LATEST ADDITIONS

It was impossible to miss the neon burst of color as I walked past the Able Planet booth at CEDIA 2013. Choose between a variety of brilliant colors with NC180 headphones ($70) or opt for the True Fidelity BT400B compact, foldable Bluetooth headphones, featuring an on-ear microphone and controls ($90), or the True Fidelity IR310TM wireless headphones, featuring a 60-foot range and 40-hour battery life ($110).

In-wall or in-ceiling speakers require there to be a minimum depth to mount into, but if you have a narrow cavity you can be out-of-luck. Or worse, out-of-luck AND with a big hole in your wall or ceiling. Fortunately, Revel has just the speaker, the new low-profile version of its 2-series in-wall/in-ceiling speaker. Designed to fit in a depts. Of only 2.8-inches these speakers will fit where others won’t. Fortunately, you won’t be skimping on sound just because you are going shallow, and you can choose between a 6 ½-inch or 8-inch woofers. Both models feature high-quality drivers including aluminum cone woofers and 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeters. They include the popular micro-bezel design and use multiple neodymium magnets to securely hold the grills in place.

Paradigm Simplifies In-Ceiling Installations Everyone talks about how speakers sound, but if you’ve ever been on top of a ladder, balancing a speaker in one hand and a drill in the other, then you’ll also care about how they install. Paradigm has redesigned its CS series – v.3 – and has made some design improvements to make the speaker easier on the installer. The new CS speakers features a new Glass-Reinforced ABS Baffle (GRAB) that have high-strength ABC clamps replacing the polymer brackets on the previous series. To further easy install, the dog-ear mounting system is angled to better bite into drywall and the speaker has a deeper set-screw which helps to hold the drill steady. The new series also has a bezel-less design and features a magnetic grille. The new series also features more robust binding posts, and some new crossover components and other sound tweaks.

Knoll Systems used CEDIA 2013 to introduce the Q450 digital multiroom amplifier that accommodates four sources and uses fully balanced input plates to combat noise and interference for music sources in distant rooms. The 4 x 50-watt amp comes in two versions: one with simple keypad control and one based on RS232 that can be controlled by iOS and Android smart devices and whole-home controllers. A four-zone kit with in-wall keypads will be available in October for $1,200.