Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Boxed-Up Box Office

Newbies in the display game rarely succeed given the variety of entrenched brands already doing well in the space. BryteWerks hopes to become an exception with their soon to be released Model One Cube, which takes a slightly more literal approach to the concept of a home theater in a box. Inside the sleek black [...]

Home sweet home theater

As rabid movie, music fans and gamers, we’re always on the hunt for gear that can push our home entertainment experience to 11 (much to our better half’s chagrin). This roundup includes some of our favorite home theater products out today that we’d love to host in our living room. Continues after the jump.

Making Master Control Look Weak

The Pioneer VSX-1021-K 7.1 Home Theater Receiver ($550) has iPhone and iPad integration oozing out of its amplified pores. First and foremost, it’s the first midrange receiver out of the gate to ship AirPlay ready — which allows iOS and Mac users to stream music wirelessly to their main home theater system, as well as [...]

As men, we’ll always be suckers for shiny things. There’s no point in fighting it. Particularly when they can help do things like battle our inbox(s), catch up on missed episodes of the shows we’re too busy to watch, or single-handedly sway the tide of battles using just our thumbs. This gift list is a [...]

Aperion's First Move Into Space Conscious Audio

Gear Patrol’s editors have always been fans of Aperion home theater systems mainly because they offer outstanding audio quality relative to their price. Recently the company has made significant strides though to expand their line of products outside of your typical 5.1+ speaker packages. Released today, the Aperion SLIMstage30 sound bar is the Portland Oregon [...]

Transform Your Apple Mobile Device Into a Fully Functional Remote

The ability to control every device in one’s home theater using the same remote control is a convenience well known hardware manufacturers like Logitech and Philips have built incredibly successful products around for years. Ranging from super slick machines equipped with color touch screens, to your run of the mill button crammed plastic wand, these [...]

X-Statikally Better Than the Joneses

Back in May, Ben first spoke about man’s inherent quest for improvement of the audio kind by way of his review of Aperion’s Intimus 4T Hybrid SD System. In Ben’s review he challenged us to find a better performing system for under $1,600. Always up for a challenge, this editor embarked on another type of [...]

Ridiculously Thin Home Theater PC's

Contrary to what you might assume about our love of gear, most of us on the Gear Patrol staff are still quite enamored with the concept of electronic consolidation (even if it will eventually cause our gear caches to dwindle). Indulging this particular fantasy and trend in the consumer market in a striking way is [...]

Making Home Theater Computing That Much Easier

Recently when we purchased a Mac Mini to use mainly as a home theater computer in our lab, we started searching for a great wireless keyboard that would make navigating the computer from the couch an easy affair. After a thorough hunt, we came across the Adesso wireless SlimTouch Mini Touchpad Keyboard. Very lap friendly [...]

Get Robust Home Theater Sound in One Big A@# Box

Anyone in the market for a one-stop solution to great home theater, optimized for both music and movies need look no further. The Onkyo HT-S7200 is the latest from the company that’s praised continually for the quality of their home theater-in-a-box systems. Combining two separately sold components capable of solid performance into one convenient set [...]

The One Remote to Rule Them All

Clutter is something the editors here at Gear Patrol hate. While you might have an excuse for rocking an unkempt desk, your coffee table deserves order. If you’re still rocking a pile of remotes, having failed to buy a Logitech Harmony One remote, now is the time to check out the latest offering from the [...]

Popcorn Really Is Good For You

It seems that every brand is coming out with their own media streamer, and, to their credit, things are getting better, with support for nearly every decent codec and media file out there. After doing our due diligence and research (and a recommendation from a friend), Gear Patrol decided to check out the Popcorn Hou [...]

A Big, Bright Picture On A Bargain-Basement Budget

Here at Gear Patrol, we’re nothing if not out-and out-video geeks. Our passion runs wild for television, movies, games, or anything else that you can put up on screen. Being men of various situations and needs ourselves, we can, however, respect that no one video-graphical solution is right for each and every man. Thus, we [...]

Heavyweight Sound Meets Lightweight Design

Step up your middling receiver. Marantz’s NR1501 proves that you don’t need a hulking beast to bring quality surround sound to your home. The NR1501 features a 50 watt by 7 discrete amplifier, 4 HDMI 1.3 inputs (1 output), Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio decoders, an independent audio board, MRAC microphone auto calibration, 3 [...]

Gadget Proven. Wife Approved.

If each passing year results in an expanding arsenal of electronics then you might want to read this. Now, on the other hand, if you’re like Gear Patrol’s Ben Bowers and inflicted with gadgetphilia, with only the world’s most bleeding edge home theater sufficing, then there are probably few predesigned media solutions that fit your [...]