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A casual observer might think that even a slight economic downturn could have negative repercussions for a luxury industry like the home theater business, but the truth is that the only trend that anyone on the front lines can see is growth.

In his keynote speech at Home Entertainment Expo 2001, Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro mentioned that both digital television equipment and home theater products are selling more strongly this year than last, despite the fact that the economy in 2000 was considerably hotter than it is now. Custom installers are especially busy, to such an extent that the good ones are turning work away.

That's the view of Alan Drespel of Home Entertainment Design, an upscale installation company based in Long Island City, NY. At HE 2001, where HED is participating in its first-ever trade show, Drespel verified Shapiro's remarks with some anecdotal evidence of his own. "Many home theater customers are now well into their second or third projects, and are much more sophisticated—and more committed to quality—than they were a few years ago," Drespel observed. This commitment, coupled with the relatively long development time required to get a home theater built and fully operational, makes the industry fairly immune to short-term economic fluctuations, Drespel believes.

Big projects, especially those that include extensive remodeling or new construction, can stretch from a few months to a couple of years. Once an industry dominated by freelancers or crossover contractors from other industries—security system installers, for example—custom installation is maturing into a specialty profession of its own, a movement boosted by organizations like CEDIA and PARA.

Drespel mentioned that his company, which has done work for a huge number of top executives and entertainment industry personalities, has a diversified staff of skilled specialists that includes on-site installers, staff engineers, and programmers who insure that complex multi-source systems are as ergonomically transparent to users as possible.

HED is fond of Crestron controllers for the degree of ease they offer the end user. To insure reliability, each HED system is assembled and programmed at the company's Long Island City base, and then reassembled in its final location. "Operational simplicity in installed systems is one of the keys to referral business," Drespel said. "We have never advertised, and we don't have a showroom, yet we have worked in every major city in the US." Simplicity is such a key concept that HED has made it the company slogan: "Technology Made Simple."

Finding the right workers is also a key to success, said Drespel. "You need to find people who are technically well-informed, skilled in all types of residential construction trades, and who are comfortable with wealthy clients. It's a rare combination, but we have been lucky enough to land a few." He also mentioned the need for discretion. No custom installation company will last long with employees who can't keep quiet about the private lives of clients.

Drespel spends many weeks each year traveling from one site to another, and recently acquired a residence in South Florida because he spends so much time working there. San Francisco and Chicago are also frequent stops, cities where his company is engaged in several projects at once.

Here at the NY Hilton, part of HED's display included a wall of technical drawings for the system to be installed in the home of a top network television executive. The remainder of the room's display—Crestron touch-screen controller, Fujitsu plasma screen, and a pair of superb JBL Ti10K loudspeakers—was an ideal home theater solution for small-to-medium spaces. HED's larger room featured a Vidikron Vision One/Snell & Wilcox video projection system combined with a JBL Synthesis speaker system—"the same system Warner Brothers uses to maser DVDs," according to Drespel. Visually stunning, sonically dynamic, versatile and easy to use, such systems are HED's bread and butter.

Apart from SIM2/Seleco's new DLP projector, there were almost no new home theater product introductions at Home Entertainment 2001, but the fact that a solid custom installation company like Home Entertainment Designs can't take on all the business thrown its way is proof positive that the industry is looking at many healthy years to come.