Once in a while, my job has some pretty nice perks. Last week, for example, I was invited to the Disney studios in Burbank, CA, for a preview screening of two movies coming out this holiday seasonTron: Legacy and Tangled, an animated telling of the Rapunzel fairy tale.
Here are a few final photos of the Georgia World Congress Center and the show floor, plus one more from the Georgia Aquarium. I really liked the architecture of Building B's foyer.
LG first introduced the CF3D projector at CES last January, but as one rep told me, "now it's real" and expected to ship by the end of the year for $15,000. The CF3D is unique in that it uses two completely separate SXRD imaging engines and lampsone for each eyeand a single lens. Also, it uses passive polarization, so it needs a special silver screen and inexpensive polarized glasses. Another unique feature is a built-in camera that monitors the projected image and automatically adjusts the convergence and light balance between left and right. The CF3D can accept four 3D formatsframe-packed, frame-sequential, and frame-compatible side-by-side and over-under.
Although the demo wasn't perfect, I have to say that it knocked me out in certain ways...
On the last day of CEDIA, I happened upon this incredible wall sculpture in Leon Speakers' booth. It turns out to hide five of Leon's new Profile 631 in-wall speakers, each with two 6-inch woofers, two 3-inch midranges, and a silk-dome tweeter, all powered by McIntosh amps. The entire package also includes four of Leon's Aaros ultra-thin subwoofers with 10-inch aluminum cone drivers, which were sitting on the floor, powered by the two of the company's L3-1K 1000W amps. The dragon itself is cut from a 16-foot sheet of solid ¼-inch billet aluminum using a giant water-cutting machine, and it includes 800 strands of fiber-optic cable and DMX-controlled LED lights.
When I asked about the price, I was told it's "seven pounds of gold." Really? Yes, really. I know that gold is popular in a troubled economy, but using it as actual currency is pretty unusual. Of course, the company would also take cash, which comes to almost $146,000 at gold's current price of about $1300/oz.
At CEDIA, Digital Projection introduced a product so new, it doesn't even have a name yet. It's a 1080p, LED-lit DLP projector expected to list for about $10,000 and designed for extremely short-throw situationsin the demo from which this photo was taken, the projector was directly above a 6-foot-wide Stewart Studiotek 130 screen at a throw distance of only 12 inches! The light from the lens bounces off an integrated mirror and onto the screen at a severe angle, which means there must be some pretty sophisticated geometric processing going on. It also provides wireless HDMI connectivity, though the rep I spoke with didn't know which type. Unfortunately, it was difficult to judge image quality in the brightly lit show-floor environment.
In addition to demonstrating its DCC-100FD and DCL-200FD projectors, Wolf Cinema also showed the new SDC-3 3D projector, which provides dual UHP lamps and 10,000 ANSI lumens (uncalibrated) for $75,000 with one of eight lens options.
Audio demos at trade shows are nearly impossible to conduct without noise from the show floor intruding. And hotel rooms are hardly ideal venues, either. So it was with great fanfare that
Procella announced it would have the world's first THX-certified demo room at CEDIA. The free-standing room was first assembled and certified off-site, then broken down and reassembledand re-certifiedin the convention hall.
Procella Audio introduced its speaker line to the US market at last year's CEDIA Expo, but they are only now starting to ship here. The P815 ($10,000 each), leftmost in the photo above, consists of two sealed cabinetsone for a 15-inch woofer and the other for a 8-inch midrange and 1-inch compression tweeter in a custom-designed waveguideand each cabinet is powered with 700W of onboard class-D amplification. The passive P8 ($2600 each) and P6 ($1600 each)hanging on the wall in this photoboth sport the same 1-inch compression driver with an 8-inch and 6.5-inch woofer, respectively.
A trio of powered subwoofers includes the P18 ($10,000) with dual 18-inch drivers and 700Wx2, P15 ($6000) with dual 15-inch drivers and 350Wx2, and P10 ($4000) with dual 10-inch drivers and 350Wx2.
Howdy, Slim First, let me tell you how much I enjoy your podcastsvery informative and entertaining. I loved the episode with Gene Dolgoff, a true pioneer in this field.
HT senior editor Tom Norton and Stereophile contributing editor Kal Rubinson offer their impressions of the 2010 CEDIA Expo, including interesting products they saw and heard, their favorite audio and video demos, industry trends, and more.