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CES 2009
A Room With A View
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Jon Banner took this wonderful picture with my Panasonic Lumix TZ3 camera. Those are Ultimateavmag's Product of the Year Awards lined up on the table in the SourceInterlink suite at the Venetian. Outside the window is a long view of Las Vegas.

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CES 2009
Product of the Year Award, Kevin Voecks of Revel
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments

Designer Kevin Voecks accepts the Ultimate AV magazine's 2007 Speaker System of the Year award for Revel's Ultima2 Studio2 system. This $36,000 system <a href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/1207poty/" target="new"> (click here to see a full list of this year's award recipients) </a> earned high praise indeed from Tom Norton in his review when he referred to it as the best sound he has ever heard in his home theater.

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Waterfall Glass Speakers Actually Work
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
In fact, these glass-enclosed speakers work amazingly well. The advantages of glass are high density, rigidity, and (with the aid of a damping chamber behind the drivers) "no vibrations," presumably meaning none of the bad kind. Warmth, depth, and solid controlled bass were what I heard and quite liked. Waterfall will also offer on-walls when the French manufacturer gets its U.S. distribution nailed down, which should happen any minute now.
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Happy 20th to Totem
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
Totem Acoustic enters its third decade with a 20th anniversary version of the venerable model known as The One. The stand-mount monitor features a new crossover, platinum speaker terminals, and redesigned drivers. Exhibited with always-fabulous Naim electronics, this was the best sound I heard at the show, with an up-close laser-like focus that turned a guitar pick scraping steel strings into a revelation. Plenty of woody guitar-body midrange detail too. And the depth, oh, the depth. The price is $3595/pair, you can buy a surround configuration if you want, and act now because only 2000 pairs will be made.
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CDT's One|Sound Is Best Teeny Sat Ever
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
The best truly tiny satellite we've ever heard is the One|Sound Model 2.2 from CDT Audio. Mounted to the wall, the two-inch mid-tweeter handled everything above 200Hz with confidence and ease--we actually thought, at first, that the surprisingly coherent sound came from larger models sitting below. To really show how small these things are, we started pulling stuff out of our pockets to indicate scale. We're guessing CDT will do well by appealing to the existing audience for the almost equally small Bose Jewel Cubes--which are sold only as part of an integrated system and thus operate at a competitive disadvantage.
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TacT Enters the Age of HDMI 1.3
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
No one, and we mean no one, has been doing room correction longer or better than TacT. But unlike a lot of other manufacturers of high-end surround preamp-processors, TacT has been quick to adopt HDMI 1.3, so the new TCS pre-pro can handle Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, etc. Each of 12 channels may be configured as a main or sub channel. The ICS (Internet Correction Services) feature will let you upload your settings to the web where they may be analyzed or stored. The before-and-after demo revealed a better focused (but not as warm) sound in the after part. The product will ship in February for 15 grand.
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Thiel Swaggers into 21st Century
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
Do we detect an extra spring in Thiel's step? The revered but staid speaker maker suddenly let fly with THIELnet, which retrofits existing speaker and sub models for the networked present and future. Using wireless technology from Bicon, better known in the telco industry, THIELnet offers either wireless or ethernet connections from either 5.1-channel or multiple stereo sources. The newly renovated models include the SCS4D stand-mount speaker (based on the SCS4) and the SS1D sub (based on the SS1). You go, Thiel.
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CES 2009
TVs with Laser Beams On Them– Is That Too Much To Ask For?
Fred Manteghian  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  2 comments

Last night, Mitsubishi took the Moon nightclub on the roof of the Palms Casino and turned it into a discothque to premier their long in development laser TV. Using fanfare fitting the unveiling of a major work of art (which in a way, it was), Mitsubishi lit up three of their rear projector laser engine TVs. They were at least 65" in diagonal, though we weren't told an exact size. Each was also about as thin as the thinnest DLP or LCD rear project TVs.

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Head Bangers…Not!
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
On-wall bipole speakers are usually mounted at head-height and are therefore dangerous obstacles for movie watchers who get up to go to the bathroom in a darkened home theater. (Talk about being able to feel the surround effects!) Sunfire’s new on-wall bipole speaker features the company’s Cinema Ribbon high frequency drivers and a Tweeter Shaping circuit that allows the installer to tailor the high frequency output without affecting the crossover relationship between the Cinema Ribbons and the cone woofer. In addition to being the only on-wall ribbon bipole speaker available, the new CRM-21BP is one of the slimmest on-wall bipoles – only 3 5/8” deep.
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NXTiny
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 08, 2008  |  0 comments
NXT doesn’t make products directly. They license the technology and help other companies bring their products to market. One of the companies using NXT’s flat speaker technology is Shinhint. They demonstrated several products, including monitors, TV sound bar speakers, and tabletop speaker phones as part of NXT’s press presentation this morning.
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