Audio, Video & Smart Home Guides
Practical guides from people who install this for a living
Most of what gets written about home audio, theater, and automation is either a product review or a sales pitch. These guides are neither. They are the answers we end up giving in person, on site, over and over — how to plan a system properly, what actually matters when you are choosing equipment, and the mistakes we get called out to fix.
New AV Installers has been designing and installing audio, video, automation, and security systems across Southern California since 2005. We are a licensed C-7 low-voltage contractor (#1043912) working throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.
Outdoor audio
- How to Design a Backyard Audio System
Zones, speaker placement, weather ratings, and why more speakers usually means a quieter system. The design decisions that are cheap to get right on paper and expensive to change later.
Home theater
- How to Plan a Home Theater Room
Why the screen is the last decision and not the first. Room proportions, seating distance, speaker layout, acoustics, and the wiring you cannot redo once the walls are closed.
Smart home and automation
- Smart Home Automation Systems Compared
RTI, Lutron, Google Home and Alexa side by side. What each one is actually good at, where each one stops, and how to work out which kind of system you actually want.
More guides coming
We are working through the questions we get asked most. Next up: what to look for in a residential security camera system, how to plan Wi-Fi and networking for a house that has outgrown a single router, and what commercial AV installations involve.
Have a question we have not covered?
If you are planning a system and want a straight answer rather than a quote, get in touch. Consultations are free, and we will tell you honestly what a project needs — including when it needs less than you thought.
You can also browse what we do: outdoor audio, home theater, smart home automation, and security cameras.