CEDIA REPORT POST #1
OK. Not sure how many pictures I can put into one post, but I will try to make this more "picture heavy" than words since some people don't like to read. However, you know me. I like to tell a story.
So I arrived onsite nice and early. I'd say 30 minutes before the showroom floor opened (it opened at 9am), however I quickly realized that I must have come in the "back doors" of the convention center, as I had to walk, and walk, and walk just to start to see people gathering. That's fine, I had plenty of time.
Then I get to the automated badge creator stations, and wow are the line long. The process for getting a badge was easy. Enter your first name, last name, and zip code. If would search for you, and bring up any matches. You just clicked on your found name and bam, it would send your badge to the printer right there. The problem was that there were two computers to each badge printer and the printers weren't super fast, so that is what was taking the time.
I still got my badge, and made it over to the main showroom floor entrance with about a minute to spare.
So they let us in, and zoom.... I am heading to the back of the showroom to try to hit up a few demos right off the bat. Places like Golden Ear, Paradigm, Dolby, Auro 3D, etc were all in the back reached of the place.
I get there, and I see these tiny little listening rooms... OK, they aren't THAT small on the outside, but once you step inside, there is room for about 6-8 people is all. This is Auro on the left, and Dolby on the right. Keep in mind that Dolby had a really nice booth last year as they announced Atmos. I ended up skipping these as most of them were still getting set up for the day.
While looking around, I spotted some very interesting speakers. Here is an example:
I then got stopped by a booth offering "free massages." Well, I was sucked in and pretty soon I was sitting there for 30 minutes getting an electronic massage where they connect these little electrode pads and shock your muscles. I knew that it was a matter of time before they wanted me to buy one. Price started at $250, but before I left, they had it down to $120. I still passed as I had some walking to do:
Here is their layout that they used for Atmos, DTS:X, and Auro3D. They had 3 speakers behind the screen, two on each of the sides for surrounds, two on the back wall, 4 overheads in the "corners" above the listening area that were angled in for Atmos and DTS:X (and Auro3D, although not in Auro's recommended location), and a "Voice Of God" speaker in the middle. The two towering sets of woofers in the front corners basically produce all lower (and low) frequencies for the room. There are no "woofers" in their other speakers. This was AMAZING sounding again this year. Should be for the dealer price of $185,000 for the speakers and processor/amps. MSRP is considerably higher.
Steinway Lyngdorf Speaker Setup Video EDIT: Ugh. Video won't embed into the post, and some pictures are coming up sideways after being posted.
More information coming either later tonight or tomorrow. For now, I've got some other work to do before heading home tomorrow.
