Each of these three in-ceiling models has a concealed woofer mounted at a diagonal. It fires through apertures at the front, where there are also tweeter and midrange drivers. Prices range from $400-1000/pair with ascending woofer sizes from 6 to 8.6 inches. Two buttons tailor the speaker to the space. They include a notch filter and a circuit that adjusts for room reflections.
The Polk SurroundBar 500 ($999) was first announced a year and a half ago but took some fine tuning. It moves the messy details of connectivity to an outboard rack-size box, left, allowing the enclosure to be just 0.9 inches deep. It can operate in three-, five-, and seven-channel modes. The woofers at the sides have dual voice coils to make such complex motion possible. The picture may not do justice to the dimpled surface of the drivers, which we assume is for air-flow control. Oh, and have we mentioned that Polk has overhauled its excellent LSi Series for the first time since 2002? There are two towers, a monitor, two centers, and a surround. One or more of them will prove quite reviewable.
We didn't hear much of what Noah Kaplan said during the Leon Speakers press event -- too many people, not enough decibels. But his Living Space Theater soundbar, two-thirds of which is pictured, could be heard over the noise of the show floor, summoning vocal clarity and pretty good bass considering its depth of less than two inches. The amazing Trithon REYN made a welcome reappearance. Kaplan will make CEDIA history at an event tomorrow evening in which he will paint a mural accompanied by musician Adam Roberts.
James Loudspeaker's 63SA-7 in-wall or in-ceiling speaker builds a pipe-shaped speaker three inches in diameter into a much larger back box. What if something goes wrong after the box is sealed into the wall? Just pull out the cylinder, detach its RK-45 connector, and pop in a new one. CTO Michael Park has earned the gratitude of CIs and their clients.
James Loudspeaker caught our eye with more than one fascinating product. The SPL-618 three-channel soundbar ($6000) features an unusual tweeter array, as you can see. It reminded us of the petals of a flower. Each quartet of tweeters is angled inward -- not with the intention of creating a sweet spot, but to provide good dispersion via summing. The 2.5-inch-deep bar can be made in various widths.
Carver's assets have been bought from their previous owner by the Carver Holding Group and many of the company's world-beating products will be reintroduced in early 2012. That will include amps of seven, five, and two channels, not to mention mono-blocks. What caught our eye was a new product, the CSB-601 2.1-channel soundbar. In development is a surround pre-pro. Welcome back.
On the day before the show opened, the isles were clogged with crates, ladders, and fork lifts doing the Indy 500 shuffle. For how it all looked when the crowds rolled in, scroll down until you get to the beauty shot taken on Thursday morning, opening day. Viewing the chaos on the day before, you never think they'll be ready to open on time. They always are. Kudos to the dozens of behind the scenes "stagehands" without whom there wouldn't even be a show.
DNP Denmark may not be the most well known name in screens, but it makes some unique products. Hidden behind the bobble heads in the darkened area to the right of center here is the DNP Supernova Epic, a 132" diagonal, 2.35:1, 0.8 gain model with side masking. Made in Scandinavia, so you know it's expensive. All yours for $20,000.
DNP was using projectors from projectiondesign, and while that company has no booth at CEDIA this year, I was told to watch out for press releases. We will.
But for me, projectors were the main attractions in the Mitsubishi booth. The currently available HC9000D LCOS design (2D and 3D, $6000) looked fabulous in 2D (it was not being demonstrated in 3D when I was there). I was surprised, in fact, at how bright it looked on its 143-inch diagonal, 16:9, Stewart Studiotek 130 screen (gain 1.3).
Mitsubishi has been busy this year. First was its 92", DLP rear projection set shown at last January's CES. Now they've also re-launched their Laserview RPTV—the $6000, 75", 16" deep, L75A94. I don't think the latter was being shown to best advantage, located as seen in the photo (the set against the wall on the left is the 92" DLP, the Laserview is further to the right, in the upper center of the shot), but it will be interesting to see if MItsubish can make more of a go of it than the first time it was launched several years ago.
It’s been a long year since CEDIA 2010 when Emotiva Pro first showed a high-performance pre/pro with a fully integrated Control4 controller built in. In the meantime, Emotiva Pro morphed/merged/acquired/became Sherbourn; and the new/old company says the PT-7020C4 media processor/controller should be ready to roll in just a few weeks. The PT-7020C4 is a full-blown pre/pro with 5 HDMI 1.4 ports that’s “fully 3D compatible” and “offers a true hardware bypass for direct, unprocessed 3D streams to the video monitor” in addition to having a Genesis/Torino scaling engine. The PT-7020C4 also features dual 32-bit DSPs, balanced XLR connections, and full Ethernet control.
Control4 added a new 7-inch portable touch screen controller with a capacitive full-color LCD panel that you can carry with you tablet-style through your home or use as a tabletop touch screen with it resting in its docking station. While portable and tabletop touch screens are quite cool just because they’re touch screens, the new 7-inchers from Control4 ooze even more coolness because they can be used as intercom devices that will allow you to have a conversation with another person in your home via another Control4 intercom device without requiring either person to hold down a button. Since they’re wireless and portable, you can use these touch screens to bring temporary system control or intercom access to rooms or areas of your home that don’t need a dedicated touch screen. MSRP $999.
Epson made quite a splash at last year's CEDIA with a demo of its first LCOS projectors. The company actually refers to their version of this technology as 3LCD Reflective—essentially the same thing as LCOS, though I recall that they noted in 2010 that they were liquid crystal on quartz rather than on silicon.
Atlantic Technology's Peter Tribeman was in no mood to mince words about the divergence of the video and audio industries. TV makers, he declared, "have thrown our industry under the bus." The occasion—and the solution—is a soundbar with killer bass that will "take the den and the livingroom back for the audio industry."
After Belkin's first attempt at a wireless HDMI system several years ago—which never got off the ground—the company is trying again with its new ScreenCast AV4. The system uses the 5GHz radio band and consists of a transmitter, shown here in the lower right, and a receiver (upper left) that can be up to 100 feet away in the same room. The transmitter has four HDMI inputs, which are selected with the included remote, and it can pass full-resolution 1080p and 3D signals. Available this fall, the list price is $249.
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