The best-sounding rooms rarely come from a single impressive purchase. They come from a series of decisions, each made with the others in mind. A speaker that sounds brilliant in a showroom can fall flat behind the wrong amplifier, and a powerful amplifier can't fix a subwoofer that booms through the floor. 

Building a high-end audio system one component at a time isn't about spending more, but about making sure every piece does its job and hands off cleanly to the next. Keep reading to learn how that works, and why the order of those decisions matters.

Sony's new RGB TVs go after a limit most screens share: the backlight caps how much color the picture can show. A standard Mini LED set lights the screen with blue or white LEDs and relies on other layers to create red and green, so colors can look slightly diluted, especially in a Portland-area living room with big windows. 

The 2026 Bravia 9 II and Bravia 7 II change the backlight itself. Their True RGB design places separate RGB LEDs behind the screen and controls each one individually, so you get more color and more punch than the TV you bought five years ago. 

Encore started as a Sony retailer in 1981, so we pay close attention when the brand changes its approach. If a new screen is on your list before the holidays, keep reading to see what changed and which model suits your room.

Kickoff is ten minutes away, six people are on the couch, and someone asks which remote turns on the surround sound. The lights are too bright for the screen, the afternoon sun is bouncing off the glass, and the game is on the wrong input. Whew!

Home automation fixes all of these issues by tying the room to one-touch control, so game day starts the moment your guests arrive. College Saturdays are underway, and the NFL playoffs are not far off, making now a good time to see what a game-day setup can do for your home’s entertainment potential. 

Keep reading to see how it comes together.

Walk through a new construction home in Bethany or a century-old craftsman in Alameda, and you'll find the same blind spot: a network that was never sized for the technology-rich home it's running.

Builder-grade tech packages will offer a router the same way it offers a doorbell: as a checkbox item. Then the homeowner adds lighting control, a security platform, four streaming devices, and a home office, and they're left wondering why a $150,000 technology package feels unreliable.

The network isn't a to-do list detail. It's the infrastructure that everything else in a modern connected home depends on, and in a market like Portland, it's carrying more weight than most people realize. Keep reading to learn how to overcome spotty network issues with strategic network design by Encore Audio Video, your local tech integration specialist.