T.H.E. Show Newport Beach 2014
The Home Entertainment Show Report, Part 3

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  Clarity Cable's new Vortex Power Distributor ($1400 on up), according to the manufacturer, is more about vibration control. This is said to be very important for top performance and, thus, they chose a wood case for its inherent ability to control unwanted resonances. The case is made from a carefully chosen selection of 'tone woods'.

 

Essence of Music is a digital optical disc cleaner and treatment system ($150 that treats about 350 discs). The benefits are said to improve the optics of the disc by 'birefringence' (by refraction) that can cause jitter, etc.

 

Planters Speakers are designers of outdoor speakers in, what else a planter ($3500 per pair). My wife Heather wants them... right now. Yes dear. :)  They do sound quite good and should fit quite nicely within a stylish outdoor setting. You can enjoy our video covering Planter Speakers during AXPONA at this link.

 

Zu Audio is perhaps the coolest Retro Futuristic company with their Console 1 ($7800). Zu integrates Bauhaus design philosophy, with the Console 1 having a pair of Zu's Nanotech 10" full-range speaker. Zu's Submission subwoofer is mounted into the bottom section to fill out the lowermost frequencies. Adding to this special design is the floating top half via using magnetic levitation that aid in minimizing unwanted vibrations from your chosen electronics stored within the center cabinet section. You can enjoy our video covering Zu Audio during AXPONA at this link.

 

Martin’s Coltrane Tenor speakers ($85,000 per pair) have an ultra-wide frequency response from 24 Hz to 100 kHz via a pair of 8" aluminum sandwich woofers, 7" ceramic midrange and 0.75" diamond tweeter. This three way design uses the company's newest bass units for tight, tuneful and full sound. The elegant cabinets are made with specialized material and come wrapped in your choice of Oak, Maple, Cherry, Walnut and Piano Black.

 

Questlyle had their new T2 Transmitter ($650) that uses 5GHz Wi-Fi to wirelessly transmit 24-bit/192kHz digital audio. The system only works with their brand of amplification. Am sure they make high quality amplifiers, yet let us hope they’ll open their currently closed-ended system and make just a sender-receiver combo that will be usable with any system.

 

Muraudio model PX1 $58,000 is the world's first omni-directional electrostatic speaker. This produces a full 360 soundscape surrounding you in musical pleasures. The use three 21" ribbons that each create sound at a 120 degree angle. The crossover is at 450 Hz where three aluminum cone 9" drivers mounted in triax form fill in the bass. The triax woofer system was designed to eliminate rear wave distortions within their sealed enclosure.

 

Von Gaylord's room sounded nicely dynamic and clean clean clean. After nearly a decade I still come away impressed with the sound they achieve during shows. Their Return Of A Legend MKII 2-way speakers are mated with the VG-1 Plus MKII Discovery woofer ($18,995). Front end was their Uni Earth MKII 180-watt monoblocks and Uni Preamplifier MKII ($16,995 and $15,995 respectively). Digital audio is being handled by their Uni Digital MKII that has a separate power supply ($12,995). Did I mention I always seem to really enjoy the sound of their products during shows?

 

Only have $1100 and looking for a cool new toy? The DSPeaker Anti-Core 2.0 Dual Core features automatic room correction algorithm and comes with a microphone. It takes about 5 minutes for the unit to 'tune in' your system. It supports USB and S/PDIF input/output. There are dual balanced ADCs and dual balanced DACs that oversamples to 6144 kHz. It may also be used as a preamplifier with remote controlled volume.

 

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