John Sciacca

Sony showed one of the coolest audio innovations of the Consumer Electronics Show with the debut of the company’s new PS-HX500 turntable. While the HX500 is a fully functional, belt-driven turntable on its own with an analog output that can feed any audio system, it also features a USB output that can be connected to a computer to create ultra-high resolution, exact digital captures of the album including all of the vinyl's signature sound.

In a technology demonstration Meridian, Jaguar and Intel combined to show how the future of a fully connected life could integrate both your home and automotive away lifestyle. Using integrated technologies that included a pair of Meridian DSP3200 digital speakers and a Sooloos music server, and a Meridian audio system in the Jaguar F-Pace SUV, notifications could be sent from the Jaguar to the TV in the home, and adjustments to the home could be mirrored to the SUV to insure a smooth transition between home and away living.

There were four primary aspects to the tech demo including personal inventory tracking, preferred temperature, seamless media transfer, and second driver notification.

Definitive Technology and Polk Audio demonstrated for the first time the capability of its soundbars pairing with smaller, wireless speakers to form a true 5.1-channel wireless surround system. While company representatives would not confirm the technology being used, one could infer that since all of the speakers involved were from the PlayFi wireless ecosystem, and since one of the recent PlayFi updates enabled the possibility of adding surround speakers, that PlayFi was the underlying wireless technology at play.

Design Screen's incredibly innovative projection screen folds into a piece of art when not in use.