Fear & Loathing In Indianapolis - Part Two - The Demos

Many of the demonstration "rooms"(1) at CEDIA were the stuff of home theater dreams. Finally a chance to actually look at and listen to the kind of equipment that generally requires credit references to gain admittance to see in a retail showroom. Please believe me when I tell you that I share the frustration you're likely to feel when you read about how awesome this equipment is only to have the color leave your face when you read down to the price tags. I know and share your pain. I'm not independently wealthy myself, so this stuff is beyond my checkbook's grasp as well. But I know I felt a real thrill seeing some of this stuff, and my hope here is to pass along a little of that spark.

And its always important to remember that the state of the art stuff that's out there now, and priced in the stratosphere, will eventually start to trickle down into realm of the affordable products. It can be important to understand the technology of what's up there now so you can take advantage of it when it comes down to Earth later. That being said, as I mentioned in part one of my coverage, HDTV was a big presence at CEDIA. With these things in mind there's no place better to begin with the demo coverage than the Vidikron room

Vidikron: DLP, 720P and Aerial Acoustics- We're Not Worthy!

William Phelps of Vidikron ushered Chief Editor Peter Bracke and myself into the little temporary building with a little logo on the door that said ABC, who provided the 720p high definition material displayed therein. Walking into the room the first thing that hit was the HUGE projector sitting up an a platform in the middle of the room, just in front of the seats arranged for the demo. I had seen and read a lot about Vidikron's flagship Vision One projector. 9-inch guns, $50k price tag, everything about this baby is BIG, but knowing all that I was still stunned by its sheer bulk. The thing is just smaller than the new Beetle, 27.5 inches wide, 23.75 inches high and 38.5 inches deep. As Pete and I were taking our seat, a good 15-20 feet away from the 96-inch diagonal 16:9 screen but dead in the center, I recognized Aerial Acoustics President Michael Kelly up toward the front of the room. Looking around the space confirmed my suspicions about his presence as the room was lined with Aerial Acoustics speakers. But more on that later.

Taking my seat I had to make sure to keep from bumping my head on this tiny box (9.95"W x 5.26"H x 13.26"D) hanging from the ceiling. This little wonder turned out to be Vidikron's new DLP projector, the Sole One, which would actually be the display for the first part of the demo. As the Sole One fired up the first thing I noticed was that I couldn't hear the thing even though it was right above my head. The second thing I noticed is that DLP is for real. The Sole One threw a bright, punchy picture onto the 96-inch screen from about 18 feet away. Black level, which is the bane of LCD projectors, looked terrific, making for beautifully saturated colors. Vidikron was using their own proprietary line processor. We couldn't get any answers as to exactly what was going on with the processor in terms of scanning rates, but it was probably line doubling, resulting in a 480p picture. It looked fabulous and Vidikron says this line processor is included in the Sole One's $11k price, which is astounding (the Sole One's literature doesn't reflect this, but I'll take the Vidikron folks at their word until I get confirmation.)

Anyway, the picture was detailed and dynamic in every way, with no visible flicker. Very film-like. I'd like to get a closer look at this product to really see what it can do, but it looks like the real deal. Given the price of this product (especially with the line processor included) and the apparent quality, DLP definitely appears poised to succeed where LCD has failed in terms of offering a reasonably priced alternative to CRT based front projectors for high quality video displays for home theater.

The demo material here was Universal's anamorphic widescreen DTS version of Blues Brothers 2000. While the movie itself looks like a real dud, the video and audio quality was fantastic, all the more so for playing back through Aerial Acoustics speakers with Theta Digital electronics. The Aerial CC3 center speaker ($1,200) is simply the best center speaker I've heard. Aretha Franklin's vocals had such a live presence it sounded like she was really in the room. This center speaker was so smooth and natural, and matched the 7B main speakers ($4,000-$5,000 per pair, depending on finish) so seamlessly that it seemed almost like there was no center speaker, only a phantom image between the main speakers. It was tremendous. The front soundstage was immense, imaging deep and wide, and yet was finely and sweetly detailed. These are terrific loudspeakers!

The bottom end was amply filled out with Aerial's SW 12 powered subwoofer. The scene we watched was a musical number, and the SW 12 was tight and quick, doing an excellent job of matching the pace of the material. There wasn't much call for deep extension, but given how obviously well engineered the rest of these speakers are I have no doubt its performance would lack in that area. I can't tell you how impressive these speakers had to be to make an impression given the video that was going on in that room! As I mentioned, Theta Digital supplied the electronics back end for the demo system. The Casa Nova surround processor was the brains of the outfit, while the amplification was a five channel Theta Deadnought,. This gear was a perfect match for the Aerial Acoustics speakers and easily represented the best sound I heard at the show. But wait, we haven't even gotten to the high-def yet!

Next came that big, bad, old Vision One cranking up 720p high-def from D-5 high definition digital video tape. One interesting thing to note here is that while standard broadcast 720p would run at a data rate of about 19mbs (megabits per second,) this demo material was running over 300mbs! We were hoping to see 720p in a fashion that would make for a meaningful comparison to the other prevalent high-def format 1080i, but the jacked-up data rate of this demo ruled that out as none of the 1080i material seen at the show was at this high of a data rate. To my knowledge, all the 1080i material I saw at the show was the broadcast standard rate of around 19mbs. Anyway, as the ABC material started with the opening sequence of a Peter Jennings new broadcast, we were stunned. We would spend the next several minutes making ill-fated attempts at picking our jaws up off of the floor. It looked as though someone had torn a hole through the wall and we were actually peering into the ABC newsroom. I have never seen such a startlingly realistic and three-dimensional picture, movie theaters notwithstanding. It looked like you could walk right into it!

Those stories we've all read about high definition being unflattering to newscasters and their make-up persons are definitely true. They were obviously well prepared, in this case, for being photographed in high-def even though the texture and detail of Peter Jennings' face was portrayed in extraordinary detail. The material then moved on to a horse race, the Oscars from a couple of years ago, and Monday Night Football. Somewhere in there was a brightly-lit sunny day and a crowd scene. It was breath taking as the camera panned farther and farther out and yet none of the detail ever left the picture! Each person was distinctly and clearly delineated, never blurring or obscuring in any way. The Monday Night Football piece was also amazing. Between the absurd level of detail and the size of the 96-inch diagonal 16:9 screen, it really felt like you were on the field. Those guys looked big! You could actually see the grain patterns on the ol' pigskin itself! You could also see every line in Jimmy Johnson's face and every vein popping out on his forehead as he argued a call with the refs. And need I say that Jimmy and Dan Marino's bronze flesh tones were perfectly rendered?

While the Vidikron demo was easily the best video seen at the show, it was difficult to draw any real meaningful conclusions as, like I mentioned above, 300mbs really isn't the way you would experience 720p even if you have the $50k to throw down on a Vidikron Vision One. Speaking of which, I've obviously never seen better performance from a display than that provided by the Vision one. It was extraordinary in every way as it damn well should be since you can buy a Mercedes for less.

Equally astounding however, was how much performance can seemingly be found in the Sole One at a fraction of the price at $11k. That's a hefty price in the world of TVs but is really entry level in the world of projectors. Given that DLP has already become this affordable (relatively speaking) you can look for the technology to continue to improve and for the prices to move continually downward. Moore's Law isn't quite as expedient in the world of consumer electronics as it is in the computer industry, but I'd bet that in the next couple of years DLP projectors like this one will become comparably priced to RPTVs. Another thing to remember here is that while CRT projectors often involve expensive mounting procedures that sometime require structural changes in your room, whereas DLP projectors are tiny and simply need a shelf to put them on. It was all good at Vidikron!

Toshiba's Progressive-Scan Output DVD

Aside from HDTV, the other big splash at the show for me was Toshiba's progressive-scan output DVD players. In their darkened room they had their DW65X91 65-inch diagonal 16:9 display with their upcoming flagship progressive-scan DVD player, the SD9100. The demo material was Buena Vista's first anamorphic widescreen release, the gorgeously filmed Shakespeare in Love. The first scene shown while I was there was one of the rehearsal scenes, and in spite of the acting talent involved in this film the star of this demo was the dog who serving as audience to the rehearsal. This brown and white pooch looked like it was 3-D. The flicker-free picture was amazingly textured and film-like. Every detail jumped out, you could see every hair on that dog's head, even some little scragglers sticking out of its ears! Its blue eyes really popped, as did many of the lavish colors in the costume design and lush photography of Shakespeare.

One of the startling things about all of this is how close the viewing area was to the display. Toshiba set this demo up that way to demonstrate that when the picture is this smooth and detailed you can get that much closer to even a big RPTV such as this one and still see a great looking picture. And how! A key thing here is that the DW65X91 was adjusted by eye, not color temperature calibrated by an ISF certified technician, which would certainly improve its performance even more. Progressive-scan DVD (480P) is tremendous and offers a level of performance previously achieved only by expensive line processing products. It really looks like you're watching film! I think its great to finally see what the true capability of the technology we already have.

P.S. to Disney (sorry I just couldn't resist!) - Put out some more anamorphic widescreen DVD and maybe you'll make it into a few more demo rooms!

Faroudja: 480P and 1080i side by side!

One of the most fascinating demos at the show was Faroudja's where they had two identical RP5800 rear projection HDTVs side by side, one playing 480p anamorphic widescreen DVD (line processed progressive internally by the RP5800) and the other playing true 1080i high-def. These 58-inch 16:9 displays display all high-def formats in their native scan rates, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i, and cost a mind-boggling $35k. I don't want to go too far into it because its not necessary for covering the comparison, but $35k is damn near as much as Vision One, making it a hard sell no matter how great it is. As far as the comparison goes, it was a real eye opener in two ways. One, how spectacular 480p from anamorphic widescreen DVD (Columbia Tri-Star's Madeline in this case) can look, even compared to high-def. The 480p material was flicker free, and amazingly film-like and natural. Color saturation was terrific, and the detail was amazing. Upon close inspection you could definitely see that there is simply more real picture detail inherent to the 1080i material, but trust me when I tell you that it was not immediately apparent and definitely not a night and day difference by any stretch of the imagination. Make no mistake, 1080i is better, but nevertheless it's incredible how much standard-def 480i performance increases simply by converting it to 480p and removing the artifacts related to NTSC interlacing. It would have been better if the 480p and 1080i material had been identical, but this was educational nevertheless. Another thing to point out here is that most high-def demos you're likely to see are brightly-lit outdoors scenes that are very bright and are made to pop off the screen. Movie material, even kiddy movies like Madeline, have lots of dimly lit interior sequences that simply don't have the flash and color of the stuff you see in the high-def material.

The second way this demo was an eye opener is how good Faroudja's line processing is compared to the progressive-scan output DVD players I saw at the show. Again, none of this was apples to apples in any way as there is a huge disparity in performance between the displays used with the progressive-scan DVD players I saw versus this $35k Faroudja, which represents a cost-is-no-issue thus no compromise design. Nevertheless, for those of you out there that might be contemplating a Faroudja line doubler as your means of enjoying progressive-scan DVD, this doesn't appear to be a bad approach at all. I can easily say that a Faroudja doubler would at least hold its own against progressive-scan DVD, and would offer the additional benefit of doubling other 480i sources. An interesting exercise for certain.

1080i at the Dolby Room

Dolby was making sure that anyone who has been living under a rock for the last couple of years knows that Dolby Digital has been chosen as the audio standard for HDTV. Their demo was showing off broadcast standard 19mbs 1080i high-def with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround provided by a Sencore hard drive feeding a Unity Motion digital tuner. The display was a Runco DTV 930, according to the Dolby rep, projected on a 96-inch diagonal 16:9 screen. The audio was equally formidable, with an ADA Cinema Reference surround processor and an ADA 5 channel amplifier powering PSB speakers. While the Dolby rep wasn't certain of the models of the PSB speakers, an interesting thing about this audio setup was that each channel had a dedicated subwoofer, with two additional subwoofers dedicated to the LFE channel, for a total of seven subwoofers! While this may seem like bass overkill, it didn't sound that way. There is definitely deep bass energy present in all channels in a 5.1 channel discrete DD or DTS soundtrack. That's a lot of bass energy to be reproduced.

Tomlinson Holman, formerly of THX fame currently with TMH, recently claimed that if you have a five bandwidth limited speakers and are routing all low frequencies to a single subwoofer at reference level that single subwoofer would have to be capable of reproducing 121DB sound pressure level! That kind of headroom is far easier to achieve (maybe even less expensive) with the approach taken at the Dolby room. Proper restraint was exercised when calibrating the subwoofer levels at each channel, and the result was a seemingly effortless bass presence that energized and massaged the whole room with bass energy, but was never overwhelming. It didn't sound like some nut just threw a ton of subwoofers in there and went crazy. The bass was tight and punchy and had seemingly limitless dynamics. The other PSB speakers held up their end of the bargain very well, which is pleasing because PSB really doesn't make any speakers priced in the stratosphere. Everything they make is high quality, and very affordable, even at the top of the mine so I'm sure whichever system was employed here was within the reach of mortal man.

The first clip we saw was footage from one of the football game sequences of Varsity Blues. (Editor: I don't want yer life!) Again, this was true 1080i, not any kind of upconversion, and it looked and sounded terrific. The aspect ratio looked to be 1.78:1. The players and the crowd were all incredibly detailed, even in pans across finely textured and detailed parts of the picture. This is the kind of thing that often trips up our current NTSC system. Involving was a word I'd use for the video quality of this 1080i clip. You just get so much more detail, and the colors are rock solid and the screen is big, its really that much more like being at the movies! The sound as also terrific, living up to what I'm used to hearing in a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. It was in this demo that it started to hit me with how exciting it is that you could throw an antenna up on your roof and grab this beautiful video signal with 5.1 channels of discrete digital surround sound. If that's not exciting, what is?

The other clip that stood out here was footage of the tournament of Roses Parade. I generally don't "love a parade" so much, but in this case it was easy. The colors were astounding and shots of the crowd again showed off the realistic "you are there" look of high-def. Again, it really looks so real that you feel like you can touch it, you feel like its in the room with you.

Denon and Mission Electronics Bring the High End within Reach

The demo at the Denon "booth" was very important one that I really wanted to share with you. This was room full of electronics that looked great and sounded great, and imparted a fantastic home theater experience that is within financial reach of people not comprising the wealthiest one percent. The Runco DTV-991 projector and Runco line processor was obviously the most expensive thing in the room, but I'm not going to concentrate on that. The purpose the Runco served was showing the capability of the DVD player used. My point here is that all of this equipment is good enough to be used in a very high end home theater, but is affordable enough to be purchased by someone with a practical budget. This equipment will look and sound fantastic with a more modest display.

The top of the line Mission 77 series model 775 speakers ($2,000 per pair) served as the main channels, with the 77 C2 as the center speaker ($600.) Bipolar surround speakers were placed directly to the sides of the listening area, and smaller (smaller than the mains up front) floor-standing direct radiating speakers were placed in the rear corners of the room (I wasn't able to get the model numbers on these.) Two 700ASA powered subs ($500 each) were supplying the low end of the system. This sub is a sealed enclosure design, with a 100 watt amplifier and 10-inch woofer. All of these speakers were connected to Denon's AVR 5700 receiver ($2,800) which allows for two pairs of surround speakers connected (and if desired, driven) simultaneously. Denon's idea with this is that for movie soundtrack reproduction a diffuse radiating speaker, bipolar or dipolar, placed at the sides of the listening area is optimal. For multi-channel music, however, it is Denon's feeling that direct-radiating speakers placed to the rear of the listener are preferred. The listener can then switch between the two according to the playback material, or even set up defaults in the receiver that auto-switch according to the source input selected. Surprisingly, Denon wasn't using their top of the line DVD player, the THX Ultra certified DVD 5000. The Player used here was the new DVM-3700 5 disc changer, which, according to Marketing Manager David Birch-Jones, uses the very same video output stage as the vaunted DVD 5000.

David Birch-Jones began the demonstration with video material courtesy of The Matrix DVD, running with the side-mounted bipolar surrounds. The sequence played was the combat training sequence with Lawrence Fishburne kung-fu fighting with Keanu Reeves (and those cats were fast as lightning!) First, the picture was terrific, with the DVM-3700 serving up outstanding video even on the Runco and a 96-inch diagonal 16:9 screen. The sound was equally outstanding, with a huge soundstage and spot-on imaging. The ample bass track in this sequence was filled out admirably with the Mission 700 ASAs, which offered tight, punchy and articulate bass as Keanu and Larry took turns punching in the floor and the walls.

The thing that made the biggest impression on me however, was the way the bipolar surrounds put sounds out into the room. While I've generally been disdainful of dipolar speakers in 5.1 channel rigs, I've often liked the sound I've heard from bipolars. Bipoles don't kill all the surround directionality of a mix the way dipoles do, to me they just seem to fatten up the surround image. In The Matrix sequence the bipoles did exactly that. Also, there are some chimes that play throughout this sequence, and the Denon/Mission combo put these sounds right out into the room, making for a very exciting presentation. The only complaint I can offer about what I heard in the Denon room is that the 77 C2 is a bit on the spitty side with dialog.

Next up was some multi-channel music courtesy of the DTS 5.1 surround CD of Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales. This time around the surround duties were performed by Mission's floor-standing direct radiators behind the listening area in the corners. The first thing that stands out is the huge soundstage and the outstanding channel separation offered by the DTS encoding of this CD. You can hear every instrument in its place in the soundstage. The sense of air in the vocals and at the higher frequencies was nothing short of exquisite. The approach taken in the mixing of this disc is of the more conservative variety where the use of the surrounds is concerned, using them here to envelop and enlarge the soundstage as opposed to actually placing instruments or vocals in there. The lead vocals, which were mostly mixed to the center channel also suffered from the leaner, spitty quality I attributed earlier to the 77 C2. Beyond that this DTS CD was an absolutely tremendous experience, and I plan to offer some additional coverage on multi-channel music in the near future.

As I said earlier, I think the Denon room was great because it offered top shelf performance that is more financially accessible. The beautiful thing is that if the equipment I've outlined above from the Denon room is still a bit too rich for your blood, you can still move downward in price and still maintain most of the features, and presumably much of the performance of the products above. As mentioned in CEDIA pt. 1, the Mission 77 Series speakers range from $400- $2,000 per pair, and Denon's new AVR-3300 appears to have most of the features of the AVR-5700 with different DACs and a lower power rating at only $999. And if the DVM-3700 looks a little too pricey, try the Denon DVD 1500. This is great news for enthusiasts who need to work within a more reasonable budget.

It's All Digital at Meridian

Meridian really gives new meaning to the term "digital." Their demo used a Runco DTV-1100 (big boy, 9-inch guns) in conjunction with a system comprised of their Reference DVD Machine 800, Reference Digital Surround Controller 861, and a full array of "digital active" loudspeakers. Meridian's approach to digital multi-channel sound is radical. To understand what they do the best place to start is with the aforementioned "digital active" speakers. A digital active speaker is fully powered with digital to analog converters and even DSP (digital signal processing) built-in. To put a finer point on the matter, Meridian's upper echelon digital active speakers have a power amplifier and a DAC for (almost) each driver in the speaker cabinet! For example, the top of the line DSP 6000 speaker is a 3-way, four-driver design with four 75-watt amplifiers, three delta/sigma 24/96 DACs, and two 32mhz digital signal processors which also perform all crossover functions in the digital domain. Ouch!

So in a typical Meridian setup, like the demo I witnessed, you'd start with the Reference DVD Machine 800 as your source. The digital signal leaves this device and is then decoded by the Reference Surround Controller 861. As opposed to most "digital' surround processors, which would then convert the signal to analog for output to the power amplifier(s) the Meridian 861 keeps the signal in the digital domain and routes it to the DSP 6000 digital active speakers. Only then, at the very last stage is the signal converted to analog and crossed over, and output at the speaker.

Now, the other thing about Meridian is that their equipment is really built like a computer and can be configured as such in terms of different cards of inputs and outputs for different systems. In other words, if you're using regular analog speakers (as opposed to Meridian digital active speakers) and want to use the Reference 861 as a typical digital surround processor that would perform D/A conversion etc., and would output an analog signal to power amplifiers and then to speakers, all you would do is order your 861 with the appropriate cards for onboard D/A converters and analog output. So, their approach is absolutely modular, and flexible to the nth degree. Now, to the demo at hand.

The playback system was not only fully digital, in terms of using all digital active 24/96 capable speakers, it was a 7.1 channel configuration with all full range speakers (two surrounds at the side and a two surrounds at the rear of the listening area. Two Meridian subwoofers were also used but the rep on hand wasn't forthcoming with specs, and the literature isn't clear as to whether it's a digital active design as the other speakers. Nevertheless I can tell you each sub contained two 10-inch drivers powered by an internal 200-watt amplifier. The demo began with clips from that milestone of cinema, Drop Zone. Despite how absurd the movie was, the Meridian system produced an awesome soundtrack experience. Imaging at the sides and rear of the soundstage was terrific resulting in extremely realistic fly-over effects as planes and people flew in and out of the soundfield. Bass was deep, full, and tight. A terrific home theater demo, which would have been the main story here except for what followed.

The next piece of the demo was piece of music from Pink Floyd that I've heard at least 150 times, but never quite like this. The difference here, allegedly, was that Meridian up-samples typical 44.1 or 48khz 16 bit digital sources to 88.2 or 96khz 24 bit to increase performance. During this song and the following piece by Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Meridian rep switched back and forth between the 44.1 and 48khz 16 bit material and the up-sampled 88.2 and 96khz 24 bit Meridian processed versions. The difference was immediate and apparent, with the up-sampled versions offering more depth, a much wider soundstage, more air at the upper frequencies and vocals, and an increase in overall level and (seemingly) dynamic range. Or both. The differences were vast, and the overall levels of volume were different making it difficult to tell how controlled this little comparison was. An interesting note is that neither Dolby Digital nor DTS bit streams can be up-sampled allegedly due to the compression involved. The Meridian gear is the kind of stuff that, if you have to ask the price, don't worry, you can't afford it anyway. (If you really want to know e-mail me. I obviously know, but became depressed as I really liked what I heard but also want to buy a house next year.)

Notice that no mention is made of DVD-Audio in spite of the fact that these are the folks that have developed the new spec upon which the upcoming DVD Audio platform is based. While the spec calls for 2 channel performance of 24 bit words at 192 khz sampling rates for two channel audio, or 24/96 capability across 5.1 channels, DVD Audio has been delayed until Y2K. The MLP you've heard of stands for Meridian Lossless Packing, the "lossless' compression scheme that will be used to accomplish the aforementioned audio performance. While is looks good on paper, the upcoming DVD-Audio was a no-show at CEDIA, even at the Meridian booth.

"Another Mutant Suicide Squad" at the Snell and Wilcox Demo

I truly pity anyone who recognizes those words. That means that, like me at the CEDIA show, you too have been exposed to countless demos of the opening space battle on the Lost in Space DVD. (Please tell me you've seen too many demos as opposed to actually owning it yourself, please!) Anyway, I really debated on whether I should cover this demo as I wasn't able to get enough info about the Snell and Wilcox equipment itself to provide even a half-ass report on what it does. Nevertheless I decided that what I saw (and heard) was enough to warrant a heads-up and I'll follow up as I learn more.

The video here was pair of "stacked"(2) Runco DTV 1100s. Yep folks $100k worth of projectors alone! As if that weren't enough the Snell and Wilcox Interpolator used with it costs an additional $35k itself. The way I understand the Interpolator, and again I intend to contact Snell and Wilcox to make sure I've got it right, is that it is a line processor capable of running at scan rates from line doubling to line quadrupling. I'm not sure where the cut of is reached but when quadrupling is accomplished, as I understand it, interpolating also occurs. That is, in addition to the scan rate doubling, the line processor also interpolates, or copies, each existing line twice, to actually increase the number of horizontal scan lines. Hence quadrupling.

Anyway, while my description is sketchy, the results certainly aren't. Even with the modest Toshiba 3109 as the DVD player, the anamorphic widescreen picture quality was amazing. It was the closest thing to true high-def I saw at the show. Granted much of this may have been due to the stacked 9-inch CRT Runcos. Nevertheless, this wasn't the only interesting thing about the video presented here. The Interpolator was connected to a PC and at any time could bring up a Windows desktop and even keep the video material present in a little window on the desktop that could be moved and re-sized like any other window. Again, I can't go beyond what I saw until I get more info, but this was interesting as was the ability within the Windows desktop to zoom in on any part of the picture and enlarge it. As I get more info I will post it.

I can't go without mentioning the audio in this room, which represented a dream team approach. The speakers were supplied by Revel, a company that has been collecting superlative reviews on each speaker they've released so far. Displayed here was the top of the line (what else?) Salon floor standing towers ($15,000 per pair) with a Voice center speaker ($5,700 with stand) and Embrace Surrounds ($5,000 per pair) with two Sub 50's ($11,000 including two subs and a single LE-1 amplifier for both) augmenting the low end and supplying the LFE. As should damn well be the case with speakers this expensive, they sounded terrific. The Salon's are monstrous, and the soundstage produced by them is equal to their imposing physical stature. The Beatles clip at the beginning was fine, although a bit subdued, but Lost in Space was a rush! This speaker system was powered by Proceed amplifiers and a Proceed surround processor, and there just didn't seem to be an end to the dynamics and detail these speakers could muster. Absolutely uncompressed powerful sound. The Voice center speaker was terrific as well, making a perfect match for the Salons.

While I would have loved to sit in that room all day long trying my favorite audio and video discs, the demo was, alas, rather short and I had to go. As I said, I'll be posting more on the Snell and Wilcox Interpolator as I get the info, and I'm already aware that they have a lower end line processor in the $7,500 neighborhood. This equipment appears to make the wait for true high-def sources an enjoyable one. And I hope to God to get some more experience with the Revel speaker system to report on, or maybe I'd be just as well off not knowing how good they sound!

Whew!

Well, I don't know about you, but this has drained me! So, check out my final thoughts in Part Three on the new technologies and general points of interest from CEDIA '99. Also, check out our special in-depth report on THX Surround EX, which was also demoed at the show. Or, click back to Part One if you missed it the first time around.

Notes: (1) The demonstration "rooms" at CEDIA were of the temporary variety, put together for the show and taken back down after. Big, big 18 wheelers pull up and unload all of the stuff for the show, including the very carpet that is on every square inch of floor in the place! It's quite a thing to see.
(2) Stacking projectors refers to converging two projectors with a single video signal onto a single screen to reproduce a picture. This results in dramatically increased brightness and resolution.

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