CEDIA 2009

Home theater or digital cinema at home? Wolf Cinema’s DLP digital projectors blur the line. The biggest, baddest Wolfs (Wolves?) are three-chip DLP projectors with full 1080p resolution, constant screen height, and scalable light output configurations for a wide variety of screen sizes, materials and lighting conditions- including very large screens. They are custom install centric in that they run hot and require professional installation and ventilation. Wolf Cinema’s distributor seems open to getting us a review sample, so it looks like I might get to take this Ferrari for a drive!

From Bryston in the Great White North comes the Torus RM100 BAL, a power line conditioner designed to not only totally isolate your system from garbage and spikes on the AC power line, but to provide higher instantaneous peak current, acting as a very low impedance current source, to juice-hungry components such as large power amps. This monster, with its humongous toroidal transformer, is MUCH bigger than the picture suggests (27"x 20.5" x 10.5", 220 lbs). $8500.

More on Procella: "You can't buy them" -- that's what visiting engineers used to be told by the denizens of the DTS testing room in Europe. That is what inspired the Procella folks to go into the speaker business. Following a third-generation redesign, now you can buy them. Shown is the P8, bolted on the P15, and don't call the latter a subwoofer. It's a "powered bass unit" that goes down to 40Hz at a thundering 126dB.

LCD televisions with LED backlighting were all over the show (but c'mon Toshiba and others, they are LCD TVs with a new form of backlighting, NOT LED TVs), and Toshiba's 670 series with local dimming are among the best. We know, because you'll see a review of one in our November 2009 issue.

As <A href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/toshiba_to_make_blu-ray_players/">repo... here</A> in July, Toshiba recently decided to enter the Blu-ray fray after its defeat in the high-def-disc format war. At CEDIA, we'll finally see the first fruit of that decision&#151;the BDX2000, which should be available in November for $250. This Profile 2.0 (BD-Live) player offers 1080p/24 output, decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, AVCHD playback, and an SD card slot, into which you must insert a module with at least 1GB for BD-Live operation since the player doesn't have enough onboard memory.

Of the few live audio demos I heard on the show floor, Triad's was among the most impressive. The company introduced its Cinema Plus home-theater package of in-wall speakers, including three modified Platinum LCRs in front, six Gold surrounds, and 12 modified Silver subwoofers powered by a total of 6kW. Also included in the package is a detailed installation plan from home-theater consulting firm PMI, acoustic treatments, and tech support.

Trufig is a new brand from the founders of Sonance. Its job is to make touchscreens, lightswitches, and other custom installable goodies practically disappear into the wall, as you can see in the pic -- old-style fixtures at right, disappearing ones at left. It was inspired by the after-the-fact design process that's been taking place when Sonance's architectural speakers come up against the wishes of architects and interior designers. The things being made to disappear are not actually Sonance or Trufig products but things like Crestron touchscreens and Lutron light fixtures. Starting at $300 for a single-gang fixture, Trufig is not cheap, but it will presumably find its way into the high-end custom install market.