AudioEnz news
November 2004
Velodyne’s Digital Drive subwoofers tame your room
The Digital Drive Series features Velodyne’s Digital Drive room
management and equalization. Digital Drive allows the subwoofers frequency
response in any room to be measured and digitally corrected in real-time
using a supplied microphone, and stored in the subwoofers.
The Digital Drive range consists of four subwoofers, with drive cones measuring 10, 12, 15 and 18 inches.
For your nearest Velodyne dealer
Sony’s new AV receiver
Built on a Sony QS standard frame and beam chassis, the STRDB795 is the latest AV receiver from Sony. This 7.1 receiver boasts 100 watts x 7 channels, Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, DTS Neo:6 and DTS 96/24. The 795 also offers video upconversion from composite to s-video. The STRDB795 sells for $999.
Projectiondesign means Action
The Action! Model One is based on Texas Instruments recognised DLP technology,
incorporating the 1280 x 720 resolution Mustang HD2 High Definition DMD
chip. The prism-less optical design features an all-glass zoom lens, 2,300:1
maximum contrast ratio, continually adjustable brightness (from 600 to
1000 ansi lumens) and a six-segment 5x speed colour wheel for superior
colour reproduction and images, plus reduction of the “rainbow effect” synonymous
with DLP projectors. It also uses DCDi progressive scan engine from Faroudja
for video processing.
The Action! has an all magnesium alloy chassis that comes in three colour options – satin gold, maranello blue and pearl white, and claims a low operating noise of only 28dB(A). The Model One has a rrp of $19,995.
Plinius builds a Reference
With the development of the Plinius Odeon, SB300 and SA201, Plinius found that the SA250 had been eclipsed as our reference product. Continuing their asymmetric approach to circuit design, Plinius refined the operation of the output stage with by far the largest imrovement being in the high frequency performance.
The Plinius Reference Amplifier has been designed specifically to work as either a balanced monoblock, or a stereo amplifier. As a balanced monoblock the SA Reference will exceed 1kW of pure balanced amplification.
In Plinius tradition, premium components have been used throughout and Class A operation is maintained to over 100 Watts per channel while 300 Watts is available in stereo mode to direct and control the most demanding speaker systems.
Mitsubishi’s entry home entertainment projector
The Mitsubishi HC900 boasts 1500 ansi lumen brightness and is said to
be ideal for coping with the high ambient lighting conditions of most New
Zealand living rooms, but too bright to be used in a dedicated (dark) home
theatre situation. The HC900 offers a wide range of connections to cover
every AV device used in the living room, including PC, Games, TV, Sky Decoder,
VCR and DVD player. The HC900 is one of the first projectors in the market
to combine a 7-segment colour wheel with the new Texas Instruments® Matterhorn
DMD™ (Digital Micromirror Device) delivering 1024 x 576 resolution.
The multi segment colour wheel is designed to improve image performance
and reduce the “rainbow effect” common to most entry-level
DLP projectors. The HC900 will sell for around $4999.
Chang Lightspeed power conditioners
Chang Lightspeed Audio have a range of power conditioners and power cords to enhance systems from budget to high end. The power conditioners are passive and have no transformers, capacitors or coils. They all have separate digital, analog and power amp circuits. The least expensive CLS 305 is rated at 2500W and is available at an introductory price of $595. Other models include the CLS 404 at $795, CLS 505 at $995, CLS 9600 at $1595 and the CLS 1000 at $2195. Power cords are available from $239.
For your nearest Chang Lightspeed dealer
Harman Kardon tames technology
The AVR 630 includes all the latest surround modes, including Dolby Digital
EX, DTS-ES, DTS 96/24, HDCD processing and Harman Kardon’s own Logic
7 processing. Harman Kardon’s high-current amplifier design produces
90 watts per channel in stereo, while 75 watts per channel is available
in surround mode. Managing the technology is an LCD remote
with HK’s EzSet feature, easy-to-use setup menus with renameable
inputs.
For your nearest Harman Kardon dealer
Duevel’s battery powered CD player
Internally, the Duevel Shuttle Disk’s four discrete power supplies control the unit in order to eliminate any interference between the different digital and analog circuitry. A powerful battery completely isolates the player from all spurious AC problems, and feeds perfect DC to the individual power supplies. This results in a very quiet player allowing the music to emerge from a velvet black background, completely unscathed. The Duevel Shuttle Disk sells for $5499.
For your nearest Duevel dealer
Return of the red ring
Cerwin Vega’s new Classic Series sees a return to that distinctive Cerwin Vega trait – a red ring around the woofer. The Classic range includes a bookshelf model, four towers, two subwoofers and a center channel speaker. The largest tower speaker includes dual 15” (380mm) woofers. All of the speakers include Cerwin Vega’s waveguide for midrange and tweeters.
Mitsubishi’s HDTV-ready projector
Mitsubishi's HC2000 can display HDTV resolution images thanks to its CineView HD™ video processing technology, which processes and scales all signals for the smoothest, cleanest images. The HC2000 also boasts the latest DLP™ chip from Texas Instruments, known as the TI HD2+™ chip. The projector has a 4x and 5x colour wheel speed selection to provide a customized viewing experience; rainbow effects from fast motion are said to be virtually eliminated. Serious home theatre users will be pleased at the HC2000’s 23dBA noise rating – said to be the quietist in the world. The HC2000 retails for $11999.
Bose systems predicts your music
The uMusic™ system found in the Bose Lifestyle 38 and Lifestyle 48 systems digitally stores an entire music collection (200 or 340 hours, depending on model), and then learns a user’s listening preferences based on likes, dislikes, even mood. It then prioritizes a music collection automatically, without the need for charts, menus or manually creating and managing playlists. The two systems are complete DVD and CD multi-channel playback systems, featuring Dolby Digital and DTS decoding for home theatre.
New Pre-punched chassis for DIY Audio builders
"A revolution for the DIY audio electronics builder" is how
Simon Brown of Kiwi firm Design
Build Listen describes the clever new ezChassis
template cabinet. Easier building comes from having holes pre-punched to
accept input sockets, speaker terminals (including WBT style), valve bases,
power supply sockets and ventilation slots. Designed for the DIY audio
enthusiasts, ezChassis is available in three sizes and can be assembled
in hundreds of ways to enclose anything from transistor pre-amps to valve
power-amps. It also looks great, as labels (gold or silver on black) are
provided, as are black screws to match the satin-black chassis.
Simon said that the idea arose from the frustration of building his own audio gear and the desire to have it looking as good as it sounded. “While you can buy cheap cabinets from electronics suppliers, they usually look pretty nasty and require you to do a lot of work before they can be used, drilling holes, making brackets etc”. Those wanting to build valve amps face even greater challenges to mount valves and heavy transformers. There are variants of ezChassis which allow, these components to be mounted directly with no metalworking needed.
Design Build Listen also sells a wide range of accessories to match ezChassis, sockets, handles, heatsinks and knobs.
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