CEDIA 2013

Cambridge Audio has been dinking around with Balanced Mode Radiator (BMR) drivers for a couple of years in its pint-sized Minx speakers, but now it's bringing BMR into the spotlight with a new line of full-size speakers built for conventional home theater and stereo applications.

JVC’s 2013 launch includes, as usual, two separate lines of projectors, the Reference line and the Procision line. As before, the two ranges are essentially identical in performance, with the biggest difference being that the Reference line is sold only through professional channels and the Procision line through consumer outlets. We will address only the Procision lineup here.

The new Procision lineup consists of three new models: the DLA-X900R at $12,000, the DLA-X700R at $8000, and the DLA-X500R at $5000. The DLA-X35 from last year remains in the line unchanged at $3500.

Sony’s VPL-HW55ES HD 3D SXRD projector is the follow-on to 2012’s VPL-HW50ES. It offers a claimed dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1 (using Sony’s dynamic, Advanced Iris 3), an advanced cooling system, a stated lamp life of approximately 5,000 hours, and a peak brightness of 1,700 ANSI lumens. It will be available in October at $4000.

Sony’s 4K UHD Media Player (FMP-X1), together with the Sony Xperia Z Tablet controller, are available for use with Sony’s 4K home theater projectors.

Paradigm has refreshed its world-beating Millennia CT sat/sub system as the CT 2. It still has the same one-inch tweeter and four-inch woofer, both S-PAL, the company's satin-anodized aluminum, with an eight-inch driver built into the flat-form-factor sub. The new elements are in the control module and they include Dolby Digital decoding and Buetooth with aptX. Current CT owners should check out the upgrade. Price for CT 2 is $849, shipping first quarter of 2014. Paradigm has also added a Soundtrack II to the existing Soundtrack soundbar. The new one has 2.1 channels, two one-inch S-PAL tweeters, two four-inch woofers, two 4.5-inch passive radiators, wireless sub, Bluetooth/aptX, and will sell for $899. Also new is a Soundscape soundbar designed to go with TVs 60 inches and up. This 5.0-channel bar (sub extra) has three tweeters, each mated with a midbass driver, except for the center tweeter which gets two. Each of the seven drivers is powered by 25 watts. Dolby Digital, DTS, and Bluetooth/aptX are included. Price is $1499. Both bars will ship in the first quarter of 2014.

In the past, we've found Phase Technology's three-channel passive soundbars quite persuasive, so we happily greeted the new TeatroTSB3.0. Here's the cool part: Spatial Field Expander drivers at the sides of the extruded aluminum bar push the left and right channels outward for a most un-bar-like, room-filling effect. Each of the three channels gets a classic Phase Tech 0.75-inch soft dome tweeter (this is the company that invented soft dome tweeters) plus a couple of polypropylene woofers; the SFE side drivers are one-inch aluminum domes. Shipping in late fall, price n/a. Phase Tech also showed the SB60 CA (Classic Audiophile) monitor to honor its 60th anniversary. Ken Hecht, son of the late founder Bill Hecht, remains actively involved in the company.