Oops, Paradigm has done it again. The original Reference Series Studio 20 was a simple rectangular solid. In version 4 it acquired a curved tweeter-on-top portion. And at CEDIA, Paradigm showed yet another new version with side curves. The former vinyl wrap has also given way to wood veneers. As a user of two generations of Studio 20s, including the now-outgoing one, I'm more than interested in this. How amazing that it should happen in the same show where Rotel updated my reference receiver. The new Studio 20 ships in January, pricing to be determined.
Velodyne’s new in-wall subwoofer uses two active forward-firing drivers and two rectangular passive drivers. One passive driver fires upward at a 45-degree angle while the other fires downward at a 45-degree angle. Velodyne says this helps to cancel out vibrations that might transfer to the wall. It fits in a standard 2” x 4” wall and comes with an external 400-watt amplifier that includes a 5-band EQ, built-in test generator, microphone, and remote control.
The three subs in Velodyne’s new Optimum series come with remote controls that have a built-in magnet letting you stick the remote control on the back of the sub when you’re not using it. The adjustment controls and display, on the other hand, are located on the front where you can actually see them and get to them much easier than if they were on the back.
The TiVo HD XL ($599) records up to 150 hours in HD. It can even record two shows at once. Loaded with "DTV transition ready" ATSC tuner and a CableCARD slot, it has been voted The Product Mark Fleischmann Is Most Likely to Have Slipped into His Briefcase If the THX People Hadn't Been Hanging Around Him Trying to Tell Him Stuff.
The new Canton Reference 3.2DC is a second-generation implementation with ceramic-aluminum tweeter and aluminum mid and woofers, with the mid on top. It and the new GLE line have rounder contours surrounding the baffle to improve dispersion. The Ergo has gone from black to silver cones and the Vento has added a very handsome curved center. Wood veneers on the glossy Reference and not-so-glossy Vento are furniture grade and would not mar even the nicest home decor. Canton is nailing the in-a-box crowd with the DM 2, a 2.1-channel system that will also be available in a 5.1-channel version with a wireless surround option. The bidirectional RF LCD remote looks pretty spiffy.
BG's THX-certified BGX-4850 is an in-wall sub that fits into a 7 by 26.5 inch space with standard 2x4 construction. Backed with an external 2200-watt amp, it uses a series of four-inch cones paired off and facing one another, a strategy known as mass balancing. It was demoed amid the sonic chaos of the show floor and did produce good bass.
New amps from Krell are always hot news for audiophiles, and these two would also be at home in a high-end home theater. The S-275 2-channel amp ($5500) sports 275Wpc into 8 ohms and 550Wpc into 4 ohms. Two of them are shown on top. LIke all Krell amps, this one is also comfortable into almost any load, even very low impedances. Switches allow easy bridging, producing a powerful monoblock.
Krell's new high-end surround preamp-processor ($30,000) has all the requisite bells and whistles, including decoding for all the new audio formats and video processing via Genesis chips suppoorted by Krell-designed circuitry. Available now.
Sim2 demonstrated three of its DLP projectors, but their big launch was the D60, a single-chip 1080p DLP at $6000--a new low price point for the company.
Numinus can put a full star field on the ceiling in your home theater – or anywhere you want them to for that matter. If you ask them nicely, they’ll also create a sky dome for you that’ll change from daylight to nighttime whenever you choose. For the really star struck, Numinus can reproduce the way the stars looked in the sky on the day you were born, married, or, maybe, first discovered they could put a sky dome in your room. The stars can be set to twinkle (a little or a lot), and very realistic shooting stars can be programmed, too.
Dali announced its news Lektor loudspeaker line. There are three bookshelf speakers in the line (at $450, $475, and $645 per pair) an LCR suitable for any channel ($420 each), two floor-standers (the 8 at $1800/pair and the 6 at $1200/pair, and an upcoming subwoofer. At this price point, the Dali ribbon tweeter is gone, replaced by a dome tweeter and a cone midrange. Available in late October.
No, it’s not the latest fundraiser asking you to donate a buck for each meter Accell’s new cable can send an HDMI 1.3 signal. The UltraRun 1.3 series of cables includes lengths of up to 25 meters that sport built-in signal repeaters. The repeater on one end of the cable is detachable making the cable easier to pull through walls. It’s also easier to replace the repeater if it should cease repeating.
Epson launched several new projectors at CEDIA. The most exciting was the flagship PowerLite Pro Cinema 7500UB ($5000, December). Demonstrated with both standard 16:9 material and 2.35:1, the latter with the optional anamorphic lens ($6000) on a 101.5" wide, 2.35:1 Stewart Studiotek 130 screen, it looked superb--probably the best projector I saw at the show at its price or less, and competitive with some far more expensive designs. Blacks were excellent, too, particularly since this LCD design was demonstrated without any help from its dynamic iris.
Triad’s new InWall Silver/4 Omni Sconce brings together two things that like watts – a speaker and an LED light. Although you can’t color the sound, the speaker does come with color gel options of amber, orange, green, red, blue, and yellow.
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