverage in the US, plus no US repair center would touch it or supply parts even if the clients paid them to do the repair. So that’s worst case, and not an uncommon story either. Now they have a $2700.00 broken AV receiver that will not sell on Craigslist to “someone who can fix it” for only $100. And then when you add in the cost of replacing the faulty Yamaha piece with a topline Denon AVR, these clients are definitely not feeling like they got a good deal on the Yamaha.   

Our company has had several people inquire why they can sometimes find certain products cheaper from online stores in comparison to our already discounted and competitive pricing that we offer on equipment. Some clients have even suggested that we buy from the unauthorized online discounters ourselves so our prices can be even better. 

Gray market isn’t illegal because of NAFTA, not too many people are aware of it, and   understandably, people shop these places for the benefit-a lower initial price. With products intended for sale in other countries that find their way to the US gray market, sometimes the warranty is good only in the country the product was intended for. That means expensive and often cost-prohibitive two way shipping overseas to the right warranty center. Even Costco has been known to sell gray market goods, but at least they have their great in-store return policy that minimizes the risk of warranty issues. That is why they double the warranty on TVs, but at least they have an approach that honors the client. WalMart has been one of the largest gray market retailers in the brick and mortar world and probably can attribute a lot of their success to that. Even vacuum cleaners can be gray market with non-legitimate ones having cheaper internal parts or fewer features even though they look the same with similar model numbers.  

So, starting Theater Design is what really taught us what the gray market was. It became quickly apparent that there was no way legitimate dealers implementing a high service level business model could ever compete on component prices with web vendors that are not dealers, offer little product knowledge and are selling gear with no warranty!  And way back then, we took what we perceived to be the moral high road and never do the gray market thing. We wouldn’t want to have a client buy even a single cable from us that didn’t have a warranty.  

Here’s a couple of good links that teach about the gray market-it is actually kind of fascinating the lengths it goes to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEvLhJr84Ks 

This is an old article and it’s way more widespread now:

http://news.cnet.com/Net-tightens-gray-market-retail-vise/2100-1030_3-5628742.html?tag=mncol 

The Wikipedia definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market 

And here is where it really gets nuts. On items with BIG brand recognition, like Monster Cable, actual counterfeit merchandise that is a copy (in appearance only) of the real deal right down to the packaging and all:

 http://www.monstercable.com/counterfeit/  

The video about Monster headphones on this page was interesting and it linked to others comparing sound quality. Crazy stuff. I was made aware of the Monster counterfeits recently when I needed a 50′ MC1000 series HDMI cable to carry 1080p video to a projector. Fifty feet is a very long run for 1080p over HDMI and you need a top quality cable to do it. The cable retailed at $500, we discounted to $349.00 and the client emailed me back that he had found the same cable for $49.00 online, which we knew was too good to be true. That led me to the Monster counterfeit page and his link was one of the blacklisted sites. 

To combat gray market distribution, some manufacturers have a zero internet sales policy and their products are only available through custom installer companies. One of the documents we have to sign in most dealer apps is a guarantee that we will not sell product to other retailers, enabling gray market sales. That’s another way products get to the gray market retailers called “sideways distribution.” Someone like our company will sign up as a dealer, just make $50 bucks/unit because the sales volume is high, and in turn sell them to an internet store that makes $50 bucks or so when they sell. And the end customer ends up with a component with no warranty.   

In that scenario, the only way the manufacturers can control it is to buy their own piece from the online retailer, track it through distribution with the serial # and then shut down the small dealer doing the “sideways distribution” and the website can’t get the product anymore. So they either restart a new web biz, or mark the product as unavailable but still leave it on the site as it may attract searchers who will buy a similar product that they can actually get to ship.

Here is another example from real world experience at Theater Design- One of the extreme quality brands that we are authorized dealers for is Pioneer Elite and they have a zero internet sales policy to insure a quality ownership experience for their customers. Pioneer Elite insists on knowing that the dealers representing their company and products are competent AV integrators that fully understand their product’s capabilities and are capable of getting every ounce of high performance delivered to the Pioneer Elite customer in their home as it should be. Anytime I specify a Pioneer Elite component for a project you could type the model number in to Google and immediately see 5 of them for sale from vendors you never heard of at prices that are below our dealer cost. But we know this first hand as dealers-anyplace they are sold online is not authorized from Pioneer to sell them and there is no warranty. If you see current Pioneer Elite components for sale online they are gray market products, because Pioneer does not allow online sales. They want you to buy from dealers like us so you are getting top quality, responsive service from someone who is personally invested in their fine product lines.         

So there you go with more info than you ever wanted to know about the gray market. It makes doing legit business pretty challenging for service oriented companies like ours who need the profit on gear to justify the research time of staying technologically relevant and the time spent getting approved to carry quality product lines. That being said, we do understand people wanting to get the best bang for the buck when they are doing expensive projects like nice home theaters, and if one doesn’t get stung with warranty/ reliability stuff…..then you did save a few dollars.

In other new product news we also have signed as dealers for Richard Gray’s Power Company extreme quality power management products. These ingenious devices use a unique approach to protect your equipment without the commonly used circuitry that actually can limit the current supplied to your equipment. RGPC products remove 40 Db of noise components from the incoming power to your gear which delivers a substantial improvement in audio/video quality you can see and hear. Call us to demo this exciting product today.