Finding Smart Products…

During Energy Management Month, all of us at Magnolia like to focus on the energy smart products we offer. Perhaps you’d be surprised that there are quite a few. It’s by using these products, in combination with some of the tips mentioned in part one, that really help you to save energy, the environment and money.

I’ll start with what’s probably the most obvious solution Magnolia offers, and one most people probably don’t realize we even have. Solar panels. Offered at our Magnolia Design Center locations on the West Coast, Magnolia provides complete solar solutions for your home. Yep, those panels that sit on your roof and turn the suns rays into power. It’s a relatively new venture for Magnolia, but one we’re proud to provide for those looking for the ultimate in energy savings.

Energy Star qualified products make up a large portion of the gear Magnolia sells. In fact, every Magnolia TV is Energy Star certified. That means that these products meet or exceed the energy efficiency requirements set forth in Energy Star product specifications. To learn what these specifications are visit www.energystar.gov/.

Then there’s the products that were mentioned in part 1 of our Smart Solutions for Energy Smart Living, and those are Lutron light management products, Control4 whole home automation and BlueBOLT and Panamax products. These products make any home, and any gear, more energy efficient when used wisely.

Finally, some products have more trouble being energy efficient than others, but that doesn’t stop many of the brands that produce them from taking measures to save energy and the environment with regards to manufacturing and packaging. Take Sharp for example, their environmentally friendly LCD television manufacturing facility in Kameyama, Japan, features one of the world’s largest roof-mounted solar systems. Furthermore, all Sharp factories are working to eliminate waste and greenhouse gases, and achieve other environmental targets in 21 key areas. Many other brands are working towards similar plans, keeping environmental safety and climate health top of mind.

So whether you’re looking to make your current gear more environmentally friendly, or want to upgrade your gear to products that are more environmentally smart, look no further than Magnolia, we have all kinds of solutions, and plenty of suggestions on how to turn your home into a smart home.

Start with What You Have…

April is Energy Management Month at Magnolia. It’s the time of year we like to celebrate our Energy Star® qualified products. Now you might be saying, some of the gear you sell sucks energy faster than Ferrari sucks gasoline. Well, it’s true, when you want to go 180 miles-per-hour you need the fuel behind it to make the car go – just like when you want to blast the latest beats from a formula 1 audio system, you’ll need a lot of energy. But at Magnolia, we’re doing what we can, with what we can, to make it easier for customers to control that energy when it’s not in use, and to actively seek out products that focus on energy management when appropriate.

It all starts with a seed, a little kernel of knowledge that spreads from a simple switch to the rest of your house. It’s like the weeds in my lawn – there are only a few in Spring, but by Autumn they’ve taken over. It’s a good way to look at home energy management, in my opinion. Start small and then work your way up.

A good place to start is with what you already have. Slow the burn of your existing products, and look for more energy efficient products when it’s time to upgrade. There are many ways to do this, here are just a few:

Start with your lighting: Whether you choose to use Lutron dimmers or a Control4 home management system, controlling when you use light and how much light you use can be a big energy saver. With Lutron, dimming your lights just 20% can save you nearly 20% in energy. The more you dim, the more you save.¹ With Control4, you can turn on, shut off and control almost every gadget in your house with the push of a button. By controlling your lights, thermostat, TVs, window blinds and nearly every other part of your home, you control the energy use. Only have on what you need on, and turn it all off with the push of a button.

Next – think about how your products get their energy. With BlueBOLT™ Remote Power and Energy Management, you can control and monitor your electronics’ energy use directly at the power source. Simply plug your electronics into a BlueBOLT-enabled power management component, hook it up to an Internet connection, and begin monitoring and controlling your component’s power usage from your computer, tablet or smartphone.

Finally, be smart with your energy use. At Magnolia, much of the gear we sell is meant to bring family and friends together. Take advantage of this. Instead of the entire family doing their own thing – with one child playing video games in one room, another blasting music in another, and you and your spouse watching TV in yet another, have a movie night where you all watch a movie together. Instantly, three rooms of audio and video in use turn into one, and that’s big in terms of energy savings.

So start simple, and act now, because the sooner you start saving energy, the sooner you start saving the environment and money.

¹Statistic taken from: http://www.lutron.com/Education-Training/LCE/Pages/EnergyEfficiency.aspx.

Quickly clicking back to the game you watch as the ball is snapped and a miraculous catch is made in the corner of the endzone! You explode in excitement as you Skype your best friend who was cheering for the other team. When you’re done rubbing the victory in their face, you go back online to watch the final catch five or ten more times then look to see when and where your first playoff game will be.

The crazy part about all of this? You did it all on your TV, no computer required.

How smart are Smart TVs?

As the advent of what was originally called Internet Connectable TVs came to life just a few short years ago, the growth and change of this technology has been fast and fierce. What started out as just a few online entertainment connections and some special apps has turned into so much more. More web, more content streaming, more apps and now even Skype.

The evolution of Skype to your TV makes connecting with family and friends easier than ever. And the best part, it’s in a room your family actually hangs out in. No more gathering around the computer in the den and trying to get everyone in one shot – the camera’s are better, the view is better and the picture is clearer than ever.

Add to that more robust web based content and the ability to toggle between TV and the web, and you have the perfect set-up for total information access right on your TV. Plus, with many Smart TV applications, you get a sort of “picture-in-picture” screen – so you can still see what’s on TV while you’re looking for added content. So say you’re watching a commercial about a new luxury automobile and you want to learn more about it. You can quickly go online to that cars website, and with “picture-in-picture”, when your show comes back on – click – and you’re back to full screen TV. Or if there is a commercial for a movie that’s now available on Blu-ray, you can go to your Netflix or CinemaNow account and order it. Everything is just a few clicks away, and it’s big and bright and right on your TV.

The other cool benefit, everyone can enjoy the online content, games or apps – together. With a Smartphone or a computer, it’s very personal. Typically only one or two people can see the content and enjoy the information. With a Smart TV, everyone in the room has a clear view of the content that’s being looked at – and for games and apps, everyone can join in the action.

It’s so smart it’s simple.

Now all of this may seem a bit complicated and totally out of scope for the average couch potato looking to relax with an evening of entertainment. But it’s surprisingly easy to set-up and use. Many Smart TVs have Wi-Fi built in so all you need to do is turn the TV on, and presto, you’re connected to your homes wireless router. Other Smart TVs use what’s called a wireless dongle – which looks like a computers thumb drive – that plugs into the back of your TV. This makes getting online wireless as well. Or for quicker downloads and often faster access, you can connect your TV directly to a LAN line – but this requires you to have a LAN outlet close to your TV. While this gives you added connection speed and quicker downloading times, the wireless option is surprisingly fast. So, unless you’re remodeling a room, or building a new home, putting in the LAN line isn’t a must.

Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.

In the end – getting entertainment and fully enjoying it shouldn’t be difficult. With the new Smart TV features on most new TVs, enjoying online content and Skype is not only easy, but fun. And if you don’t currently own a Smart TV, there are plenty of products available that will easily turn most current TVs into Smart TVs – including many of the newer Blu-ray players. So join the Smart TV revolution, and enjoy all the entertainment available from your TV.

When you purchase the latest flat-panel TV or a pair of room-shaking speakers, you know that years of painstaking innovation, engineering and design went into making these products the incredible audio and video masterpieces that they are. But did you know that what you place them on, in or around may be equally as incredible in their aesthetic and functionality.

Proper home theater furniture not only holds your audio and video components, but it also helps you get the most out of them. And by proper, I mean home theater furniture that has been built, designed and engineered specifically for home theater components. I’m talking about more than just fitting the dimensions needed to hold a receiver or a Blu-ray player, or the right depth to hold your flat-panel TV. No, I’m talking about home theater furniture that actually incorporates smart solutions designed specifically for your gear. Many of the latest cabinets offer ventilation to keep your equipment cool, special IR friendly glass that allows your remotes signal to pass through without reflection, special compartments with cloth fronts for your center channel speaker, cable management systems to hide all those unsightly wires, integrated levelers to ensure proper balance of your components, plus hidden wheels and removable back panels so you can get at the back of your components with ease for installation or adjustments. Dive even deeper and you’ll find cabinets that have spaces for internal fans to keep you gear from over-heating. Nothing has been overlooked, and that goes for the aesthetic of these furniture pieces as well. The sheer quantity of designs, styles and colors ensures that you’ll find a stand or cabinet that’ll fit not only your rooms unique décor, but also the look of the components that are held within. That’s why at Magnolia, you’ll find furniture that delivers both exquisite form and high performance functionality to enhance not only the beauty of your room, but also how you view and experience your audio and video equipment in that room.

To get up close and personal and see how these products can enhance both your equipment and lifestyle, visit your nearest Magnolia store. But please note, we have even more options available for special order and online. So if you have a particular color or a unique design, just let one of our Customer Specialists know, we’ll help you find the right home entertainment furniture for you.

Have you heard of OPPO? Unless you’re a true audio and/or videophile, chances are you haven’t. Because OPPO doesn’t spend their time on advertising and marketing, they spend their time on producing, designing and engineering the finest Blu-ray players on the market today. You see, OPPO doesn’t even have dedicated Marketing and Sales. Instead, they rely on word-of-mouth, allowing their products to speak for themselves.

And boy do these products speak loud and clear. OPPO solely produces some of the best Blu-ray Disc Players that you’ll find on the market today. Why you may ask? It’s the audio.  OPPO offers some of the finest quality sound you’ll find, even when compared to premium high fidelity CD players. All this is made possible by the high quality electronics that go into every OPPO product, designed and built to deliver style, performance and innovation. Like the SABRE 32-bit Reference DAC, balanced XLR and Toroidal transformer and the DTS-HD Master Audio that gives the OPPO BDP95 its mind blowing sound quality. It’s this attention to core product performance and OPPO’s strong customer focus that distinguishes them from traditional consumer-electronics brands and makes OPPO the product of choice for many audio and videophiles.

Simply ask anyone who has owned an OPPO product and you’re sure to hear the same things, they’re the best. In elite product terms, they’re the Rolls Royce of cars or the Rolex of watches. The best, of the best, of the best. And like the aforementioned brands, you won’t find OPPO just anywhere, in fact, the only place you can go and try out an OPPO product is Magnolia. And being the exclusive retailer of OPPO – Magnolia once again shows its ability to bring great products to exclusive customers who know a great product when they see it, hear it and feel it.

Part 2: Connecting with Technology

It wasn’t long ago when your home electronics just did one thing. A TV was just for watching broadcast programs, a phone was just for calling friends and home automation didn’t even exist. Today, everything does just about everything, and if it doesn’t, it will probably connect to something else that does. And thus you have, the connected world.

In today’s connected world you can use your Smartphone to search the web, text, e-mail, do a video chat, play games and even control your TV, receiver and your home automation system. Your TV has become a complete entertainment hub, from 3D TV to Internet browsing to video chatting. Seemingly nothing is off limits, and the future looks to be adding more and more to the equation.

Home automation product like Control4 and AMX let you control your entire home with the push of a button. Lights, window shades, thermostat, sprinkler systems, fireplaces, home theater systems, can all be controlled with a single remote, and that single remote can be your iPhone or iPad. Everything seems to work together, and updates are as simple as pushing the information through the Internet.

Plus there are countless other devices that let you do things that once seemed impossible. Take SlingBox for example. SlingBox allows you to watch your home TV content on your laptop, Smartphone or iPad – your actual TV, with your home’s local sports and news channels.

So whether it’s your TV, receiver, Blu-ray Disc™ player, laptop, Smartphone or any other number of devices, your entertainment world is just a button click away. And the exciting part? Technology is just getting started. There’s no telling what tomorrow might bring, and what the future holds for the connected world.

The world is becoming more and more connected: from how individuals connect with friends and family (Part 1), to how technology works together like never before (Part 2). It’s amazing how these connections have changed our lives and are quickly changing how we live everyday.

Part 1: Connecting with Friends and Family:

Communication, it’s a wonderful thing. No matter if our friends, families or business associates are thousands of miles away, or just across town, we can connect with them in mere seconds. With Smartphones, laptops, tablets or even your TV, today you can connect like never before. You can call, e-mail, text, facebook, Skype, twitter or any number of iterations of these to connect with anyone, nearly anywhere, at anytime.

Connecting through video is perhaps the newest form of this communication. Whether it’s using your iPhone to chat via the tiny camera in the phone, or using the new Cisco umi, a video camera that connects to your HDTV to deliver face-to-face connections in high definition, connecting with video is easier than ever. Even TV manufacturers are offering video cameras to allow customers the ability to Skype through their TV. The world of the Jetsons just got a lot closer, and the future we all heard about as kids is becoming more and more of a reality today.

And with the birth of tablets, and the growth of the Smartphone, there is rarely a time when any of us can’t be reached, or reach out to others. It’s a world where even friends that move far away aren’t absent from our lives, and Grandma and Grandpa can watch their grandkids grow from across the country, or even the world. It’s a new world where three-year-olds can work a tablet computer and great grandparents know how to e-mail and Skype. It’s the connected world, and it’s a button click away.

If you disagree or have a point-of-view on this, leave a comment – and I’ll connect back with you as soon as I can. Hmmm, BLOGs, there’s another way to connect.

You gotta see this… it’s an expression we hear often, but rarely does it live up to its billing. Well, the MartinLogan CLX is a speaker you’ve not only “gotta see”, you’ve gotta hear as well. Rarely does the opportunity come along to listen to a legendary speaker of this magnitude. Because the CLX isn’t just a speaker, it represents the culmination of everything MartinLogan has learned about electrostatic technology. Purity of sound permeates the entire room and satisfies even the most critical ear. The industry benchmark for resolving detail, CLX utilizes dual electrostatic transducers to render the most complex musical passages as faithfully as a crystal prism disperses the full color spectrum. This is the limitless spectrum of the CLX – the absolute truth in musical reproduction, and we’re taking it on tour. Listen to a demo, speak with experts from MartinLogan, than try to not want a pair for yourself.

One Day Only from 4 p.m. – 9 P.M. in the Following Locations:

Santa Monica  |  2800 Wilshire Blvd Friday, August 19

Mission Valley  |  5151 Mission Center Rd (inside Best Buy) Sunday, August 21 (closes at 8 p.m.)

Bellevue  |  14404 NE 20th Street Friday, August 26

Santana Row  |  3090 Stevens Creek Blvd (inside Best Buy) Saturday, August 27

San Ramon  |  110 Sunset Drive Sunday, August 28

Perimeter  |  201 Hammond Drive (inside Best Buy) Thursday, September 15

Bucktown  |  2100 N. Elston Ave (inside Best Buy) Saturday, September 17

As Magnolia introduces the Bowers & Wilkins brand to its audience of audio lovers nationwide, Magnolia and B&W have a powerful partner in introducing and selling this brand to an audience of luxury enthusiasts – and that partner is Jaguar.

Last year Jaguar solicited B&W to create an audio system in their new XJ series. And while car audio offered new challenges to the speaker maker, the result was nothing short of amazing. To see the Jaguar XJ is one thing, but to sit in the cockpit and hear a car hi-fi system that packs 20 B&W speakers and 1200 watts of power is an otherworldly experience. A system of this quality would cost upwards of $13,000 if you were to put it in your home – so those who invest in the new Jaguar XJ are also investing in one hell of an audio system – making them more than just casual enthusiasts of the brand, but all out devotees.

It’s relationships like this, along with their relationship with music studios, movies studios and audiophiles worldwide, that makes Bowers & Wilkins such a powerful brand. A brand we are proud to partner with and bring to a whole new world of dedicated audiophiles who are looking for nothing but the best.

Almost everyone has that one thing they’re really passionate about. Whether it’s following a sport or a sports team, playing an instrument, admiring great art, or eating the finest foods. Whatever that passion may be, it often defines who they are, and shapes what they do and how they do it.

At Magnolia, audio is that passion. It’s at the heart of nearly everything we do. Oh sure, a 60-inch 3D HDTV looks amazing and makes for the perfect focal point in any room, but it’s the speakers and components that truly allow you to experience your home theater system like never before. It’s audio that takes you from just watching the game, to feeling the game wrap around you. Or turns listening to a CD into a truly magical experience, as the walls melt away and you find yourself right on stage with your favorite band. Whether it’s music or movies, sports or gaming, it’s great audio that transforms the action of watching and listening, to one of being totally absorbed in the experience.

That’s why at Magnolia, our passion for audio extends well beyond just speakers, receivers and amps. We follow audio in all its forms, and strive to provide you with the gear that helps you get the most out of it. From digital audio solutions and whole home audio set-ups, to turntables and specialty gear, we strive to offer the right audio solutions for everyone from the discriminating audiophile, to the casual music lover. And as technology changes and the needs and wants of our customers change, we aim to change with them, offering the finest products, the worlds best brands, and helpful support when you need it.

So when you’re ready to experience what truly amazing audio is all about, stop into your nearest Magnolia store and ask for an audio demonstration. One listen, and we’re confident that you’ll love audio almost as much as we do.