EHX Expo Orlando 2004 Day 2

Well, today marked another monumental milestone in Home Theater. Most manufacturers announce new products at CES and CEDIA, which was why we were surprised to see so many new stuff being making their debut at the Electronic House Expo. These included new screens from Vutec and even a few new front projectors, many of which are outlined below.

Vutec Corporation
> Vutec is located in Pompano Beach, Florida, just a hop, skip and water ski away from Orlando. During the EHX, Vutec announced their new retractable version SilverStar Projector Screen. This high gain screen boasts and increased brightness by 6 which the manufacturer tells us provides more vivid colors, detail and high contrasts when compared to matte white or enhanced gray projector screens. In addition to the picture and demo shown to the right, Vutec also have a darkened room with a partitioned three part screen. A continual demonstration was projected on the three part screen using a Theater Automation WOW projector. The partitioned screen included a matte white, and an enhanced gray with the new SilverStar nestled in between. Unfortunately, the room was too dark for pictures, but we definitely so a difference between the three screen types. Like everything in life, there are trade offs for each item that is improved upon. It's the basic laws of physics at work. In this case, the enhanced gray screen seemed to show darker blacks, while the matte white had brighter whites. The SilverStar seemed to combine the best of both worlds while offering perhaps a bit less blackness than the gray screen and a bit less whiteness than the white screen, but definite improvement with vivid colors and details. We look forward to reviewing these screens in our next Projector Screen Shootout .

TAW Projectors
> TAW makes enormous, solidly-built Projectors. TAW is another Florida based company, but this time, they are located right in Orlando. This gentle giant DLP sports three DMD Chips for increased Luminance and included separate modules for controllers and switching. What was most interesting is that the entire service menu is accessible and navigational through the user menu via the remote. Furthermore, the service menu is easy to navigate and adjust making it simple to calibrate for the professional installer and the novice home theater enthusiast.

They have a smaller, and more affordable (to us common folk) version hitting the market late spring and we woudl like to do a thorough review of Theater Automation's Projectors.

IEEE 1394 Trade Association
> Fire Wire may not be gone yet! We stopped by the IEEE 1394 (aka - Fire Wire) booth and saw a Mitsubishi system setup completely connected with Fire Wire. The Fire Wire carries all audio and video through a daisy-chain connection both to and from each piece of gear in the system, which means every piece requires at least 2 Fire Wire jacks (one for in and one for out). This is also true of DVD players, especially if you have a seperate CD player. In order to complete the daisy-chain, you need to connect through the DVD player with an in and out. So products that currently have only one IEEE serve little purpose in this single wire-type connection as they can not be easily daisy chained.

The short demo we got was quite impressive, especially when the representative disconnected the DVD player in the system and the Mitsubishi receiver/controller automatically detected the disconnected pieces. Notice how we stated pieces meaning that every piece of equipment from the DVD player though the network chain was also disconnected.

We asked IEEE about the competing HDMI or HDCP format and the rep stated that other technologies don't allow recording. We then asked about the resistance from the movie industry regarding this issue, and she stated that the movie industry was okay with the Fire Wire format and has moved beyond that issue. I guess we will all have to just wait and see what happens.

Some interesting facts about IEEE 1394 Fire Wire which was also outlined in their literature.

• FCC declared that by July 2007 all TV sets (above 13") must have built-in-high-definition digital tuners
• The National Cable and Telecommiunications Association (NCTA) and the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) agreed to mandate 1394 as one of the two digital interfaces between digital cable set-top boxes and digital televisions.
• IEEE 1394 is capable of delivering high definition, all digital signals for AV receivers, set-top boxes, CD/DVD players, digital VCR's and computers.

Now, I don't know about you but I personally long for the day when I can use one wire type for my entire system in place of my current rats nest.

Harmony Home Theater Remote Controllers
> Another great piece of equipment we saw was the newest release Remote Controls from Harmony. Harmony offers Internet, activity based remote controllers that are more than just a remote with macros. These remotes are set up through their web site and then downloaded via a USB connection. The representative showed us how you simply log into the Harmony web site pick the different AV gear that you own and then it downloads all pieces into your remote. Harmony has a tremendous database for A/V gear. We had her pick brand new gear and very old gear and every piece we chose was on their web site. We did offer our suggestions on how to improve their product though. For example, they list all AV Controllers, including Theater Receivers and Theater Processors, as "Stereo Receivers." This can be confusing to those who don't remember the old "Stereo" days, before we were filled with 10 speakers wrapping around our heads. We suggested that they consider renaming this section as AV Controllers, or AV Receivers and Processors, or any other updated and current name. [Update: Check out our Logitech Harmony Remote reviews ]

What we admired most about the Harmony Remotes was once the activities such as "Watch a movie", "Watch TV", or "Listen to music" are configured, you just press that activity button and you're done. You don't have to sit there and program marcos to turn your gear on or switch inputs making the Harmony Remotes smart remote controls. To elaborate on this important and unique features, when a unit is powered off, like with a hard power switch as opposed to Standby Power, you can press "help" and the Harmony will lead you through a series of questions until you find the piece that is powered off thereby "fixing" the problem by turning that unit back on. We thought the remote had a good solid feel to the buttons which tells us durability was fundamental. Their newest remote, the Harmony 688, includes buttons common to PVR (Personal Video Recorder such as TiVo) users. Audioholics looks forward to reviewing their remotes very soon.
>

Tributaries
> Yet another Orlando, Florida based company, Tributaries was at full force at the Expo. I've had the pleasure of getting to know Mr. Joe Perfito, President and Founder of Tributaries, over the past couple of years and have a high respect for him and his company. Tributaries is among the few companies who do not promote snake oil and provide quality products, with an emphasis on custom installers. Tributaries was also debuing their brand new power center which we were unable to get a picture of. We were most impressed with the build quality, weight and robustness of this fortified power conditioner and surge suppressor which makes some of the mass produced versions seem almost toy like. The Tributaries power center is packed with a mighty transformer, and provides accommodations for a host of outlets, phone lines, cable lines and more. We hope to have a complete review of the unit along with a factory tour of Tributaries in the very near future. So stay tuned.

NAD and PSB were AOK!
> NAD and psb speakers both had a great shared display with a vast array of products. NAD's display including their new 12 channel amplifier, receivers, processors, tuner and other assorted home theater products while psb speakers displayed their totally new and revamped line of speakers.

Introducing psb speakers new bookshelf and towers. The 2-way Image B15 Bookshelf includes a 1" aluminum dome tweeter and 5 1/4" metalized polypropylene cone woofer and is video shielded to sit next to that large RPTV. The Image T45 Tower includes the same 1" aluminum dome tweeter along with two 5 1/4" metalized polypropylene woofers. To the far right is psb speakers flagship Platinum M2 Bookshelf which retails for around $6k per pair. The M2 includes a 6-1/2-inch woofer with a woven fiberglass cone, a long throw rubber surround and increased output. The tweeter is a low-resonance ferrofluid cooled 1-inch aluminum dome. We look forward to reviewing these fine new products in the near future.

Knoll Systems
> We had a particularly enjoyable time meeting with the Director of Sales for Knoll Systems. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to meet up with the legendary Kevin Knoll, but we did get to see some of his inventive new products including video and audio switching boxes, miniature amplifiers, component video on cat 5 system and a list of other assorted goodies all of which are a custom installers dream.

DH Labs Silver Sonic
> If you know Audioholics well, you know that we are constantly looking for quality cable vendors. Thus why we were pleased to encounter DH Labs and see their Silver Sonic cables. We were able to closely inspect their cables to see what type of shielding they include, how well the solder connection was done, and the robustness of the connector themselves. Upon close inspection, these guys appear to get the Audioholics stamp of approval. Perhaps we may include them in our next round of cable related articles .

Legacy Speakers
> Legacy Speakers had a very attractive display. We were most impressed with their cross-section speaker which allowed us an opportunity to see the insides of the cabinet in order to examine the baffeling, chambers and materials. The crafsmanship of these speakers was extremely impressive espcially their Focus 20/20 which retails at $6,400 per pair.