Revel IC15
$749 each
Revel Speakers
Watching video and audio fight for attention this past January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was like watching Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Video played the Obama role, with appealing yet vague promises of 150-inch HDTVs and high-def digital downloads. Audio was stuck in the Clinton role, touting a wealth of accomplishments but struggling to capture the attention of crowds that had given it up for dead.
The truth is, there's at least as much going on in audio as in video, and the latest developments are ones that anybody, not just enthusiasts, can appreciate. The video world fixates on numbers now — 1080p, 120 Hz — but the mass-market failure of the super-high-resolution DVD-Audio and SACD formats taught the sound guys that numbers don't guarantee success. Audio manufacturers stopped focusing on specs and directed their efforts toward making their products friendlier and more convenient to use.
SEE NO EVIL. HEAR NO EVIL
Why does audio get so little attention? It's partly because manufacturers have worked so hard to make their products less visible. The latest generation of ceiling speakers for home theater provides a perfect example. Custom installers (and their clients) have embraced these speakers because they provide a full surround-sound experience without displacing couches, chairs, or paintings. But early models did have a touch of evil: pivoting plastic protrusions that smeared the sound.
A few years ago, Triad created the first really good-sounding home-theater ceiling speakers, with drivers mounted at a fixed angle on a sturdy enclosure.
Other manufacturers have now followed Triad's lead: Polk Audio with its THX-certified LCi-RTS100 ($2,399 a pair), Definitive Technology with its UIW RCS II ($599 each), and most recently, Revel with its IC15 ($749 each, shown above), which deploys an unusual rectangular woofer to deliver an extra dollop of bass.
Now, too, there are minimally visible subwoofers to go with the ceiling speakers. These aren't the minisubs made popular years ago by Sunfire and others; it'd be more accurate to call the new ones microsubs. Velodyne has compacted a 61/2-inch driver, two passive radiators, and a powerful digital amplifier into a mere 9-inch cube. The MicroVee ($999, shown below right) can't deliver the room-rattling bass of the company's larger subs, but it can easily fill out the sound of a small in-wall or on-wall system.
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| MicroVee subwoofer $999 Velodyne |
In-wall subwoofers have long been the last resort for home-owners who want bass but don't have the room. Recently, engineering efforts have allowed these formerly anemic components to compete with any other subs on the market. The most compact of the new generation of in-wall subs is the Artison RCC-300 ($800), which measures only 12 inches high and 91/2 inches wide. It has two slim, oval-shaped woofers facing each other. Because one woofer pushes down when the other pushes up (and vice versa), they cancel each other's vibrations, which makes the bass sound punchier.
SURROUND WITHOUT SHAME
Who doesn't love the enveloping effect of surround sound? But who does love the unattractive assemblage of speakers? Audio engineers have tried to solve this problem by squeezing the five-plus speakers of a surround system into a single enclosure. It's an especially elegant solution if all five speakers can fit right under a flat-panel TV.
Several manufacturers have figured out how to make this concept work well — perhaps a little too well for their own good. After hearing a certain demo at CES, I asked the company president, "How can you sell a conventional 5.1 system after people have heard this?" With a heavy note of resignation, he admitted, "I don't know."
Yamaha's YSP-4000 ($1,800) is as high-tech as a speaker gets: 40 tweeter/midrange drivers, each with its own digital amp, along with two small woofers, all in a single cabinet. Through sophisticated digital signal processing, the YSP-4000's tweeter regiment beams sound to bounce off your walls and re-create the sonic effect of a full surround-sound system.
Polk's solution, the SurroundBar, is less high-tech but still effective. (Models include the entry-level SurroundBar, $799; the SurroundBar 50, $999; and the SurroundBar 360 DV Theater, $1,195.) It uses a time-proven technology called crosstalk cancellation, which feeds a second speaker with a slightly different signal to fool your ears' direction-perceiving mechanisms. Polk dubs its twist on this technology SDA, or Surround Dimensional Array. Definitive Technology's new SSA (Solo Surround Array) line (which includes the $899 SSA-42 and the $1,099 SSA-50) is similar but with a different industrial design. Probably the least expensive entry in this field is Zvox's Model 415 ($499), which is smaller than the rest and has all of its amplification built in. (The Yamaha YSP-4000, Polk SurroundBar 50, and Zvox 425 are reviewed in 7 Simple Solutions).
COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
For years, the Bose Wave Music System has been a standard accessory for kitchen countertops. Two companies — B&W and Meridian — are trying to get a piece of that action with similarly sized but far fancier systems. The B&W Zeppelin ($599) is a sleek, aerodynamic take on an iPod speaker system, while the $2,995 Meridian/Ferrari F80 (reviewed in Experts' Guide to Great Gifts) adds DVD/CD playback capability, an AM/FM radio, and 80 watts of digital amplification.
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| Ferrari Art.Engine $20,000 DWV Art.Engine |
DWV's Ferrari Art.Engine takes this form factor to a new extreme. With 16 woofers, two tweeters, 800 watts of internal amplification, and a billet aluminum chassis weighing 107 pounds, the $20,000 Art.Engine practically begs to hang out in 10-car garages filled with classic rides.
It's annoying to hear audiophiles deride the iPod for substandard sound quality, but if they won't listen to their kids, perhaps they'll listen to the KID — the Krell Interface Dock ($1,500). It extracts sound from an iPod using professional-style balanced-audio circuitry. You can use the KID with any amplifier, but Krell prefers that it bond with, of course, the Papa Dock ($2,000), a 150-watts-per-channel amp that cradles the KID and connects to it without wires. Add a pair of high-end speakers, and you have the world's most extravagant, extraordinary iPod audio system.
RIGHTING ROOM WRONGS
A room's acoustics have as much effect on sound quality as your choice of gear does. Until recently, getting the best sound from your room meant liberal use of unsightly acoustic-treatment products. Thanks to new high-powered digital-signal-processing chips built into A/V receivers and surround-sound processors, it's now possible to cure problems with acoustics by altering the signals going into your speakers. Just place a microphone so the receiver can "hear" what's going on in your space, then activate an automatic setup procedure and walk out of the room. Come back in a few minutes, and your sound is, in theory, perfect.
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| Wisdom SC-1 speaker controller $6,000 Wisdom Audio |
But every manufacturer seems to have a different idea about the right way to do digital room-correction, so results will vary. One example is the Audyssey technology built into A/V receivers from Denon, Integra, Marantz, NAD, and Onkyo (the least expensive model is Onkyo's $300 TX-SR505) and the new Wisdom Sage in-wall speaker system (speakers begin at $2,250 each; the $6,000 SC-1 speaker controller is shown to the right). There's also the Anthem Room Correction System incorporated into Anthem Statement surround sound processors (the Anthem Statement D2 with the ARC-1 option is $7,499), or the RoomPerfect feature found in Lyngdorf Audio systems (Lyngdorf D1 processor with RoomPerfect: $15,000). The consensus among audio professionals seems to be that while none of these systems achieves true perfection, all can improve your sound significantly.
WALLS OF SOUND
The iPod has spoiled us. We've become so used to having immediate access to all the music we own wherever we go, we're starting to expect that same convenience at home. Digital technology delivers it easily. Just walk up to a wall-mounted control screen, or grab a home-automation touchscreen remote, or pull up a page in your Web browser, and you can scan your entire music collection — and, with some new systems, your entire family's music collection. Select a tune, album, or playlist, and your room fills instantly with sound.
All of these systems work in different ways, but the experience varies only subtly, depending for the most part on the graphic layout of the onscreen interface. NetStreams calls up digital audio from any computer or hard drive connected to your home network and plays it through compact digital amplifiers located in each room. (Prices run from $1,800 to $5,000 a room, depending on the source devices and control options.) Request's iQ system ($7,000 plus $500 to $2,500 a room for controllers) does most of the same tricks, but it uses a single, powerful multichannel amp for more oomph.
High-end speaker specialist Thiel Audio surprised CES attend- ees by incorporating similar technology right into its speakers; yes, the speakers themselves actually pull music and movie sound off an Ethernet-based network. The ThielNet system (price to be announced) works with stereo or surround sound, and it also runs wirelessly if using a network cable is impractical.
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| Sennheiser MX W1 earbuds $599 Sennheiser |
'PHONE PLAN
As the iPod introduced millions of people to music on the go, it spawned a renaissance in the headphone industry. CES saw countless new models, but two in particular stood out — one for its modern technology and the other for its old-school vibe.
Sennheiser's MX W1 earbuds free you from those annoying wires that get tangled in your ski poles or your dog's leash. Each bud has a wireless audio receiver, a tiny amplifier, and a rechargeable battery. The MX W1 is among the first products to use Kleer, a licensed technology that transmits audio over short distances wirelessly and without data compression. The carrying case doubles as a charger for the earbuds.
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| Beats by Dr. Dre $399 Monster Cable |
Now if Monster would just come up with a 150-inch version of Beats, audio might get a little more attention at the 2009 CES.