CEDIA 2010

Scott Wilkinson will be reporting live from CEDIA Expo 2010 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia starting September 22nd.

The CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Intallation Association) Expo is where many high end audio/video manufacturers preview upcoming products for the media, dealers, and installers of custom home theaters and whole-house audio/video systems.

The background stories of most trade shows typically involve too much walking, too much drinking, and too much hyping. And there’s plenty of that to go around here at CEDIA. But one of the good parts of being in the custom installation industry is that, for the most part, the people involved are usually decent, good people. It didn’t take long for me to discover that sometimes forgotten fact on Thursday when I reached down to find my phone not snuggled close to my hip in its holster. After a brief period of panic during which several people heard me cry for my mommy, I ran into friend and past HT Mag contributor, David Birch Jones, who explained that there was such a thing as calling your own phone to see if anyone who might have found it would answer. (I was dumbfounded at the concept!) It didn’t take more than two rings before CEDIA Samaritan, Andrew Bransby of MD Central Vacuums (www.builtinvacuum.com), answered to say that he had indeed found it and was holding it safe at the MD Central Vacuums booth (right across from LG). Thanks, Andrew, you’re a lifesaver!

The front of the Classé CT0M600 mono-block amp does double duty as faceplate and ventilation panel, with heat vented around the dove grey center papel. The 600-watt amp costs $6500 -- multiply that by five, seven, or whatever. To go with it you may want the SSP-800 pre-pro which is HDMI 1.4 compliant and goes for $9500. The company also showed the CP-800 stereo preamp with iPod-savvy USB input, jitter reduction, and bass management, the latter unusual and welcome in a two-channel piece. Price TBA.

If you don't know the drill, you will soon. That 3DTV from brand A will only work with the glasses from brand A, not from brand B, C, or D. But Monster Cable has an answer. The new Monstervision Max 3D glasses are said to work on any 3DTV.

Want to use AirPlay to connect your Denon XX11-series a/v receiver to your iTunes library? There's an app for that, and while it's a $49 value, you can get it as a free upgrade for awhile starting in November. Denon also has a separate receiver-control app for iThings.

At CEDIA, Digital Projection introduced a product so new, it doesn't even have a name yet. It's a 1080p, LED-lit DLP projector expected to list for about $10,000 and designed for extremely short-throw situations—in the demo from which this photo was taken, the projector was directly above a 6-foot-wide Stewart Studiotek 130 screen at a throw distance of only 12 inches! The light from the lens bounces off an integrated mirror and onto the screen at a severe angle, which means there must be some pretty sophisticated geometric processing going on. It also provides wireless HDMI connectivity, though the rep I spoke with didn't know which type. Unfortunately, it was difficult to judge image quality in the brightly lit show-floor environment.

Sandy Gross is well known in the industry as the founder or co-founded both Polk Audio and Definitive Technology. Now he is on his third launch, GoldenEar Technology. The first product range is spearheaded by the Triton Two Tower, consisting of a built-in, DSP-controlled digital amp, two bass drivers and two passive radiators, and two 4.5" bass/midrange drivers flanking a centrally-located High Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter. The latter is based on the classic Oscar Heil tweeter first employed in the 1970s.