Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity Home Page

Show Report

CEDIA 2003

Page 1

	AMX was the first booth inside the doors of the exhibition hall. It was easy to see they have been busy, adding all new control devices for just about everything in your home theater and even the rest of your home. New this year is the ability to manage your PC with an AMX control system and more 801.11b integration.
Anthem was proudly showing off their new products to be released in the fall. Shown here are the 'D1' surround processor and 'Channel 5' amp. The D1 has a slew of upgraded circuitry and more powerful processing than their highly acclaimed and Secrets recommended AVM-20. Most impressive was the Channel 5 which is 325 watts x 5 @ 8 ohms and stable to below 2 ohms. You might have to upgrade your household wiring to use this one. It requires two 20 amp circuits for operation.
	ATI displayed their AT3000 and AT2000 series multi-channel amps which can be configured from 2-7 channels. The units are fully balanced and have an MSRP of $1495-$2995 for the AT2000 and $1995-$3995 for the AT3000.
While the Bel Canto processor is not new, I have to admit I wish I had a TV screen on the front of my processor.
	BenQ shows no signs of slowing down with new projectors in all price ranges. This is the new PE8700 which uses the TI HD2 DLP chip, and to which we gave accolades in our recent review. It has a native 16:9 resolution of 1280x720 and a specified 2000:1 contrast ratio.
On the lower end of the scale, BenQ showed an SVGA (800x600) DLP that lists for only $1795 and weighs only 3.8 lbs.
	Guitammer introduced two new ButtKicker products. The ButtKicker LFE (previously called the ButtKicker 2) is designed to take advantage of the or LFE channel of surround sound mixes, and the ButtKicker Concert is designed for musician monitoring, stage and studio use.
Classé showed an entirely new design to all of its products, with everything from THX Ultra 2 SSPs with display screens to SACD players. Almost all the new Classé products have a large informative display on the front for ease of use.
	Crestron, like AMX, was automating everything they could find. Shown here is one of their smaller LCD touch panels.
A much larger Crestron panel shown here even has a playback video display and a web browser.
	D2Audio presented their new digital switching amplifiers in lots of forms. Show here is a Plexi sub. D2Audio also sells amps for applications in active speakers and other audio applications.
More D2Audio digital amplifier modules.
	All of Denon's DVD players are now universal. Here is the DVD-2900 sitting on top of an AVR-5803 receiver.
Denon's DVD-5900, a DVD-V, DVD-A, and SACD player with Faroudja DCDi and future scaling capabilities.
	The Denon 5900 has a DVI output at the top left corner of the rear panel.
Projectors . . .
	Projectors . . .
. . . and more projectors.
	DishNetwork was once again showing off their DVR921, a multi-tuner HDTV PVR, but this time they promise it will be out before Christmas. Didn't they say that last year?
DishNetwork has added several new models, including a multi-room PVR, an HD receiver with DVI out and even a 34" HDTV monitor. They are planning on releasing a combination package of the 34" HDTV monitor and new HD satellite box receiver for $1500. That sounds like a good deal to us.
	What would any electronics show be without a new sound format to be revealed? At least this one doesn't require more speakers. Dolby's Pro Logic IIx (DPL-IIx) can take a two-channel stereo signal or a 5.1 audio signal and create a 7.1 surround field out of it. I spent some time at the Pioneer booth listening to a two-channel version of "The Fifth Element" being played with IIx, and I can't say it was as good as the original 5.1 but still pretty believable surround when you remember it was derived from only two channels.
. . . and still . . .
	. . . more . . .
. . .projectors. We love to see all these different home theater models competing, because it means lower pricing for consumers.
	Energy has been busy redesigning the woofers in their Verities series and has called the new version the Veritas i series. The new woofer allows for higher power handling with lower distortion. Along with the Veritas i series, a matching complement of timber matched in-wall speakers have been released. I commend Energy for taking the time to add selective corrective crossover slopes and optimization for installs that are close to walls or corners.
Extron has also entered the control systems markets with the release of their IP tools. This system allows for the control of RS232 devices across regular Cat5 cable. Each of the small boxes on top of the rack has two RS232 ports and are controlled and addressed by the Extron software over standard Ethernet.

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