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Business & Tech

Home Media Center Creates State-Of-The Art Comfort

Life gets easier with JD Audio & Video Design

The one-of-a-kind, family-owned and operated home media center in Fort Lee, (JDAV) was founded by Dimitri Karlis as an electronic repair shop in 1969 in Tenafly known as JD Electronics. Repairs included TVs, VCRs and air conditioners. Karlis was one of the few repairman who repaired Sony Electronics.

When the business outgrew the location, Karlis moved to Fort Lee, where began growing the business, gaining more authorized sale dealerships, industrial repair clients and an increasing number of referral clients. He was, for example, able to acquire Sony Electronics as his first authorized dealership.

Karlis’s son, Gabriel Karlis, started working with his father as a technician in 1992. Gabriel completed his degree in engineering in 1995. Always having had an interest in his father’s electronic repair shop, Gabriel took on a more active role with the company. Along with electronic repairs, Gabriel started with in-home installations, thus expanding the business in another direction.

In 1997, Gabriel decided to branch off from the main business to start a custom audio video firm specializing in the installation of home theaters, media rooms, home automation, multi-room and high end audio systems with the full support of his family. He teamed up with some of the best contractors in the tri-state area. His business is referral and repeat.
       
“Things started to become disposable with new technology, and prices started coming down with mass production,” Gabriel Karlis said. “With this new trend, I thought there would be no more repairs to be done. I started offering services beyond repairing like connecting systems, setting up surround sound systems and things of that nature. I came across a wealthy client that had a big screen, a two-piece system with a projector in a coffee table that included a separate screen. I came up with a concept: Buy two of the same couches, raise the floor behind the first couch and create a two row feel with the feeling of a movie theater. I created a home movie theater! I build rooms around electronics as well as design, build and install components.”

For years, he said, he would run wires at a construction sight, come back, eat lunch, get dressed in a suit, meet clients and get another job.
                 
Gabriel now says, “To some extent, our business is recession proof."

"It’s a market-driven industry," he said. "When the market does well, people spend money, and when the market is not so hot, people seem to pull their money out of the market and put it in their homes. I managed to get connected with some famous people in the area, by word of mouth, creating even bigger jobs for me and pulling in more referrals.”

The big names included Beyonce, JZ, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Patrick Ewing, Lawrence Taylor and Mo Vaughn.  

On the subject of competition, Gabriel said that being primarily a referral-based company, there really isn't much.

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"Growth is great, but too much might not be so good," he said. "Big ships sink faster. My father always told me, ‘The more you grow, the faster you can sink.’ Growth is especially great with commercial projects. We have to give estimates correctly, with cautions. I have a full-on design and service department consisting of engineers, computer experts, technicians, interior designers, architects and carpenters on staff. We depend on a ‘referral’ chain.”

Gabriel said he has 32 employees he provides training to, which involves some travel and in-the-field experience.

"I take my business from Fort Lee right to the Bahamas," he said. "I currently have 12 projects in the Hampton’s, two in Ohio, one in Chicago and six Miami projects."

Gabriel, who has been installing equipment in homes, businesses, restaurants, clubs, tour busses, yachts, jets and high-rises, said, “Automation in conference rooms is increasing with video technology and audio technology with projectors, screens and TV monitors with cameras that allows viewing over the Internet."

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Projects range from $2,000 to $2,000,000, and he said that since 1992, he has completed 10,000 clients’ homes and businesses.

Gabriel said, “We are kind of behind other countries" when it comes to technology.

"I want to go beyond that and continue to improve the quality of life through technology in homes and businesses, to become automated and completely functional," he said.
                                      
Across the street from JD Audio and Video Design, which is located at 2015 Jones Road, was Fort Lee Engine No. 3, Fort Lee’s original firehouse dating way back to 1903. Gabriel, who is also an architectectural hobbiest, bought the property several weeks ago and is taking the 8,000 square feet the firehouse was on and is renovating it. The space will be used as an office, a showroom and a warehouse that will be on the second floor where there are 3,000 square feet with a 12-foot high original tin ceiling.

“It is my goal to enhance peoples lives," Gabriel said. "Take homes to the future by making things easy, comfortable and high tech. From a comfort level, JD controls HVAC by installing thermostats that are controlled and are manageable in peoples homes - they can be accessed remotely. I install automated light switches to create an environment with mood lights and  music with hidden speakers throughout the house.”
       
Gabriel lived in Fort Lee for five years and now lives in Englewood with his wife of 10 years, Pamela, and two daughters, six-year-old Penelope and four-year-old Demitra.

Gabriel was part of a made-for-TV makeover, when he did two houses in Bergenfield and Newark for Extreme Home Makeover. Companies donated over $250,000 of audio equipment for blind and deaf people for those houses in order to use technology to improve their qualify of life, a rewarding moment, according to Gabriel.

For information call JD Audio & Video Design at 201-461-7475 or visit them online.

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