Sonance showed a massive redo of its amplifier line-up, reducing offerings from 29 amp models down to a lean-and-mean five! At the same time, the company made significant improvements throughout the line, making significant feature upgrades and going from a traditional inefficient, heat producing, analog design to new digital models.
Sonance invented the architectural speaker category in 1983 and this year the company is showing more products - 50 - than ever before. The company launched the Visual Performance series back in 2007 and the aesthetic with micro-bezel and magnetic grille was a real revolution to the in-wall speaker design. This year, Sonance has given the Visual Performance series a radical sonic makeover resulting in in-wall speakers that the company says will sound as good as freestanding speakers.
Sonos, one of the world’s leaders in wireless audio distribution, has many fans, but one product has always been missing from its lineup: a truly portable speaker that could be at home out in the elements. Many people would tote a small Sonos One or larger Play:5 speaker around their homes, plugging it into an outlet near wherever they want to listen, but this was never a perfect solution. The company has finally filled this void with Move, a new battery-powered weatherproof speaker.
Traditional window treatments – blinds, drapes, curtains – may give you some privacy and block the sun, but they really aren’t that cool. Motorized options from the likes of Lutron and Hunter Douglas certainly raise the high-tech bar and add some remote control capabilities, but even they look like old news when you watch SONTE Film in action.
Sony showed one of the coolest audio innovations of the Consumer Electronics Show with the debut of the company’s new PS-HX500 turntable. While the HX500 is a fully functional, belt-driven turntable on its own with an analog output that can feed any audio system, it also features a USB output that can be connected to a computer to create ultra-high resolution, exact digital captures of the album including all of the vinyl's signature sound.
By now you may have read Al Griffin's review of the Sony PlayStation 3 game console featured in the January 2007 Sound & Vision. Since Sony is the major driving force behind the development of the Blu-ray Disc format, it's no real surprise that Al found the PS3 to be a stellar movie player.