Premiere Design

Video projectors are always front and center at the CEDIA Expo, and this year is certainly no exception. Among the many introductions in this regard will be the Starlight 3 from French maker DreamVision.

"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."

I've known the name Nagra for decades, but only in the realm of professional audio, especially field recorders. Recently, I learned that the Swiss stalwart also offers a line of high-end consumer electronics, such as the Pyramid Monoblock Amplifier (PMA) and Pyramid Stereo Amplifier (PSA).

Among the myriad press releases I've received lately—no doubt in preparation for the upcoming CEDIA Expo—was one with a particularly audacious headline: "Mozaex Ships World's First 3D Blu-ray Multi-Room Media Server." Intrigued, I contacted Mozaex (pronounced like "mosaics") to learn more.

In 771 C.E., a huge bronze bell was cast by King Hyegong of the Silla Empire in what is now South Korea to honor his grandfather, King Seongdeok. Called the Emillé Bell, its remarkable sound can be heard evenly in all directions, and its reverberations last for three minutes, longer than any other bell in the world. Some 1220 years later, Korean high-end audio maker Emillé Labs took its name and inspiration from the famous bell, handcrafting all of its tube-based electronics, including the new Rapture monoblock power amp featured here, to sound as incredible as the company's namesake.

Just because a product isn't the company's most expensive doesn't mean it can't perform exceedingly well. Take, for example, the Maestro Utopia, which occupies the middle of Focal's Utopia III lineup.