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$3000 Boombox
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 27, 2009  |  0 comments

At the 2007 CEDIA Expo, I attended Meridian's press conference, during which the company unveiled its <A href="http://www.thef80.com">F80</A> table-top clock radio/CD/DVD player. I was a bit late, and the demo was already underway as I walked into the large concrete room with high ceilings. I clearly remember my first impression of what I heard—"Wow, that sounds great!" When I learned it was essentially a boombox, I was flabbergasted.

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20,000 Hertz Under the Sea
Scott Wilkinson  |  Mar 26, 2009  |  9 comments

<A href="http://www.bowers-wilkins.com">B&W</A>'s Nautilus speakers are not new&#151;they were introduced in 1993&#151;but they remain unequaled in the sheer beauty of their design. And that design isn't merely for the sake of visual impact&#151;it's a classic case of form following function.

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360-Degree 3D Camera
Scott Wilkinson  |  Dec 09, 2010  |  0 comments
For those who think 3D on a flat screen is bogus, how about this? Swiss university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is working on a camera that captures images in all directions at once—well, to be precise, all directions within a hemispherical pattern—and processes the resulting data to calculate the distance from the camera to each object in its visual field.

Update: This story now includes video of the inventor explaining the technology!

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3DAA Demos MDA Director
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 25, 2012  |  0 comments
The concept of 3D audio is gaining a lot of traction lately, in both commercial and consumer settings. Tom Norton recently wrote about his experience with a system called Imm Sound, which employs many speakers around and above the audience in commercial cinemas, as does Dolby Atmos and Barco Auro. On the home front, several companies have developed technologies that purport to create 3D soundfields from two speakers or a soundbar, including Gen Audio's Astound Sound and Sonic Emotion's Absolute 3D, both of which have been discussed on the Home Theater Geeks podcast here and here, respectively.

Then there's SRS Labs, which has been working on 3D audio perhaps longer than anyone else. Not only does this company offer a variety of proprietary soundfield-expansion algorithms, it is also the founding member of the 3D Audio Alliance (3DAA), which is working on an open-standard specification called Multi-Dimensional Audio, or MDA.

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A Do-It-All Processor, At a Price
Bob Ankosko  |  Mar 02, 2015  |  1 comments
Steinway Lyngdorf P200 Surround Processor

At last September’s CEDIA Expo, Steinway Lyngdorf offered a sneak peek of the P200 surround processor it plans to start selling in early 2015 for $18,000. (No, that’s not a typo.) The P200 distinguished itself as the first processor to support both Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D. Equipped to handle multiple speaker setups, it’s designed to switch between speakers positioned for either format at the touch of a button. To get the story behind this one-of-a-kind product, we spoke with CEO/CTO Thomas Birkelund.

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A Legend Returns
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 29, 2009  |  33 comments

Audiophiles know the name Mark Levinson well. After his eponymous first enterprise was purchased by Harman International&#151;which means he can no longer use his own name on audio products&#151;Levinson went on to found several other highly regarded audio companies, including Cello and Red Rose Music. Now, in a story exclusive to <I>UAV</I>, the audio designer, recording engineer, and professional musician is launching his latest venture from his adopted home country of Switzerland, calling it <A href="http://www.danielhertz.com">Daniel Hertz, S.A.</A>&#151;"Daniel" after his father and "Hertz" after his mother's great-uncle Heinrich Hertz, whose name is now used as the universal unit of measurement of frequency.

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Absoluta Janus Monoblock Power Amp
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 05, 2010  |  0 comments
Among the seemingly infinite number of monoblock power amps available in the world is the Janus from Italian maker Absoluta. Its understated elegance bespeaks careful attention to looks as well as performance.
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Acapella Sphäron Excalibur Speaker
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 03, 2010  |  0 comments

Audiophiles who want to impress their friends&#151;and I seriously doubt there are any who don't&#151;would be hard pressed to do better than a pair of Sph&#228;ron Excalibur speakers from German horn specialist <A href="http://www.acapella.de/en/">Acapella</A>. But you'd better have a pretty big room to comfortably house these beautiful beasts, which stand over seven feet tall and weigh 1364 pounds each.

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Adam Audio Olympus Sound System
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 20, 2010  |  7 comments
If the Greek gods had been audiophiles, they might well have used something like the Olympus Sound System (OSS) from Adam Audio, a German high-end maker of products for the professional and consumer markets. This behemoth stands seven feet tall and weighs over 350 pounds with separate enclosures for each set of drivers.
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Aerial Acoustics System 1 TheaterWall
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 12, 2011  |  1 comments
As I was researching my response to Xavier Beard's question about speakers from Aerial Acoustics, I came across the company's System 1 TheaterWall. This artfully designed, decidedly high-end speaker system surrounds a screen of just about any size with speakers for the left, right, center, and subwoofer channels.
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Aesthetic Functionality
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 29, 2009  |  0 comments

In most high-quality A/V products, form follows function, but in the case of the Gramophone speaker from Swedish maker <A href="http://www.aesthesis.se">Aesthesis</A>, form and function are intertwined, arising together during four years of development. Standing nearly four feet tall, this hand-made, carbon-fiber speaker makes a bold design statement while offering impressive specs.

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New ProductsPremiere Design
Akoustic Arts A Directional Speaker
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 16, 2016  |  1 comments
The Akoustic Arts “A” is one of the more unusual-looking speakers you will encounter, with its honeycomb of mini transducers (200 in all). But looks aren’t the only thing unusual about this speaker. Rather than spray sound in every direction like a conventional speaker, the A projects sound in a focused beam. As the Paris-based company likes to say, it’s “the speaker that only you can hear.” And it appears to be off and running. By mid-April, Akoustic Arts had raised more than $200,000, exceeding its Indiegogo funding goal by 662 percent in less than a month. We spoke with founder and CEO Ilan Kaddouch to learn more.
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Albedo Helmholine Speakers
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 10, 2010  |  0 comments
"Albedo" is defined as the ratio of reflected light to incident light on an object, often a celestial body such as a planet or moon—the higher the albedo, the brighter the object appears. So it's no wonder that the tag line of Italian speaker maker Albedo is "Brightness in Sound."
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Alef Power Amps
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 18, 2010  |  0 comments
Among the many high-end audio products demonstrated at last weekend's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest were several amplifiers from Alef (formerly Delta Sigma) and distributed in the US by TMH Audio. Submitted for your consideration here are the Duet SE 2-channel power amp, Solist monoblock, and Orchestra integrated amp.
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New ProductsPremiere Design
All Aboard: James Loudspeaker Steampunk Speaker
Bob Ankosko  |  May 02, 2018  |  1 comments
James Loudspeaker sells just about any kind of speaker you could want—or imagine. You can choose among its dozens of high-performance models and buy “off the shelf” or have a particular model customized with a special finish or feature. Or, you can get creative and dream up your own speaker design. The California-based company prides itself on its ability to meet the unique needs of its customers, whether that means solving an installation problem or creating something special…and personal. James built more than 300 custom products in 2017 alone, but the Steampunk Speaker is perhaps its most interesting—and unusual—project.
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