Tom Norton

Optoma decided to forgo its usual huge demo booth this year (there was a lot of that going around) for a more modest setup, but its new HD8600 projector kept up the excitement quotient. It offers full lens shift and three interchangeable lenses, both of them firsts for the company's projectors. It also incorporates TI's latest DarkChip3 DMD, DynamicBlack, Pixelwork's DNX MotionEngine technology, a claime4d output of 1600 ANSI Lumens, and ISFccc calibration features. The projector comes with the standard zoom lens as part of its $7499 price. Prices were not yet settled for the long and short throw zoom lens options.

Martin Logan was featuring its flagship electrostatic speakers, but also in attendance was this small, stand/bookshelf design that incorporates An AMT (Air Motion Transformer) tweeter--a technology developed by Oscar Heil in the 1970s and made popular, briefly, in a series of speakers from ESS. The demo was brief, but the sound very promising. The speakers will be available in February 2010, with models at $400 and $600 and a pair of floorstanders also are in the works. Here they were used with a pair of the currently available Dynamo 700 subwoofers (wireless, $695 each--there's also a larger $995 Dynamo 1000))

Home theater seating manufacturers are a fixture at CEDIA, and their exhibits often attract as many weary show-goers as buyers.

Here are the details on the SIM2 DLP projector with LED illumination. Expected price is $25,000. Available soon.