Tom Norton

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CES 2010
Gaming On Sony
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2010
Will it surprise anyone to hear that Sony's booth was heavy on the 3D? One heavily featured attraction was 3D for video gaming, an obvious marketing opportunity.
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CEDIA 2011
Gefen Connects You Up
Tom Norton  |  Sep 10, 2011
While we don't spend a lot of time searching out these sorts of products, adapters and processors are fundamental at CEDIA. They make the custom installer's job easier in myriad ways, and Gefen is one of the best known names in the business.
CEDIA 2009
Gefen WiFi HD
Tom Norton  |  Sep 02, 2009
Gefen is showing its GefenTV-WirelessHD sender-receiver combo ($899). Operating at 60GHz, it is said to offer high quality wireless transmission of HDMI 1.3 audio/video at up to 1080p/60 to any remote display up to 30 feet away, with no obstructions between transmitter and receiver.
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Getting Proficient
Tom Norton  |  Sep 04, 2008
Proficient is not a new company, but this is its first line of receivers. Of the three designs here (one of them 2-channel stereo), the M80 ($1250) is the most interesting. Rated at 130Wpc x 7, it offers full decoding for DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Available early in 2009.
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Gold to Newcastle
Tom Norton  |  Sep 06, 2007

Sherwood Newcastle's new R-972 AV receiver looks hot. At $1799 it has HDMI 1.3a and on-board decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio, Trinnov room equalization, 100Wpc x7, and Faroudja video processing. The smaller R-872 also has HDMI 1.3a, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio decoding, and something called SNAP room EQ. There was no one available to verify shipping dates, but I'll definitely be checking back-watch this space. $1700-$1800 seems to be the new sweet spot for high-end but pocketbook friendly AV receivers.

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CES 2012
GoldenEar Drivers
Tom Norton  |  Jan 15, 2012
GoldenEar uses these custom drivers in many of its speaker designs, including the air-motion tweeter.
CES 2012
GoldenEar Soundbar
Tom Norton  |  Jan 15, 2012
Available either alone ($1000) or with a small subwoofer and surround satellites ($2000), GoldenEar's new SuperCinema 3D Array is an unpowered soundbar (requires an external, customer-provided AVR) that appears to effectively compensate for the limited spacing of its left/right channel drivers by a second set of internal drivers to "effectively cancel out [the] crosstalk distortion between the left and right channel[s]." I spend some time listening to it, and was surprised at how effective it was. More importantly, its overall performance, while no substitute for good, well separated conventional speakers (of which GoldenEar makes more than its well-received share) was remarkable and well worth considering by those who need a space-saving, home theater solution.
Grand Illusion
Tom Norton  |  Sep 07, 2007

Snell's new Illusion A7 speaker is definitely not for the iPod crowd. But at $35,000/pair, it's currently ready for its closeup in the highest-end 2-channel systems. A center channel and smaller bookshelf models are said to be in development.

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Grand Illusions II
Tom Norton  |  Sep 07, 2007

If the price doesn't faze you, here are the details on Snell's new Flagship speaker.

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Grande Utopia
Tom Norton  |  Sep 08, 2008
The entire Focal Utopia line has been extensively re-engineered into its third generation. The flagship Grande Utopia EM ($180,000/pr) is shown. It's the first commercial loudspeaker system in decades (to our knowledge) and possibly ever (at least in the hi-fi era), to use an electromagnet in its woofer design. Electromagnets were common in the Paleolithic era, but were all but abandoned in the middle of the last century for the simplicity of the permanent magnet. But the electromagnet has undeniable advantages, including adjustability, and in this case can be used to tailor the characteristics of the speaker's bass to suite the music, the listener, and the room.
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