New Products

The audio wizards at England’s KEF are out to prove that they are not just a speaker company with today’s launch of the Mu7 wireless, noise-canceling headphones.

Though KEF did not physically attend the CEDIA 2022 in Dallas last week, the iconic British brand was there in spirit. Hours before the Expo opened its doors, the company announced the addition of two THX-certified models to its line of architectural speakers — an in-ceiling/wall subwoofer and its first a three-way coaxial design.

The show in Dallas is over but the memories remain. It was no ordinary expo, three years have passed since I last attended a CEDIA, and the relief in seeing folks face-to-face and getting hands-on with gear was palpable. So too was the sense of having fast-forwarded to the future, the changes in tech reflected skipping right from 2019 to 2022, instead of seeing the usual yearly increment. Here's a slice of what got my attention on the show floor, our Sound & Vision Editor's Picks for CEDIA 2022.

This year at CEDIA Sony had a huge booth containing three home theater demo rooms. There’s the mega-system with the VPL-GTZ380, which I describe in this post. But that projector’s $80,000 price point and 10,000-lumen output are beyond what most home theater owners want to spend or need in terms of output. However, the company is quick to point out that in terms of how the image is created—with three of its new 4K-native 2160 x 3840 resolution SXRD chips its Z-Phosphor light source, and the X1 Ultimate for projector processor—the three new laser models share the same hardware with the big pro model.

Samsung’s MS1A is a 110” 4K micro-LED TV. It uses the same direct-view LED technology as modular, professional video walls that are used for billboards, giant video displays like you see in sports arenas, and super high-end home theaters. What Samsung has done is shrunk the LEDs to the point where 4K worth of pixels fits in a 110” screen and packaged it as a TV, no assembly required.

Pro Audio Technology (PRO), the Lake Forest, CA-based company specializing in professional-grade high-end speaker systems, is wooing CEDIA showgoers with a slender in-wall/ceiling speaker for installations where space is limited but performance is crucial.