Among the many architectural audio products lining the Optimal Speaker Design booth at CEDIA was the company’s TheatroX11 amplifier, an oversize 11-channel model with a form factor not unlike a cooler you’d hoist along to a tailgate party. The amp even has carrying handles—a good thing, too, since it weighs 234 pounds.
Borrowing bling factor from high-end amps like those designed by former Krell chief Dan D’Agostino, the new i ·V 7 from Legacy Audio aims to appeal to both the ears and the eyes. You can easily get a sense of its visual allure from the photo above. On the audio front, the i ·V 7 uses iCEedge technology to deliver a specified 600-plus watts into 8 ohms with all seven of its channels driven, and up to 1kW into 4 ohms with less than 0.005% distortion.
While a CEDIA focus for KEF was various new in-wall and on-wall speaker models, the company was also showing off the new KF92 subwoofer in a corner of its translucent booth.
Stewart Filmscreen’s CEDIA 2019 booth served as a showcase for two products: the Luxus below-ceiling screen system, and the all-new Balón Edge fixed-frame screen.
Founded in 1972, Polk Audio is a legend in this industry, and the company’s new Legend Series is looking to capitalize on everything the company has learned over the years and push the performance boundaries in its newest series of flagship loudspeakers.
Tons of people use Amazon Alexa Echo smart speakers around their homes as an inexpensive way of utilizing voice control for a variety of tasks, and while the Echo is great in this role, it kinda sucks as an audio speaker. Klipsch wants to do something about that with its new KVA-40 and KVA-110 Echo Input Amplifiers that keep everything that’s good about the Echo while kicking the audio performance up several notches.
Launched a year ago at last year’s CEDIA, IMAX Enhanced has been busy signing new device partners such as Anthem and Strom Audio, bringing their current number of certified television and A/V receiver partners to 14. However, there has been precious little in the way of Enhanced content available to watch save for a handful of IMAX documentaries. The company was at CEDIA to announce it has signed new streaming partners to deliver content as well as studios delivering titles on physical 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc.
You can usually tell how popular – or good – a demo is at CEDIA by how steady and long the line is, and on the last day of the show, when many integrators had already left Denver to return home, one of the booth’s that was still drawing a steady crowd for its surround demonstration was Klipsch's sound room where the company debuted its new Pro Cinema Home surround system. And the experience was definitely worth the wait!
Integra used CEDIA to do a refresh at the top of its cinema surround line-up, displaying two new reference grade receivers in its “Dot 3” series along with a new flagship pre-amp processor and matching 11-channel amplifier. All of the new products are fully featured, supporting Dolby Atmos and DTS:X formats in up to 7.2.4 channels with THX Ultra certification and IMAX Enhanced support along with a host of other top-shelf performance features.
In a classic game of total one-upmanship, Ascendo Immersive Audio brought its SMSG 32 Subwoofer to CEDIA, with a immense 32-inch driver that basically called out all the other “large” subs at the show and told them to make it a sandwich. And the crazy thing? This is only the third biggest sub the company manufacturers!