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- Written by: Brent Butterworth
- Category: Features
By far -- by a zillion, trillion miles -- the most excitement at the 2014 CEDIA Expo centered around the launch of the home version of Dolby Atmos, the technology that adds audio "objects" to the standard 7.1-channel mix, and adds height speakers for additional envelopment. I spoke with hundreds of people at the Expo, and not a single one expressed a negative sentiment about Atmos. All of the demos -- aided by a fresh Atmos demo disc from Dolby -- showed how the technology can add an immediately noticeable sense of realism to home-theater audio.
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- Written by: Brent Butterworth
- Category: Features
When it came to audio electronics, the new Dolby Atmos A/V receivers grabbed much of the attention at the 2014 CEDIA Expo. But I was surprised and heartened to see a lot of new stereo gear on display, including new ultra-high-end models as well as affordable products that are almost impulse buys (well, at least for serious audiophiles). Here's the best of what I saw at the show.
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- Written by: Brent Butterworth
- Category: Features
As usual, the focus at last week's 2014 CEDIA Expo in Denver was on home theater and home automation, but it was also the first North American appearance for several new stereo speakers that have either just hit the market or will be shipping within a few months. Some of these are intended just for stereo use; others are available with accompanying center and surround speakers and subwoofers for home theater.
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- Written by: Brent Butterworth
- Category: Features
CEDIA Expo, held often in Denver, Colorado, is always a big show for home-theater audio, so it's always a big show for subwoofers. At this year's show, the focus seemed to be on relatively tiny models, ones better suited for filling out the sound of your bookshelf speakers than for shaking the floor of a home theater. Here are the best of the new models I saw. Unfortunately, most of them were on static display so I can't say anything about the sound.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Photos
Photos taken by Doug Schneider on May 17 and 18
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Crystal Cable, Magico, Tannoy, Octave Audio, CH Precision, Simaudio, Nagra, Cambridge Audio, Amphion, Pro-Ject Audio Systems, Alpha Design Labs, Pathos Acoustics
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
I was telling Tidal Audio designer Jorn Janczak that I thought the Contriva G2 (€41,000/pr.) was the perfect-sized loudspeaker. It is large enough to have generous internal air volume for support of a pair of 9" woofers, but also small enough to fit most real-world listening rooms. And let's face it: most audiophiles want a loudspeaker that can produce enough bass to make them feel the music -- a pair of nines will do that. At the same time, we all know that real-world speakers need to be able to fit in an average room -- not just relegated to a large dedicated listening room, which are not all that common these days. The Contriva G2 fills the bill better than most.
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Features
It wasn't that many years ago when most speakers were available in only a limited number of finishes -- all that you had to choose from were usually a small number of wood-type finishes (real or vinyl) or glossy black paint, which everyone had. Only a handful of companies were pushing beyond that limited selection. The rest were, well, boring.
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- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Features
High End 2014 was a study in contrast on the superspeaker front. Vast technological differences separated the most ambitious participants, and no clearer contrasts could be found than with three of my favorite models: MartinLogan's Neolith, Estelon's Extreme, and Magico's Ultimate III.
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: MartinLogan, Jeff Rowland, EAM Lab, Ambitious Audio Design, Ayre Acoustics, Audia Flight, Hegel Music Systems, JMC Lutherie, Estelon, Vitus Audio, Verity Audio, Ascendo
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Photos
Photos taken by Doug Schneider on May 15 and 16
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Fink Audio-Consulting, Dynaudio, Dali, Audio Research, Wadia Digital, McIntosh Labs, Sonus Faber, TAD, PMC, Tidal, Arcam
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: KEF, Devialet, ASW, Naim Audio, Gryphon Audio Designs, Orpheus, Focal, Nordost, T+A
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Muraudio, Blue Circle Audio, LineAV Design, Cocktail Audio, Rega, Music Hall, Blue Aura, Simaudio, Bryston, ProStudioMasters, Tri-Art Audio, AVA Media, WOW, Essence, Davis Acoustics, Kimber Kable, Mass Fidelity
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Features
High-end audio is built around extremes. The attention-grabbing companies generally build products that are large or expensive, or -- more commonly -- both. Great big amps. Refrigerator-sized speakers. Forearm-thick cables. Turntables that take three people to lift. It's all about wretched excess, conspicuous consumption, and one-upmanship.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Features
Adjectives like revolutionary, miraculous, and unparalleled are often bandied around in the audio world, but it's rare that the application of these labels is deserved. It's even rarer, in my experience, for a new company to spring up, fully formed, with a statement-level product to which such those terms clearly and obviously apply.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Features
These days there's a jillion different ways to skin the media-server cat, and most of them seem like mostly stop-gap efforts, requiring significant know-how or large chunks of Rube Goldberg-like system jiggering.
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Features
I arrived on Thursday night at the Hilton Bonaventure in Montreal, and it didn't take long for my partner, Marcia, and I to mosey down to the lobby bar for a beer. We settled down into our chairs and ordered, and as the buzz and disorientation from the five-hour drive wore off, I looked around at our surroundings.
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- Written by: News Editor
- Category: Photos
Companies featured in gallery below: Audio-Technica, Westone Audio, Beyerdynamic, Polk Audio, Sennheiser, Parasound, SVS, Velodyne, HiFiMAN, Torus Power, Chord Electronics, Primare, MBL, Genesis Advanced Technologies, Balanced Audio Technology, Lamm Industries
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- Written by: Doug Schneider
- Category: Photos
Candid photos taken at CES 2014
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