Thomas J. Norton

By now you've likely heard of Dolby Atmos-Enabled speakers, which include an additional driver or drivers firing out of the top at an angle to bounce Atmos' height information off your ceiling if installation of ceiling speakers is impractical--as it will be for most of us. In addition to dedicated Atmos-Enabled speakers, several add-on modules were seen at CEDIA, which are designed to sit on top of your main left and right front speakers and surrounds if you want to add Atmos but don't want to replace your entire speaker system.

The 44-DA from Atlantic technology is designed for this purpose. At $500/pair, it employs a concentric driver (a coaxial woofer-tweeter). While designed to be a perfect fit atop the company's THX-4400 L/R speakers, it can be used on any speaker with a flat top surface large enough to accommodate its approximately 8.4-inch width and 9.5-inch depth.

Sony's booth at CEDIA EXPO never approaches its presence at CES, but inside the pillars surrounding its exhibit and announcing its presence it demonstrated a stacked pair of its VPL-VW1100ES 4K projectors using material stored on its media server. I didn't think these projectors were performing at their best (and having reviewed both the VPL-VW1000 (the predecessor to the VPL-VW1100ES and essentially identical in performance if not in features) and the VPL-VW600ES I can vouch that they are competitive with the best home theater projectors you can buy). But on music a Sony ES audio system did extremely well, even if the room was far from optimum for sound.

One piece missing, however, was the new VPL-VW300ES projector Sony introduced recently at IFA (IFA is the European CES--more or less). The VPL-VW300ES is a stripped down and less expensive VPL-VW600ES, eliminating such features as the dynamic iris and lens memory. My Sony contact indicated that the company does not intend to market this projector here.

Classe introduced its new Sigma line at the show, consisting of the Sigma SSP surround sound preamp processor and two amps, the 5-channel Amp5 and the 2-channel Amp2. The latter are both compact class D designs offering 200W per channel into 8 ohms and 400W per channel into 4 ohms.

The Sigma SSP, shown in the photo (though it looks far, um, classier in real life than my middling photography might indicate. It is loaded with features, including SPDIF and 24-bit asynchronous USB digital inputs, DSP-produced parametric EQ and tone control on all channels, and all of the other modes and features of any competent pre-pro. But it has only one HDMI output, is only HDMI 1.4, and is not yet Dolby Atmos-ready. But it's modular design should make future Hardware updates possible. The Sigma SSP and Amp5 are $5000 each, and the Amp 2 is $3500. All three should be available by the end of the year.

Christie also showed (but did not demonstrate) its DWX 555-G, a 2K, single-chip DLP projector with laser illumination. Rated at 5000 lumens, it can be yours for $17,995.