Randy Tomlinson

Magnepan also introduced a new freestanding woofer for their smallest home theater/ plasma wall mounted speakers (the MGMC1). Left and right MGMC1s cost only $750/pr and the woofer adds only $800 unless you want a special finish. The MGMC1s can also be mounted flush with the wall and made to swing out automatically into playing position with the touch of a button. Note the nice table in the picture under the wall mounted MGMC1. That’s the new woofer. The MGMC1s have been criticized for an overly thin sound, but not anymore.

JBL is showing their new cost-no-object Everest speaker system. This system has a virtually unmatched combination of high-end transparency and extreme dynamic range. The horn midrange covers from 700 Hz to 40KHz with less coloration and better transparency than I’ve ever heard from a horn transducer, thanks to newly developed Beryllium diaphragms. A horn super-tweeter increases dispersion in the extreme highs. With an efficiency of 118 db/1w/1m, the main horn operates at such a low power that distortion and dynamic compression never increase, even in high level listening. Touted as the finest speaker JBL has ever built, these $60,000 beauties, with their slightly retro look, are a fitting tribute to JBL’s 60th anniversary. Hopefully the technology will trickle down to more affordable home theater models.

And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How about an electric fan subwoofer? Sound far-fetched? Well, here it is from Eminent Technology’s Bruce Thigpen. How does it work? The motor spins the fan at 1000 rpm. The blades are flat with no signal and do nothing. Fast rotation causes them to couple to the air far more efficiently than a cone. The angle of the blades themselves is changed according to the signal by a 15” woofer magnet and voice coil causing them to quickly blow one direction then the other as the voice coil, attached with a mechanical linkage, directs. With a DC input, it makes an excellent $12,900 fan. The result is a transducer capable of response flat from 25 Hz down to 1 Hz at earthquake levels (over 110 db) even with a 200-watt amplifier and with decreasing distortion as frequency drops. After hearing this invention with several film soundtracks I think I can safely say that it has truly gone where no speaker has ever gone before, and with plaster cracking force!

Bang & Olufsen is showing their latest plasma TV product—the Beovision 9, shown here with B&O NA President Kim Gravesen. On the surface, it appears to be just a good 50” plasma with unusually advanced styling, but underneath it’s really far more. B&O claims it’s run by the fastest picture engine in the world. Various parameters (black level, sharpness, white level, etc) are controlled dynamically to maintain an optimum picture regardless of source content. An integrated center channel speaker has an acoustic lens to provide extremely wide horizontal dispersion. Aside from these basics, the Beovision 9 also serves as a home cinema master fully integrating and controlling music files, photos, net radio, and other web media, plus controlling lights, screen, and drapes—all with one remote. An HD video output will drive a projector in a separate dedicated theater. Up to 10 Beolab speakers and 2 subwoofers can be connected simultaneously. It’s not cheap (about $20,000) but then it IS B&O.