Official CES Attendance Revised Downward
Posted Mon Jan 12, 2009, 1:16 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
CES attendance was down a bit more than expected, according to figures released on the last day of the show by the Consumer Electronics Association. 2008 attendance had been 147,000. Estimated attendance for 2009 had been 131,000. But in its press release, CEA has revised those numbers downward to 110,000.
As the audio editor of Home Theater, I found my glass nearly as full as usual. True, the South Hall had fewer audio exhibits than usual. I hoovered them up in a few hours, a process that would normally take a full day. But the growth of exhibits at the Venetian made up for most of it, occupying the better part of two days, so I was quite busy, as you can see below. I consider this show a success for my category.
And a trade show that attracts more than a hundred thousand people has to be considered a success by any standard. CES 2009 boasted 20,000 products spread across 1.7 million square feet and it kept our staff of bloggers hopping around the clock!
Bryston Pre-Pro
Posted Mon Jan 12, 2009, 1:10 AM ET
By Tom Norton
Bryston had this classy-looking new preamp-processor, the SP-3, on static display. It will have all the important bells and whistles, including decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio, when it goes on sale, probably in the second half of 2009. No prices were given.
More from the House of Usher
Posted Mon Jan 12, 2009, 1:02 AM ET
By Tom Norton
Usher showed up with a whole new line of relatively affordable speakers, the NV series. They're still being refined, but should be available in a few months. The NV 601 is the smallest model in the line. I was one of the first to hear it; they hooked it up for the first time at the show (they claimed) just before I walked into the room, and a few minutes from the close of the show (they had been featuring their more upscale models in their two rooms throughout the show). The sound was impressive, with a solid midrange, good balance, and detailed but very sweet highs— just the right balance for home theater and music. Estimated price will be in the neighborhood of $1100/pair (stands not included). There are also two floor standers and a center channel, the NV 603.
Mythos Making
Posted Mon Jan 12, 2009, 0:58 AM ET
By Tom Norton
The new Mythos 9 ($800) from Definitive Technology may be used as an on-wall LCR speaker, or alternately as a center channel with Def Tech's Mythos STS Super Towers.
Pass Through
Posted Mon Jan 12, 2009, 0:06 AM ET
By Tom Norton
Some audiophiles combine their home theater and 2-channel systems. If they have a modest AV receiver, but want to improve the sound of their system, especially for 2-channel playback, one possibility is to use a separate, quality stereo integrated amp to drive the front left and right channels, with their best 2-channel sources connected directly to it. The receiver's front left and right preamp outputs are then connected to one of the line level inputs of the integrated amp for home theater use. This can be made more direct, with less chance of messing with the calibrated home theater volume levels, if the integrated amp offers a fixed-level, pass-through input (independent of the integrated amp's volume control) to which the receiver's front channel preamp outputs can be connected.
The new Nova from Peachtree audio offers that. It also offers a myriad of other features, including a tube output stage for the preamp section, three analog inputs, an on-board 24/96 upsampling D/A converter with multiple digital inputs, and a USB digital input for direct connection to a home computer music server. The amp section is rated at 80Wpc, and the amp is also equipped with a Class A headphone amp. Peachtree Audio claims that the quality of the Nova's low-jitter D/A converter alone matches that of more expensive dedicated D/A converters. All that for $1199 in Black, Rosewood, and Cherry.
RBH Unveils Second in Command
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 10:23 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
The RBH 8300 tower ($8300/pair) is second from top of the line. It has three eight-inch woofers, two 6.5-inch mids, and a 1.1-inch silk dome tweeter. Except for the tweeter, sourced from ScanSpeak, all drivers are proprietary. Thirty finishes are available. Matching center and other models will spring from the loins of RBH's designers in due time.
DCM Features Synthetic Silk Driver
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 10:22 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
The 1.25-inch Teteron tweeter in this year-old DCM speaker line is called "synthetic silk." It's said to be as thin as silk, distinguishing it from other synthetic drivers, but is stronger and impervious to moisture. Here it's part of the TFE200 tower ($1000/pair), TFE60C center ($350), and TFE160BDP bipole/diple surround ($500/pair). DCM makes it and the other drivers used in the series, which include 6.5-inch kevlar or glass fiber woofers.
Acoustic Technologies Makes One Driver Sound Sweet
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 10:19 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
Say hello to Acoustic Technologies, which made its world debut at CES with a product three years in the making. The Classic is a slim tower using a single three-inch full-range driver. Why not do woofers and tweeters? Because they insert a crossover, and with it various irregularities and ill effects, into the signal path. Don't laugh -- this speaker had a highly natural, pleasing, gentle, ungimmicky sound with a well developed midrange and good soundstaging. Vocals sounded just right. Complementary models will arrive next year to bring the new company into surround territory.
Revolver Shows Large On-Wall
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 10:18 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
This company, once known for beautifully simple and relatively affordable British-made turntables, has branched out into other territories, including the Screen 2 on-wall speaker ($4399/pair). It's roughly four feet tall, and weighs 44 pounds, but is just four inches deep. The driver array includes an eight-inch woofer, two five-inch mids, and one-inch tweeter. The wall bracket is a simple two-piece affair. One part attaches to the wall and the other part to the speaker, so it's easy to remove the speaker from the wall. Revolver has an even bigger on-wall in the planning stage.
Arcam Goes HDMI
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 10:13 PM ET
By Mark Fleischmann
The AVR600 ($5000, bottom) is the first HDMI receiver from British manufacturer Arcam and therefore the company's first model to support lossless surround. It's HDMI 1.3, of course -- otherwise why bother? -- with five ins and two outs. The seven times 120 watt amp is Class G, which combines Class AB power output with a linear tracking power supply that ensures peaks are well-supplied with juice. Though Arcam had previously used Class G in HTiB products, this is the first implementation in an a/v receiver. Shipping in February. The company also showed a prototype of a forthcoming Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player (top) – Tom has the details below.
Arcam is Blu
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 9:57 PM ET
By Tom Norton
In addition to its AVR600 A/V receiver (expected to ship in March, which is when we're hoping to get a sample for review), Arcam showed an early prototype Blu-ray player. It wasn't quite bug-free, but then it's probably nine months away from market, leaving plenty of time for Arcam to sort them all out. To our knowledge, this makes Arcam and Cambridge Audio, both of them UK companies, the only two small, specialty manufacturers to come forward with a Blu-ray player. The system was producing great sound through a pair of Totem Wind speakers and an Arcam subwoofer
Anthem Projects
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 9:46 PM ET
By Tom Norton
Anthem showed two new projectors, the LTX 500 at $7500 and the LTX 300 at $5500. Both will ship in April. My photos did not come out, but visualize if you will JVC's newest LCoS models. For that's what they are—JVCs with Anthem logos. The Anthem folks freely admitted this; why deny a good thing. I didn't get to experience the Anthem demo; they closed it down three hours before the official close of the show.
Wi-Fi on a Blu-ray Player: Finally!!
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 8:11 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
Both of Samsung’s new BD players, the uber cool hang-on-the-wall BD-P4600 (shown here) and BD-P3600 look good and are fully loaded BD players with BD-Live and full audio decoding. But finally, a manufacturer has acknowledged that not everyone has hardwired Ethernet near their AV gear. Samsung includes a W-Fi dongle for both of these players. The PlayStation 3 has been alone in offering this feature far too long. Bravo Samsung!
he Third Dimension
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 7:23 PM ET
By Tom Norton
3D was a big story at CES. Or at least with several manufacturers, apparently looking for the Next Big Thing. Most of the demos were dismal. The best was from Panasonic. It used shuttered glasses and claimed full HD resolution. More on Panasonic's 3D initiative near the bottom of this blog file (it was posted on the first day). Even Panasonic's however, conducted on their big 103" plasma, suffered from motion lag, uncharacteristic of that form of display, on some of the clips. Much of the material, however, looked stunning.
24/192
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 7:06 PM ET
By Tom Norton
In the TAD room at the Venetian, speaker engineer Andrew Jones was demonstrating the $30,000/pair TAD Compact reference stand-mount speaker, which features a sophisticated coaxial midrange tweeter driver with beryllium cone/dome material (Similar drivers are used in the far less expensive Pioneer speakers also designed by Jones, though they use beryllium only for the tweeter dome.
The room also featured demonstration of 24-bit/196kHz, 2-channel music, much of it recorded by recording engineer Bill Schnee, who was on hand to discuss his enthusiasm for the format. Most of it sounded fabulous on the TAD speakers, limited only by the modestly-powered (100W) Pass amplifiers. Shnee and others are pushing to get such 24/96 material released on music-only Blu-ray disc.
Blu-ray Goes Mo-bile
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 3:25 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
No pricing or availability was set yet, but Panasonic showed this portable Blu-ray player, which includes the same capabilities as its standard players. It uses the same outstanding UniPhier decoding/processing chip the standalone players do, and here’s a trick- it also has an HDMI out so you can plug it into your TV when you get back home from your road trip. Because you can doesn’t mean you will, but that’s still kinda cool.
Viera Cast Meets Blu-ray in the Amazon
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 3:16 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
Panasonic’s DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55 players have been ensconced in our Top Picks since last fall. That they’ve been replaced by the DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80 is significant in and of itself, but that’s not the half of it. The core DVD/BD functionality remains the same on the new players, which means top notch BD and DVD playback. Both are BD-Live capable (and they still require the user to buy SD media for storage which remains my only gripe with the players). But what’s new is Viera Cast. Through this networked player users can now access Internet sourced content from YouTube, Picasa photo sharing, Bloomberg Weather Channel and now Amazon Video On Demand. I think players like this one, and those from LG and Samsung will expand Blu-ray’s growth exponentially this year. I think there’s a better opportunity for players with more value-add features at higher prices than players that only play movies at even cheaper prices. Not forcing users to choose between Blu-ray and streaming/downloading is a big plus in my book. Plus, nothing will make Blu-ray’s strengths more apparent than easy direct comparison to streaming video. The new players will be available this spring. Pricing was not determined yet but I'd expect them to be in line with current pricing on the BD35 and BD55.
Minority Report on Allio
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 2:51 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
Now this is an IPTV. Or a PC TV. Or a home theater pc built into a TV? Or a TV with an HTPC built in? Who cares! Anyone who’s used an iPhone or an iPod Touch or a Sooloos knows the future of interface is in touch screens. Allio’s IPTV’s are built around a Vista Media Center platform and have touch screen options on their smaller models. The screen you see here has two Internet-driven streams playing on screen with a third window showing Hulk on Blu-ray (that’s the ever so lovely Jennifer Connelly there). I was able to move, manipulate and resize these windows, images and media using my fingers like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. It’s striking how much the PC gets out of the way when controlled by touch. Cool stuff.
Vivitek Gets the LED Out Of DLP
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 2:11 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
Vivitek was the only manufacturer I found showing DLP projection with an LED light source. And there’s good reason for that- the company claims an exclusive deal with Texas Instruments on its LED-based DLP light engines. This technology is significant in two areas- no bulb replacements, ever, and no more color separation “rainbow” artifacts. The H6080FD is full 1080p, and incorporates TI’s DynamicBlack dynamic iris system. The image was being shown on a very small screen by front projection standards, but had a lot of pop and detail with rainbows nowhere to be seen. The 6080 is due later this year at an MSRP of $19,999. This is a new wrinkle we’re very anxious to get a closer look at!
A DVR with some real Moxi
Posted Sun Jan 11, 2009, 1:31 PM ET
By Shane Buettner
Consumers can now pump up their DVR experience with Digeo’s Moxi high-def DVR. This HD DVR is aimed solely at digital cable subscribers. It requires a multistream CableCARD, and allows users to record two shows while watching already recorded programs. In addition to a slick proprietary interface, the Moxi ships with 500GB of internal storage. That’s 75 hours of HD recording, which more than doubles what I’ve got in my Comcast DVR. But cooler still is that the eSATA port is active and you can increase that storage to 2 terabytes! Remote web scheduling is allowed and happens in real-time. Although On-demand dover cable doesn’t work with Multistream CableCARD there is a host of content that can be streamed from the Internet, including Flickr photo sharing, Finetune, and weather and sports info. Digeo says more will follow. HT has already acquired one of these units for review, so there’s more to follow. Digeo also threw out another tidbit- the Moxi Mate pictured here on top of the DVR will allow users to network the Moxi experience throughout the house cost effectively. As a sign of the times, Digeo is launching this component with Amazon as its exclusive retailer. Or, e-tailer if you will. Available now at $799.
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