CES 2012

One of the best parts of CES is the intellectually stimulating entertainment you’ll find at the various booths. Instead of the traditional scantily clad young women with heels so high they can barely walk, this booth chose to use a slightly different type of bird to draw attention.

I’m convinced that Soundmatters is doing something they shouldn’t be doing. It’s got to be illegal, or at least against the laws of acoustics. The company’s new foxLO is subwoofer that’s not much bigger than an external hard drive. Soundmatters says the $149 foxLO is “the world’s first palm-sized hi-fi subwoofer”. While the industrial design is very cool, that alone wouldn’t warrant giving it a listen. The claim of being “a true hi-fi subwoofer”, however, made me give it a highly skeptical listen - after which I became a true believer. This little 2.5” high x 4.5” wide x 6.3” deep unit incorporates an active woofer with passive radiator and a built-in 25-watt amplifier. And it absolutely rocks in a way that something that small shouldn’t be able to do. The foxLO is expected to be available this Spring.

The folks at Etymotic Research were showing off the company’s ETY-Plugs, “the world’s highest fidelity non-custom earplugs.” Instead of just muffling the sound, the ETY-Plugs are actually able to reduce sound approximately 20 dB in all frequencies. That means music and speech sound natural and totally intelligible, just at a much-reduced volume. Since it’s only the overall volume level that’s affected and not the natural frequency response, Etymotic says they are perfect for both musicians and audience members who want to hear what is being played but at a lower volume level. The ETY-Plugs come in two sizes. Both sell for $12.95/pair.

British speaker maker, VIBE (Vented Innovative Bass Enclosures), showed off some interesting hybrid in/on-wall speakers. The PICS (Picture Integrated Cinema Speakers) speaker cabinets are designed to extend into the wall in much the same way that a traditional in-wall speaker would, except the remainder of the speaker extends another inch or two out from the wall. In order to stealthify the speakers, they come with a basic picture frame bezel and a black, acoustically transparent grille cloth. The frame can be painted, or you can go to your local frame dealer and have a frame of your own made. VIBE says customers can choose from a number of images or submit their own image for printing on the grille cloth. Unlike other manufacturers who make art/photo grille clothes, VIBE fuses the image into the cloth. The process is supposed to maintain the acoustically transparent properties of the cloth. According to VIBE, traditional screen printing on grille cloth significantly changes the acoustic properties of the cloth.

Currently, PICS are not available in the U.S. due to a lack of distribution, but the company does intend to bring them to America. While pricing on the entire line was unavailable, the large grille-less speaker in the middle of the photo above sells for around $4,000/ea.

New at CES from Wolf Cinema is the SDC-10 3D D-ILA projector ($10,000), affectionately known as the Pup. The spec'd contrast ratio is 70,000:1, and that's without a dynamic iris! It offers three lens memories that let you preset the zoom and focus for different aspect ratios, and it can accommodate an anamorphic lens as well. The demo was BBC's Life in 2D and Legend of the Guardians in 3D shown on a 120-inch-wide Stewart Reflection 170 screen, and it looked spectacular.

In collaboration with Mark Levinson (the man, not the company), chip maker Intersil and its subsidiary D2Audio are developing a suite audio-enhancement algorithms called Mighty Cat. The idea is to use mastering tools to optimize the performance of audio hardware, such as soundbars, computer speakers, and TVs; manufacturers would "tune" the algorithms specifically for each individual product and then embed the code in the firmware of that product.

The demo I heard was played on a pair of inexpensive Logitech computer speakers. The ultimate goal is to make the Logitech speaker sound like the $25,000/pair Daniel Hertz M7 on which it is sitting in this photo—an impossible dream, to be sure, but the processing did improve the Logitech's sound dramatically, making it much richer and fuller. Intersil is in negotiations with various manufacturers to incorporate this technology into their products.

Among various high-end audio products, Meridian also announced an upgrade to its HD621 HDMI switch/audio upsampler (sitting atop a G68 pre/pro in this photo) that adds 3D passthrough. This upgrade is free to existing owners from Meridian dealers.