We pulled out our showroom product.
Love the concept...but we just couldn't get confidence in the product due to:

1. lockups of keypads and webserver/amps
2. a few times zone keypads (TL380) would appear to work, but couldn't turn off the music or adjust volume.
3. Escient piece started to lock up quite regularily when DL system was added to the mix.
4. After first few problems, our disty rep (with good custom experience in past) came and rewired our store (drop ceilings). Problems did not get better.
5. Lack of flexibility when combining with Home THeatre etc. . Especially the fact that Escient content is a STREAM to Netstreams. Without a painful workaround, there is no way to listen to the same song at the same time on a netstreams zone and in a theatre (direct from Escient, using TV GUI)

Hope the company does well and drives IP based systems to improve and get more reliable and flexible.

Comparing the Niles ICS wizard and the DL wizard... the Niles piece just works... takes less time, and offers more flexibility.

Still I'm rooting for NS because they really were the first to do IP (control and content) and I'd like to see them in the game when the technology reaches the level we expect.

What a great summation of the problems that I have had with my system as well. I too feel that I see this product being in the future, but I am not offering it as part of my business plan at the moment.

Well this certainly has been a very interesting thread to say the least. My good friend and esteemed colleague Buzz Goddard pointed me to the site and this thread and said take a look.

Well first I would like to thank all the dealers who believe in where we are gong with the products. I also would like to say thanks to anyone who has installed or used any of our products and without you we would not be able to continue to develop state of the art audio and video solutions.

For those who feel our wiring topology is faulty or misguided I would direct your attention to the following link [Link: ce.org]

Every Distributed Audio product NetStreams offers is based on the ANSI/CEA 2030 worldwide Multi-Room Audio wiring standard. We feel this wiring standard is very important for some compelling reasons, Such as any Audio system on the market can be installed with this type of wiring infrastructure, the system can be centrally based amplification, or Distributed based Amplification. In either system following this standard will allow for maximum flexibility for your systems to be installed, as well as design choices that can be decided on after the pre-wire has been installed.

In our Vision we feel that all installed speaker will migrate from passive analog speakers to active all digital networked speakers. If you agree with this one statement then pre-wiring your distributed audio jobs with the 2030 in mind can make this a reality when and if the client wants to add, change remove or update any room wired in this fashion.

As far as amplifiers at NetStreams, all of our amplifiers are designed to go with the speaker, or at least as close to the speaker as possible. If you have heard a demo of the Polk 265ip, or any of the demo’s with our system utilizing our DSP’s for all filter arraignments and optimization I think you will find that not only do we produce a better frequency response, dynamic range, channel separation, and signal to noise ratio, but the overall imaging, staging and accuracy is night and day different, this is not possible with a central “Rack Mounted” amplifier located hundreds of feet from the speakers.
Some to our Lab located at 3600 W. Parmer Lane in Austin, or ask your NetStreams Rep to bring a demo to your office.

If you choose not to mount the amplifier by the speaker you are not going to achieve the kinds of acoustic performance that your customers want.

We are not perfect, but we do correct any issues that are found, we are fast to do this. I have read many times about how great Crestron products are, and they do have some great solution and they have some very good people, I know most all of them personally, but to say that NetStreams is the only advanced system that needs updates and our Dealer setup is updated often is a little bit of a stretch. Any complex networked system utilizes hundreds of protocols and lots of lines of code. Crestron as well as most every control company has engineers that are constantly and consistently making improvements and this means updates, every good system out there has the ability to use such a scaleable system such as DigiLinX. Crestron produces updates to Simpl, VTPro, and firmware on a weekly and sometimes daily basis so stating that we are working to make the system even better or fixing a new bug will be an ongoing issue as we are always looking to improve our products.

Anyone that has ANY issues with sound quality or performance should make plans to attend CEDIA this year in Denver. Come over to our booth and audition for yourself, the power of all Digital distribution, DSP filters performed all in the digital realm. We will demonstrate the difference between a central amplifier and our Distributed approach. We will A/B the same speakers and you can judge for yourself.

One more thing before I step down from the soapbox, NetStreams is a company full of people from THE CUSTOM INSTALLATION industry. We have some of the best and brightest from many companies such as Lexicon, Crestron, Pioneer, Sony, Kenwood, Sonance, Apple, GE, Dell, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Cisco. The people we have are from this industry, live and breathe this industry because we love what we are doing and yes we do want to save the world from bad audio.

We listen to what our customers and this is why we have upgraded the Musica audio components to 96k 128-bit precision. We have added state of the art DSP’s to allow for some optimization. If you have not had a chance to hear the new Music Keypads, please ask for a test drive. I do not know of a dealer who has worked with the new Musica keypads that has not been absolutely amazed with the sound quality.

NetStreams is here for you, we have a very good group of techs in our technical services group that can help you with any issue you may have at [email protected]

If you have an issue with any of our products and you feel you have not been helped out please contact me with your issue at [email protected] and I assure you I will track down the problem and get you with the right people.


Best Regards,

Michael Braithwaite
NetStreams

You heard it here... if you want your issues heard about the product... there are the guys right there...

Michael,

Thanks for the post but with such a long post I was expecting to see some response to the more serious issues being mentioned above (the amp issue IMO is a non-issue and was being harped on by only one person). You only told me what we already know which is that the wiring topology is sound and the people at NeStreams are good :-).

fluid-duid mentioned several problems they have encountered and dharmony said they encountered exactly the same issues. What do you think might be causing those issues? Can you comment?

I want to say 1st that I do like the versatility and technology of IP based systems and if your not wiring or up to speed than things are going to get difficult. However I still have yet to see where it fits in my overall business. It is to expensive for the 4 zone customer, that's a general statement. Once I get up above that with customers the system is always much more complex and at this point I can't afford to get land locked by closed ended systems.




Ok even though I already know the facts about speakers please explain to me what an all "digital" networked speaker is. You know what never mind I don't really want to hear it.


Ok this is where you lose me not only is the above statement misleading in practical application it just isn't true. Is there a difference, yes on a scope or on a bench using the 2 different wiring schemes with a long distance and a controlled enviroment. Now lets use the same exact test in an installed system with inwall speakers and see if you can actually hear an audible difference. This is really the only thing about mfg's in general that pisses me off. I see the merit and also appreciate the design and versatility of your system, but please don't try and make these kinds of statements when I have at least as many years in this business as you and I am the one installing them. When your system was demonstrated to us we all really loved the product and were excited, but when the NetStreams rep told us we lose about 90% of our amplification and fidelity on a 100' speaker run, well that did it.

I agree with you here there isn't any of the higher end products that don't need firmware/software upgrades.

"Bad Audio" who do you guys think are listening to this stuff. I think we can agree your distributed or all the others are not designed as main or critical listening area systems


The above statements are really what make a difference for most of us since when we do hit a wall, support is everything! Also it means lots to me that you take the time to get involved!

Hi all, I wanted to get into this thread also to address some of the specific issues that were raised earlier.


We have found some bugs in the past that would cause the touch panels to lock up. No excuse, any bug like that isn't acceptable, and we have since fixed it both in the form of a software update you can apply through Dealer Setup and in new units.


I can't speak to that directly w/o more info but would be interested in more of the symptoms, maybe we can talk offline (see email at bottom).


This tells me that the problem was likely not in wiring (duh), our 2nd most frequent problem area after wire is using older firmware. I'm not shifting any blame to the installer, it's on us (NetStreams) to provide an easy-to-install system that tells the installer if/when anything should be updated.


This is a known issue for us, and something we're currently addressing.

This one point I have to address:


I've personally done the pricing exercise with dozens of CI's who have both Crestron and NetStreams experience. In fact this is a benchmark that we think about often, and I can say with high confidence that that statement is not accurate in almost all cases. IF you are ONLY using NetStreams for audio, and comparing DigiLinX with Adagio, sure. When you start to add in the stuff on the Crestron side to get parity with what we provide included with the system or have a scaling advantage on, you'll find we're actually less expensive in most cases.

For example, on a NetStreams system you get intercom included, in Crestron you add a C2N-IADS30X24. On a NetStreams system, IP camera support is included, on a Crestron system you add a C2N-IVDS24X24 to get analog camera support. On a Crestron system you get 2 simultaneous streams of audio from an AADS, from an Imerge, Escient, or ReQuest server on a NetStreams you can get up to 6 simultaneous. This is all out-of-the-box type stuff, no programming, just point and click. I'm not saying we're more flexible than a Crestron sytem, but I am saying that the cost is not as black and white as it may appear from that statement above.

Anyone can reach me at [email protected]. Buzz is one of our main sales guys, Michael Braithwaite is our CTO, and I am our Director of Product Management. You guys are our customers and potential customers, and because we're a market facing company, we value your feedback. Feel free to reach out to me anytime, our office # is 512-977-9393, ask for Paul.

There is a larger theme I read on this thread of "where in my lineup does NetStreams fall?" That's an interesting and valid question. We don't see DigiLinX as a system that someone buying totally on cost buys ("give me the cheapest you got!"), nor do we see DigiLinX as a system someone who buys totally on feature gets ("I need a 100% customized system with a display that comes out of my indoor waterfall while my bed carved from a solid block of mahogany rises from a hidden chamber in the floor"). We are aiming DigiLinX somewhere in-between.

Our vision for DigiLinX is a system that scales. Not just in "up to X zones," but that it can help you scale your business in terms of number of jobs you can do or profitability of the jobs you take on. System programmers are expensive to keep on staff, or can be expensive to hire per job. Some code you can reuse, some you can't. By making all the stuff we integrate with a config job that you can point-and-click to finish, we aim to make you more productive and faster.

The dealers we have seen be successful with DigiLinX use it as a middle offering between their budget system and a "mega" system, or as a top end system if they don't do Crestron or AMX. There are lots of jobs out there where a full on Crestron or AMX system may be overkill.

It's a really personal/business choice - if your comfort level another system is high enough that it can be your solution for all sizes/types of jobs, maybe DigiLinX isn't the right choice for you. NetStreams' systems do a lot today, but only a tiny fraction of what we are going to do in the years ahead, so like with any system you are partially betting on the come. If you're on the fence, keep your eye on NetStreams, maybe try out a training. We're 100% focused on the custom installed market and making you guys the "acolytes of IP" to the World.

I'm biased b/c I'm here, but FWIW I bet my family's future on NetStreams, and left a multi-billion $ company in Cisco to come over. I'd never have done that if I didn't really think that NetStreams had a genuine shot at changing the way that people think about custom.

No offense NS fellas (and I'll try to be cool) but, the responses or lack thereof to some of the issues pointed out reminds me a lot of the recent beast of a thread on Life|Ware. There's lot's to listen to but very little substance....

I'll be short and to the point, do you have problems with your TP's locking up or not?

Anthony,

They answered that question totally professionally and no offense to you but these guys are about as far away from LW as you can get.

Just a few posts up Paul said:

"We have found some bugs in the past that would cause the touch panels to lock up. No excuse, any bug like that isn't acceptable, and we have since fixed it both in the form of a software update you can apply through Dealer Setup and in new units."

So shut your trap Anthony :-).

No matter your feelings on NS, pretty impressive turnout here from the higher ups. Only Petro is missing - she must be surfing somewhere. And if you don't know Michael, he knows a thing or two about Crestron capabilities (even if every Crestron system we do does NOT control a display that comes out of my indoor waterfall while my bed carved from a solid block of mahogany rises from a hidden chamber in the floor).

I was a Digilinx dealer while I had my own company and still have the demo kit in my garage. I think its a great product. In my humble opinion one of the biggest issues facing market penetration is the decision to only sell through AVAD. Like RTI, that may open your product up to their 10,000 dealers (not sure that is a good thing), but if you look at the top half of the CEPRO100 (for example), I doubt you'll find a lot of NS dealers. Quite simply most large dealers support manufacturers that support us directly. It really is that simple. Of course this site attracts the SBO CI guy, so its a moot point in this forum. But it is a valid point nonetheless.

Best of luck going forward and please tell Petro EJ said hi.

Not true. We are a direct dealer. I agree with your point though as it applies to RTI.

Q's, point taken. I missed that....trap shut.....for the moment....

I hope that in my post (earlier) I was clear in saying that I ultimately believe in the product and the company.

We had issues. Issues did not go away.
We needed the space to display products that we sell everyday.

My boss was at our disty the other day, and Buzz was visiting. My email had caught his attention. By all accounts, he was professional, understanding, and generally a great guy.

I wish we had known about the "known" issues (stated above) before we jumped. However, at the moment I don't regret the decision.

We are extremely busy, and although it may be true that mastering Digilinx installations may make for quicker installations/programming overall.... we simply did not have the necessary time available to chase down issues (ie firmware updates), troubleshoot, and get "behind" our store demo.

However, you may rest assured that we will have our eyes on Netstreams, and if the opportunity exists, to look at the product again in the future.

The last statement is largely due to the completely professional and timely responses displayed here by the people at Netstreams. Keep up the good work.

NOTE: an idea.... with escient, why not give the installers 2 options:

1.. use IP control AND audio streaming as is currently the case.
2.. if possible to deal with the latency issues, have an option to use IP control of the escient, but using a MediaLinx to use the analog audio from the Escient.

Wouldn't #2 allow for a theatre to listen to the Escient (using digital audio out/in) AND for the Netstreams to listen to the same song (using analog audio via the medialinx).

You wouldn't need any new components, just a programming option.
Also, this MIGHT allow for a zone to have both options available.

ie in the main floor kitchen, you could choose between:
- "Main floor music" - direct streaming from the Escient via IP
- "Lower floor music" - analog from the Escient via Medialinx, same as theatre.

Just a thought.

Thanks again for the responses.. and again: Good luck and keep it up!

can anyone help me with mater I have a dish it has 3 lnb with 4 outputs all in one . do I connet all 4 coax wire on the out puts