Updated Event Presentation Information Below!
Fri., Feb. 26, 6 pm to 9 pm and Sat., Feb. 27, 12 Noon to 6 pm
Music and Home Entertainment Presentation Information
Location: The new Audio Advice showplace
Address: 11409 Carolina Place Parkway, Pineville, NC (former Tweeter building near Carolina Place Mall)
Please RSVP if you plan to attend Friday evening by e-mail to: event@audioadvice.com (or by phone to (704) 821-4510
Friday presentations begin at 6 PM with the last at 8:30 PM. Saturday presentations are in a less structured open house format. Wine and food from Born to Cook will be available Friday evening for you to enjoy between sessions.
Presentations will be every half-hour (unless noted) as shown below. (All presenters may not be present both days, presenters are subject to change.)
Outside Room James Loudspeaker Keith Parke
Station A Peachtree Audio and Era Speakers Jim Spainhour and David Solomon
Station B How Audiophile Recordings Are Made Rick Dior/Acoustic Barn (Friday evening only. Hourly at 6, 7, and 8 PM)
Station C Digital Projection Keith Parke Stewart Filmscreen Steve Merritt Bowers and Wilkins B&W Jim Scatena and Doug Henderson
Station D Magnepan Wendall Diller Sumiko Bill Peugh
Station E Sim2 Chris Hobbs Integra Daryl Jenkins Universal Remote Bobbie Bradley
Station F Control4 Scott Salzman Salamander Steve Merritt
Station G Bowers and Wilkins B&W Jim Scatena and Doug Henderson JL Audio Randy Wagner
Station H Audio Research Dave Gordon Wilson Audio Jerron Marchant Martin Logan Russell Woolfolk Transparent Cable Brad O’Toole
Station I Niles Dave Robinette
Station J Crestron Joe Laurin Lutron Jeff Zemanek, Maria DeVirgilis, Rodgers Hill, Kevin Grissler, Jason Feus
Room K Kaleidescape Rick Lozano Screen Innovations TBD
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Two days of presentations of the best hi-fi audio, home theater, and home control components and technology. Fri. Feb. 26, 6 pm to 9 pm and Sat. Feb. 27, 12 noon to 6 pm. (See details for each day below.)
The new Charlotte Audio Advice showplace
Location: The new Audio Advice showplace
Address: 11409 Carolina Place Parkway, Pineville, NC (the former Tweeter building, near Carolina Place Mall)
Friday, Feb. 26th from 6 pm to 9 pm
A special evening celebrating the pleasures of great music reproduction
The enjoyment of music will be Friday evening’s focus, with representatives from some of the finest high performance audio components and loudspeakers in the world on hand. We will offer presentations of their latest and best offerings every half hour. Born to Cook will provide wine and food for you to enjoy during this special evening.
Please RSVP for Friday evening by e-mail to event@audioadvice.com (or by phone to (704) 821-4510)
Saturday, Feb. 27th, 12 noon to 6 pm
An open house featuring the latest home entertainment technology
The world of home technology is on view Saturday in an open house setting with even more representatives on hand, showing you today’s newest and very best entertainment and automation possibilities for the whole family to enjoy!
Meet audio/video and home technology professionals from :
Audio Research
Bowers and Wilkins B&W
Classé
Control4
Crestron
Digital Projection
Era/Decco
Integra
James Loudspeaker
JL Audio
Kaleidescape
Lutron
Magnepan
Martin Logan
Niles
Panamax
Salamander
Sim2
SpeakerCraft
Stewart Filmscreen
Transparent Cable
Universal Remote
Wilson Audio
(Attendees subject to change)
Register to Win Grand Opening Prize Drawing! (do not need to be present to win)
We look forward to seeing you on Feb. 26th and 27th!
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I’ll never forget an experience at CEDIA many years ago. I was in the B&W booth and they showed me a prototype of this new home theater speaker they were developing called the CT8 series. It was physically huge, required 3 amplifiers per speaker, had tremendous dynamic ability, and had the great sound we have learned to love from B&W. The system received wonderful press, but the only drawback was its price, about 200K for the complete package.
Well in typical B&W fashion, a few years passed and a new series was introduced, called the CT7 series. For over 40 years B&W has taken the approach of doing a “no holds barred” project, then taking what they learn and making a line that many more people can afford. The first models in the CT 7 series were speakers designed to mount on the screen wall, being only 10.5” deep for all speakers. We got in the first model they shipped, the 7.5 and set it up in one of our theater rooms. The 7.5’s are only $600 each. I remember to this day the first time I played it. I put in a very old Sheffield Labs instrumental CD and my jaw hit the floor. This system made music so dynamic, yet so natural sounding, I could not believe it!
A few weeks later the CT7.3 started to ship (the largest model in this series). We installed a system in a customer’s home and I went out to calibrate the theater. The new 7.3 was even more of a shocker than the smaller models. This system sounded far better than many more expensive systems we had done. It became really clear that B&W had a huge success on their hands.
Part of what makes the CT system so appealing is that all of the speakers are 10.5” deep, including the subs. And speaking of the subs: to save space, the sub amp is a separate component. This gives you the advantage of having all of the adjustments at your fingertips rather than at the back of the sub. To say these subs are great is a big understatement. They are so fast, yet go so deep, it’s purely incredible. I liked them so much I put two of them in my own theater. (And I think I am going to add two more for even more bass impact!). They come in 10”, 12” and 15” models.
The only thing lacking in this great CT line up was something to address the in wall and in ceiling needs of many people. Well, lo and behold, at the last CEDIA show, B&W presented the new in ceiling and in wall versions of every single model! They have developed a unique, patented way to get these into a wall and have great performance. They have a folding back box to fit into the wall! (A back box is a real must have if you want to have consistent performance from your speakers.) The new CT in wall and in ceiling speakers are shipping now. We will feature a system with these in our new Charlotte location.
I cannot express in words how much fun it is to own a great home theater system. It’s just a totally different experience than most people get when watching a movie. You can understand the ultra important dialog track with ease. As a matter of fact, on a great system you can even hear subtle nuances of emotion in the performers voices that transport you further into the movie. A properly calibrated system with good subwoofers gives you bass impact that sweeps you away. And of course, the front, surround and rear speakers envelop you with great sound. One final great fact is the efficiency of these new speakers. This has two advantages: the first being they are dynamic as all get out. The second is, you do not need a monster stack of amps to really get them going (of course that can make them even better, but is not necessary). The new CT series from B&W brings a truly immersive home theater experience to a much wider audience with enormous value for its price.
We invite you to our Raleigh or Charlotte showrooms to experience the difference. In each store we have a basic system set up using the entry level 7.5 speakers and a bigger one with the 7.3 series. I am 100% positive you will be 110% impressed with how much great sound you can get for the money!
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Outstanding New Products from Great Companies
1) B&W
The Custom Theater CT series is the hot thing at Audio Advice, but we can’t overlook the new CM9 floor standing speaker. This very slim tower delivers amazing performance at $3000 a pair. We’ve received more positive customer comments on this speaker than almost anything in the last ten years. It’s an outstanding design, and is set up with Rotel components in our Raleigh B&W Group room and our Charlotte store for you to listen to.
Visit us to hear the new floorstanding CM-9 from B&W
2) Ayre
The QB-9 USB DAC is the darling of the review press right now. If you use your computer to store your audio files, the QB-9 is a great way to extract them for maximum performance. It seems like every person who borrows this digital to analog converter overnight winds up keeping it. At $2500 it’s a fantastic value in USB DACs!
Digital music comes alive with the Ayre QB-9 DAC
3) Wilson Audio
What happens when you take an already great product and make it better and less expensive? The new Wilson Audio Sasha W/P speaker shows you. Right after Brandon set these up, I gave them a listen and my jaw hit the floor. Wilson has done it again with the Sasha. The Sasha incorporates many concepts from the MAXX 3, yet is slightly less expensive than the Watt/Puppy 8 it replaces. Come in with your favorite CDs or digital music and we’ll give your ears a listening thrill!
Wilson's amazing new Sasha W/P loudspeakers
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Reworking Raleigh Theater Two (Earsay Fall 2009) by Leon Shaw
The new Rotel RSP-1570 Processor and RMB-1575 Power Amplifier
Over the summer, we set up Raleigh showroom Theater Two to demonstrate a killer level of performance. The room highlights the latest products from some of our favorite vendors. The speaker system features the new B&W Custom Theater CT 7 series. The front three channels are top of the line model CT 7.3 LCRS, at $1500 each. Two CT12 subwoofers complete the front speaker array. For side speakers, we have the B&W DS6 dipole surround speakers. From Rotel’s new 15 Series, the system processor is the RSP-1570, priced at $2199, with power from their RMB-1575 five-channel power amplifier. (I played with the RSP-1570 at home, and it’s awesome for the money!) The source component is Pioneer Elite’s latest reference Blu-ray player, the incredible BDP-09, with the best Blu-ray picture we have seen. A new SIM2 Domino D80i projector, coupled with a Schneider anamorphic lens provides the picture on a Stewart Firehawk filmscreen with 2:35 aspect ratio. Everything is controlled with the MX-980, our favorite remote control from Universal. The saying “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” is true for this theater. It completely rocks! The B&W CT speakers are ultra-efficient, so you hear all the dynamic contrasts of the latest movie soundtracks. If you’re considering an upgrade to any part of your own theater, there is probably something here for you. If you are considering a high performance theater investment, we can think of no better combination that what we have in Theater Two. You have to visit us and experience it!
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IN ORDER TO HOST AN OFFSITE EVENT PRESENTATION, THE AUDIO ADVICE RALEIGH SHOWROOM WILL CLOSE AT 4 PM ON THURSDAY, NOV. 12th.
We will reopen for our normal showroom hours on Friday, Nov. 13th at 10:00 am.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
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- September 14
Well, I’ve just returned from 4 days in Atlanta at the CEDIA trade show. We arrived there Wednesday just in time for our member meeting of the Home Theater Specialists of America. After an afternoon of meetings we adjourned to our annual HTSA cocktail party where it was great to see all of my old and new friends in the a/v industry. Thursday morning we hit the floor early to see and hear all of the new toys that will be coming out over the next year or so.
The coolest thing there, and our entire team agreed on this, was the Panasonic 3D demo. We’ve been looking at various 3D innovations over the past several years, but none have ever really cut it. There were even a few other vendors at this year’s CEDIA showing off their 3D concepts, that we all felt were once again lacking, and gave all of us a headache after about 5 minutes. Early next year, a standard will be adopted for 3D video, and obviously all of the various electronics companies are vying for their own technology.
Panasonic had driven a big 18 wheeler onto the trade floor with expanding sides. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we were lead into a room with a Panasonic 100” plasma mounted on the wall with these funky looking large IR emitters hanging on both sides of it. We were given some special glasses the IR emitters talk to which synchs them to the 3D effects.
All of the 3D demos I have seen in the past had things that appeared to jump out in your face, but the rest of the image has been very blurry. Panasonic is taking a different tact. While there is some effect of things coming out into the room, it’s much more like you are inside the picture. Instead of the shark jumping out in your face, it feels like you are in the water. It’s really hard to explain until you see it, but it was the most amazing thing I have seen in a long while. They used a demo clip of the opening Olympic ceremony in Beijing, which was just spectacular. There was a line of drummers and the sense of depth was like nothing I have ever seen on a video display, much closer to real life depth perception.
If all of the other 3D technologies we saw make up the competition, I sure hope the Panasonic system becomes the standard, as it’s amazing!
Another very impressive new piece of technology was the new Runco LED front projector. Yes, LED! Imagine 70% less power consumption, far better than Energy Star standards. Imagine never having the change the projector lamp! Imagine not having to be concerned with the fact that all projector lamps loose some light output as they age. But that’s not the best part. The picture was stunning! There is one caveat, and it’s a pretty big one, but not much of a challenge for a dedicated home theater, but the room must be completely dark. However, once you do this, this projector has the ability to put colors out like you have never seen. Joel Silver with Image Science Foundation was in the audience for our demo. He stood up and told us Runco had sent him one for testing and he was not able to find an instrument that could begin to measure the black level this projector is capable of! Runco has developed a color technology that lets them adjust the color to really saturate the richness of the color without sacrificing flesh tones, which has always been an issue in the past. Is this perfect video, probably not, it’s a little richer and deeper than real life, but is it sexy and alluring, dad gum Skippy! Randy and I both walked out wanting to put one in our houses! This will be the first LED projector to hit the market, hopefully in November; pricing will be an incredible deal at $15k. I can’t wait to get this in my house!
A short trip down the floor brought us to the B&W booth where a ton of new products were on display. The most exciting thing to us was the new series of B&W in wall and in ceiling speakers. They have a very cool new system for making the edge of an in ceiling speakers almost disappear, and have also incorporated their latest CT series technology into both in ceiling and in wall models. The CT theater speakers, launched a few months ago have just been amazing in performance. Now we will have both in wall and in ceiling versions! B&W also showed a new no holds barred subwoofer. It uses 2 12” drivers in an extremely heavy box that has the electronics mounted in a very slick enclosure on the bottom of the sub. All kinds of eq adjustments are available. This one could be really good. Just across the way, Rotel was showing off several new products. The coolest one was a new tuner that brings together all of the benefits of internet radio, Pandora, along with AM/FM and XM. This one looks really interesting and will be fun to play with when it arrives.
Cinema Widescreen has definitely taken hold. I don’t think we saw a single theater display that was not using the new widescreen technology. We’ve got examples of this in Audio Advice for you to come in and check out. Two very impressive new projectors, at opposite ends of the price spectrum were from Sony and Digital Projection. Sony unveiled a new 3 chip model SXRD called the VPLW85. It will ship to us in November, and at its price of $7995 will be an unbelievable value. DPI showed off a prototype of a new 3 Chip DLP. This one has the ability for very high light output and had just a killer picture. It will hit a new lower price level for DPI at $30k.
Speakercraft was pitching a new home entertainment product called NIRV. If it can deliver on what it promises, it will be revolutionary. NIRV promises to deliver audio, video (1080p HD) and control all over a single CAT5e or CAT6 cable! The idea is you connect up all of your components that can reside anywhere in the house. They all work on the dedicated and separate NIRV network. NIRV asks who you are when you start to use the system and has the ability to follow you around the house and remember how you use the system. The concept is very cool, but product is probably at least a year away, so we will remain skeptical until we actually see it, but I gotta tell ya, the idea is awesome!
Crestron also showed off a new entry level system called Prodigy. It too looks very interesting for the money and brings Crestron quality to new, lower price level.
On the lighting control front, Lutron showed off a new version of their very popular Radio Ra, called, Radio Ra2. Lutron has really thought this out and it will bring the price of lighting control down to allow more people to experience its fun, safety and energy saving features. This one will probably make it into my own house!
All of the big video vendors showed off their new TV’s, but our take is they are all getting so good, it just makes sense to buy a decent one and take the money you save and spend it on better audio!
And wrapping things up was a beautiful new speaker from JBL called the K2 9900. These will be out later this year, and up the ante on the popular K2 9800. The sound was just great, but at $44,000 for the pair, they probably will not wind up in too many living rooms. However, they are just beautiful with incredibly dynamic sound.
We’ll be getting in some of these new products over the next few months and invite you to come in and check them out!
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Our custom team was met with a new challenge this week. We had a client who had purchased one of the new Samsung backlit LED TV’s and the awesome new B&W Panorama speaker from us, who wanted it all to mount on swing out arm. Normally this would be no problem as there are a variety of adaptors for brackets to make this work. However with the Panorama being so new, and its very cool curvy back shape, we could not find anything we felt would look right. Jeff Jerina, our lead installer on this project headed off to the hardware store and created a bracket that turned out to be an ideal solution. The new Samsung TV’s come to a point at the bottom, so it was critical to get everything just perfect for this solution to look right. Jeff did such a good job that where the point on the bottom of the TV meets the top of the Panorama, you can barely slide a piece of paper in the space. Keegan, the sales consultant on the project said the customer was thrilled with our great custom solution. Hats off to Jeff and our creative custom team!
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Jeff’s Bracket Design
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Side View of Bracket
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Finished Product on Swivel Mount
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It used to be a home theater or surround sound system took 6 remote controls and pages of instructions on how to turn everything on, select what you wanted to watch, and control it. Only could the very wealthy afford the multi-thousand dollar remote controls that could handle this complexity. In the last few years, Universal Remote (yes, that’s actually their company name), had made tremendous strides in producing affordable remotes we can program to make your life really simple.
There has also been an evolution in the way we use our systems. The advent of DVR’s, and DVD menus have taken us to a spot where we use the up/down/left/right/enter keys for almost 95% of what we do with our systems. The “wand” type of remote is in most cases best suited for this type of use and we know of no other manufacturer who has a better variety to choose from in this category than Universal!
We can customize a Universal Remote to perfectly fit your system, making everything extremely simple. Not only can this type of remote control your home theater components, new advances have made it pretty simple for the remote to control your theater lighting as well. Universal and Lutron have teamed up to produce a dimmer the remote can directly control. This allows us to do some pretty cool stuff, like making the lights come up to a dim level when you press the pause button on your DVD player!
Universal has developed new RF technology that makes things even better. It used to be, if we wanted to hide your gear, we mounted a small IR pickup device that gathered in the IR signal from remote controls and transmitted this down a wire, back to a device that sent the signal out to all of the gear. This worked fine until flat panel TV’s were introduced. Flat panel TV’s spray out an IR interference pattern that made this type of pickup pretty unreliable. We now can put in a Universal RF base station that will pick up signals from the remote and transfer them to your gear, while we have the remote send IR only to the TV. This is simply the best of both worlds and what we highly recommend.
Our most popular Universal remotes are the MX900, MX880, and MX980. The MX980 has a great color display and comes with a docking/recharging station. Our professionals can program them to perfectly match your system.
When you think about the money that can be spent on a complete home theater system, we feel a good programmable remote is the best possible investment. It truly is your constant point of interfacing to the system. Get it done right, and your system should provide you with great pleasure; try to cut costs by using the factory remotes usually results in quite a bit of frustration or just one person in the family who can figure out how to use and enjoy the system!
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Have you ever had the experience of removing all of the furnishings from a room in your house to either paint or when you were moving out and noticed how your voice sounded so much different than it did when the room had furnishings? If so, you now understand how much of a difference acoustics can make.
Live or Dead
Acoustics is both an art and a science. Experts in acoustics will refer to a space as “live” or “dead”. Ideally you want something in between. What you are trying to achieve is a balance between too much reflected sound (live) and not enough (dead). Reflected sounds are made up of the sounds that bounce off another surface before they arrive at your ears. This is compared to direct sound, which comes directly from the speaker to your ears. A room with no furniture in it would be a good example of a room with too much reflected sound (live). A room with all of the surfaces covered with sound absorbing material (an example would be an anechoic chamber used by speaker designers) would be a very “dead” room. The trick is to the right balance. Too much reflected sound and the dialog is almost impossible to understand. With too little reflected sound, you get no sense of space. (note, I think a drawing here would be good).
In addition to reflected sound, some amount of dispersed sound is also good. When sound waves hit a flat surface (such as sheetrock), then its considered reflected. When the sound hits an uneven surface and then bounces off in all directions, then it’s considered to be dispersed sound.
So how does all of this apply to your media room or home theater? In a media room you typically have to work with furnishings to get closer to ideal acoustics. Anything that has uneven surfaces is great. A bookcase full of books is ideal! Make sure from the main seating position that you can physically see all of the speakers. A speaker blocked by a piece of furniture is not ideal. If you can set yourself up to be equidistant from the left and right speakers do so. There are several ways to “treat” the acoustics of the room using common furnishings. Large leafy plants can make a big difference in the sound of a room. Adding a rug to a room with hard surfaces for the flooring will be an improvement as well. Tapestries and other wall hangings will help you get the right balance of reflected sound. Draperies and window treatments also help.
In a true home theater, the options for acoustic treatment are much better. Audio Advice can actually analyze your room and make suggestions on acoustic materials that can be placed on the walls. The best solution is to use a track for a decorative fabric, which hides the acoustic treatments behind the fabric. We will attach the various acoustic panel treatments to your walls, then fabric is stretched across the wall. This gives you the real theater look and is the best option. We’ll calculate where to put the absorptive panels, the reflective panels, the combination reflective/absorptive and the dispersive panels. If your room is rectangular, this becomes much more of a science and is very predictable.
What the heck is a mode or node?
The dimensions of every room effect how the sound waves bounce around in a room. These are called room modes. They will have dips and peaks at spots in your room where they build up (lots of modes) and where they cancel each other out (a node). The effect is most pronounced with low bass sounds. The dimensions of your room play the role of determining how big and at what frequency these problems occur. A cube would be the worst sounding room, filled with tons of acoustic problems. Take this into consideration if you can impact the dimensions of your future theater room. Even in a room with perfect dimensions, placing the main seating right in the middle of the room is not ideal. In the design process for your theater we will calculate the best place for your seating to be to minimize this effect and if we have the leeway, can help you get to the ideal dimensions, but as a general rule, try to have your main seating position about 1/3 away from the back or front wall. Room modes and nodes are typically less pronounced at these points.
What about noise?
When a home theater can put you on the edge of your seat without having to blast you with high volumes, the room probably has a very low noise floor. This means the inherent noises in the space are minimal so they do not mask out the subtle sounds of the film. Noise can come from many sources including equipment fans, the fan on your projector, a noisy appliance, or other external sources. If you have to turn the volume up louder to overcome these noises, your system will have less of a sense of dynamic range, and as a result be less satisfactory. Ideally you want to be able to literally be able to hear a pin drop in your room. We can work with you to be sure the design takes into account reducing noise.
It all adds up
Many people do not even consider acoustics when planning their theater space. It’s a real shame to spend lots of money on gear and not give it the right environment to perform to its best if you have the option available. If we help you nail the acoustics and construct a room with a very low noise floor, you would not believe how this can improve your experience. A $2500, professionally calibrated speaker package in a well engineered room will put most un-calibrated $10,000 speaker packages to shame that are placed a room with bad acoustic properties. Of course the better packages really shine in a well done room! I hope this article has helped you understand that the most important component of your home theater is the room itself!
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