Mark Fleischmann

CES 2012
Lexicon Amp Is Mating with Receivers
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 11, 2012
You'd think a Lexicon multichannel amplifier would get hooked up almost exclusively to a Lexicon pre-pro. But we're told the DD-8 amp is actually being used by a lot of consumers as an upgrade for an a/v receiver which is then relegated to the role of pre-pro. A winner of awards at both CES and CEDIA, the amp musters 125 watts into eight channels and sells for $2500.
CES 2012
Forbidden Fruit Beckons at Venetian
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 11, 2012
It is hard to walk from the Sands Convention Center to the audio exhibits at the Venetian Towers without noticing this tempting array of candy apples. They sure looked better than the modest fruit distributed with the press room's box lunches.
CES 2012
Thiel Shows New Entry-Level Floorstander
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
The first development project to follow the death of the late, great Jim Thiel is the CS1.7, which will replace the decade-old CS1.6 as the company's entry-level floorstanding speaker. Its aluminum drivers include a one-inch tweeter and a 6.5-inch woofer with the familiar vibration-controlling star diaphragm. A CS7.3 flagship tower will follow eventually. Given Thiel's traditionally long and pensive development philosophy, it's anyone's guess when the larger speaker will arrive, but the smaller one is very tentatively slated for the first quarter of this year at around $5000-5500.
CES 2012
Talking Dog Dominates Onkyo Reportage
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
This is Mishka the talking dog saying "I love you" on YouTube. No kidding. If it's on the internet, you know it must be true. This was actually a demo of InstaPrevue, a feature being built into Onkyo's network-enabled a/v receivers. The cool part, aside from the talking dog, is that you can view picture insets showing the content of source components as opposed to prosaic text labels like HDMI1, HDMI2, or that classic of the genre, HDMI3. The talking dog (have we mentioned the talking dog?) was being streamed from an iPhone via MHL, or Mobile High-definition Link, another new Onkyo receiver feature. Onkyo was also talking up cloud storage capability for receivers via its partnership with MP3tunes. The first two gigabytes are free.
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CES 2012
K9 Unit Protects Showgoers
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
CES attendees are being protected by state-of-the-art bomb-sniffing technology. We're not kidding. There is nothing more sensitive than a dog's nose.
CES 2012
Are These Jamos a Mirage?
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
Not much has emerged from the Denmark-born Jamo speaker brand since its acquisition by the Klipsch Group, now itself acquired by Audiovox. But that's changing with a bevy of new Jamo products including the MS25 satellite speaker shown here. What a civilian might identify as a tweeter firing into a spoon is actually Jamo's implementation of OmniPolar technology acquired along with Mirage. This new design was reshaped by authentic Danish designers. There will be no new products labeled Mirage, bringing an end to the historic Canadian speaker brand. The product development guy who briefed us punctuated his presentation by saying "Mirage is a brand, OmniPolar is a technology"—a technology living on under another banner.
CES 2012
Klipsch Shows Very Large Console Speaker
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
As reported by our colleague Darryl Wilkinson, the Klipsch press conference mentioned the G-17 Air compact system, whose drivers and flat enclosure hail from the new Gallery line, and the ginormous one-piece Console, the latter to be produced in Klipsch's hometown of Hope, Arkansas. But the latter was not shown at the time, so here it is. Interesting, the bleeding-edge Palladium and other higher-end Klipsch lines are moving their manufacturing from China back to Arkansas due to higher costs in the former. This isn't a knock against the Chinese but we can't help feeling pleased that more Klipsch speakers are going to be made in America.
CES 2012
Atlantic Technology Demos Smaller H-PAS in 5.0
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
The Atlantic Technology exhibit at the Venetian featured the first 5.0-channel demo of the smaller H-PAS speaker. We hope to atone for this awful picture of of it with a quasi-review in our print mag. What depraved impulse moved us to go gallivanting off to Vegas when this product was sitting in our bedroom? H-PAS uses a variety of construction techniques to produce deep, true bass without resorting to a sub. While this demo was less than ideal, we could still hear an ideally proportioned rhythm section with precisely pitched bass guitar tones and good impact from the drums. Closing our eyes actually made it sound better: Once we were freed from the tyranny of visually reinforced preconceptions, our ears told us this was the good stuff. Incidentally, the speaker will be sold in single units, so if you want five or seven of them, no sweat.
CES 2012
Vegas Has Pluses and Minuses
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
Vegas is a brutal town and, like Stephen Mejias, we hate it. Among its few saving graces: Guests at a half-dozen elite hotels can travel to the convention center via monorail. It almost makes up for the obnoxious mini-bar fridge policy at one stop on the monorail, Harrah's: If you purchase your own drinks and leave them to chill, the management will confiscate them. A label inside the mini-bar fridge says so. Sure enough: it happened. Thanks Harrah's. Let us return the favor.
CES 2012
THX Rethinks the Power Amp
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012
THX has been applying its grey cells to the power amplifier, as THX grey eminence Laurie Fincham explained. The prototype shown uses what he calls a Class ABC topology with newly tweaked rail-switching power supply and compact ceramic (as opposed to bulky electrolytic) capacitors, all run off a lithium iron phosphate battery (yes, iron, not ion). In the picture you see a super-skinny two-channel output stage; adding capacitors would make it only 25 percent larger. Anyway, the result is a powerful low-profile amp that runs cool and efficient, avoiding both the power piggery of Class A and the problematic performance of Class D. And yes, it sounded great with Sonus Faber speakers and Steely Dan's "Gaslighting Abbie," achieving both well controlled bass and a high degree of overall transparency. Why this, why now? Fincham points out that his team is liberated from the tyranny of the product development cycle, enabling them to take a longer view and to incorporate ideas from the entire history of audio going back to the 1920s but also including the latest tricks. For example, the type of battery used is relatively new to audio but has been deployed in things like power tools and electric bikes. The THX amp design has yet to be built into licensed product but current licensees are getting their first look at this show. Potential uses include everything from inexpensive compact products to BD-receivers to high-end multichannel amps.

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