Home Theater Geeks 500 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:00]:
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I continue my conversation with industry journalist and consultant Mike heiss about CEDIA 2025. So stay tuned.
Michael Heiss [00:00:14]:
Podcasts you love from people you trust.
TWiT.tv [00:00:18]:
This is Twit.
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:30]:
Hey there. Scott Wilkins here, the home theater geek. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Michael Heiss, industry consultant, journalist and jolly good Cedia fellow, about the Cedia trade show that he just returned from. Hey, Mike, welcome back.
Michael Heiss [00:00:50]:
Oh, thanks, Scott. Yeah, boy, I tell you, just flew in, boy, and my arms and everything. Your arms?
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:54]:
Tired.
Michael Heiss [00:00:57]:
You know, it's the mile high city, let me tell you.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:00]:
Yeah, it's one reason I don't go there anymore.
Michael Heiss [00:01:03]:
But people missed you. People. I said, you know, I'm representing Scott. And they go, say hi to Scott. Says hi to Scott.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:10]:
That's so nice to hear. I'm glad my name is not totally forgotten.
Michael Heiss [00:01:15]:
Nope, not at all.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:16]:
That's great. That's great. I also want to make special note of the fact that you and I today are celebrating the 500th episode of Home Theater Geeks.
Michael Heiss [00:01:29]:
Happy birthday to you.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:32]:
Thank you. I'm reading. Really excited about that. Really happy that we've made it this far. And here's to another 500. Eh.
Michael Heiss [00:01:41]:
Mazel toast.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:42]:
Thank you. Thank you. So the Cedia Expo, as it's called, has been going for a very long time and it's all about higher end, generally custom installation, not only of home theater stuff, but all sorts of smart home things and, and you know, just anything that you might install into a, into a modern home. We're going to focus. What's that?
Michael Heiss [00:02:11]:
Or around the home. Not just. I mean, I know. Oh, that's true of speech. But especially to this point. And I, I forgot to mention to that this in your, in our notes that in and around the home, because I was tripping over those subwoofer bollards all over the place.
Scott Wilkinson [00:02:28]:
The outdoor ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, we're going to talk mostly about audio in this show, at least to start with. And I want to focus on the audio news and some of the big demos also. And in this case there were a few new products that were introduced. You made mention of the fact that there were a lot of two channel audio things. Amps, preamps, integrated amps.
Michael Heiss [00:02:55]:
Yeah. Something that you wouldn't expect for people that think of CD as a home theater group.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:02]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:03:02]:
But there was a lot of. Not very, not any of it that I can think of that was actually demoed like you used to do up in the Venetian during ces.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:12]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:03:12]:
But it was there. And the interesting thing that is changing that industry, and sorry for jumping ahead, but a lot of these newer devices, including the more expensive ones, had five or, you know, slightly larger, really nice resolution color TFT displays on the front panel. So even though I couldn't hear what was being played, you could see what was being played because they're streaming centric. Right.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:41]:
And they have album art on these. On these front panels.
Michael Heiss [00:03:43]:
Exactly.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:44]:
Yeah. There was a. There was a pair of products from Anthem, which I believe was a preamp and a power amp. And we have a picture of that here. And notice the VU meters. Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:04:00]:
Virtual vus.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:02]:
Yeah, those are actually not physical meters, but. But rather pictures of meters.
Michael Heiss [00:04:09]:
Exactly.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:09]:
That work. And a preamp there on top of them.
Michael Heiss [00:04:13]:
Right.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:13]:
Our cam also had a number of cool things. The SA45 integrated two channel amp with integrated streaming. And this is an example of what you were just talking about.
Michael Heiss [00:04:26]:
And the industrial design was just really beautiful.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:30]:
And that's new at the show, new at CD along with the SA35, which I assume just had a little less power.
Michael Heiss [00:04:38]:
A little less power. And I think there was one step down that did just have a standard two line display. But this is in the. If they have to ask, you can't afford it. Or if you have to ask, don't ask, just buy the better one.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:50]:
Yeah, right. Another thing from our cam was the ST25 and a 25 streamer integrated amp combo.
Michael Heiss [00:05:00]:
There you go.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:01]:
Which you got a picture here. And these were also new at the show, also from Onkyo, revered old brand, the Icon P80 network preamp and M80 power amp. Again, two channel. And look.
Michael Heiss [00:05:21]:
If I can interject there, the interesting thing, I mean, I used to make my living not electronically designing, but you know, running a part of a division of Harmon that made those things. And I would say I can't have that. Where are the damn buttons? And there ain't no buttons. But that's goes to where the market is. And it's not the old things. Or I used to get yelled at by putting too many buttons on a remote. But. But you know, it's the difference between here's a remote with a lot of buttons.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:53]:
Yep.
Michael Heiss [00:05:54]:
Here's a remote with not a lot of buttons.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:56]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:05:58]:
But that's where the market is.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:00]:
The market is going for fewer buttons, buttons, buttons.
Michael Heiss [00:06:04]:
Who's got the buttons?
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:07]:
And interestingly, Techniques had a turntable.
Michael Heiss [00:06:11]:
They had a whole suite of products and they were not on the floor. And so they were playing it. But you know, they're, they're keen to sense that the market is just not about home theater.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:25]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:06:25]:
And there are other and especially in the type of houses that, that some of the CEDIA installers do, there is a music room or there is an office where, you know, I actually have the speakers here, but I don't have a sound system hooked up in my, in my office. Even though I've got the speakers, I've got a stereo receiver down there and that's, you know, where the music comes from. And it's a streamer.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:51]:
Right. Turning, turning now to multi channel. There were a number of high end processors that we've seen for years, but a couple of new models and a new technology in those models that is very cool. Trinov for example, had the Altitude CI CI for custom integrator or custom installer up to 32 channels. We have a picture of it. Here it is. And the really interesting thing here it's with, here it is the altitude 16 or CI rather with the amplitude 16, which is their power amp. 16 channel power amp.
Scott Wilkinson [00:07:33]:
And the interesting thing about it is how do you connect the preamp or the processor where the outputs, where are the outputs? In the next picture we can see there's one cable. It's an ethernet cable connecting those two units. It's using a technology called AOIP audio over IP, sometimes called AES67 or Dante. And all of the audio, all 16 channels are up to 32 channels are going through that one Ethernet cable, which.
Michael Heiss [00:08:09]:
Is really cool and it sounded good. It makes it smaller. And you know, that also goes to the application question. If you were to put that in a home theater, the only other inputs, it's kind of hard to see perhaps in the picture, but, but there's a row of HDMI inputs across the top. But there's no hooking like you would with a traditional surround sound processor. There's no hooking up a CD player or a turntable preamp, no analog input, Any analog inputs. Exactly. But this is sort of purpose specific.
Michael Heiss [00:08:44]:
But that's where the market is going, particularly for the higher end theaters, you know, where you'll have kind of a Trinov, a storm or a synthesis or some others or in some of the lower price bands. There were some very impressive large aviars and you wouldn't. And that's where the analog inputs, you know, are. But you know, you don't typically think of a high end home theater with an avr, but there they were.
Scott Wilkinson [00:09:15]:
There they were. Trinov Also announced integration with a commercial cinema product, the Dolby IMS 3000, which is their Atmos processor. And here's a picture you took of. Of them connecting to a Trinoff processor as well. Right?
Michael Heiss [00:09:37]:
Yeah.
Scott Wilkinson [00:09:37]:
And.
Michael Heiss [00:09:38]:
And that's the kind of thing the. The origin of the synthesis of synthesis. Oh man. My time. The synthesis of synthesis. And back in the days when I was at. Sorry. Back in the days when I worked at Harman, I was there when that was.
Michael Heiss [00:09:56]:
Was started. And part of the conceit of synthesis was it was designed for large scale theaters on what's called the Bel Air circuit and their processors. And within reason you can hook an IMS 3000 up to a processor. But they really do want it to be AES67. And the answer. The way. The reason for that is to avoid piracy.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:21]:
Right, right. The Bel Air Circuit. The Bel Air Circuit by the way is private homes in the Bel Air area mostly of Los Angeles.
Michael Heiss [00:10:29]:
Or anywhere but.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:30]:
Or anywhere but you had to have basically a commercial grade cinema system in your home. And they would send you hard disks with the movie current movies to watch on your system.
Michael Heiss [00:10:47]:
Or in the old days, I mean the genesis again of that part of the market. These are the people that used to have big enough stars or directors or studio executives that they'd have a full dual simplex projectors and they'd have to get a union projectionist if they wanted to have a movie night.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:04]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:11:05]:
Or to run the rushes or the dailies or whatever. Right. And now just as cinema has moved all digital for in almost all cases, so has home theater. So that's the origin of that.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:18]:
Right. Okay. Storm Audio also had a new processor using this AOIP, the Elite 32. As well as a receiver. Talk about expensive receivers. The ISR Fusion uses aiop.
Michael Heiss [00:11:35]:
Where the buttons. The same thing. Where are the buttons on.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:37]:
Where are the buttons?
Michael Heiss [00:11:38]:
Because they all have. The trend is they don't have the little two line displays that I used to use. They just all have these five inch displays. But most of these are run remotely by a Crestron or a Control 4 or Savant or Josh AI, which is the whole other part of Cedia, which is. Right, those folk.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:58]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:11:58]:
But that's why there are no more buttons anywhere.
Scott Wilkinson [00:12:01]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. JBL synthesis. You mentioned those earlier. They had the SDP 80 and SMA series power amps that were new at the show. And this is the SDR38AV receiver. Yet another receiver.
Michael Heiss [00:12:21]:
Masquerading is a high end theater and it does a good.
Scott Wilkinson [00:12:25]:
Job yeah, yeah, exactly.
Michael Heiss [00:12:28]:
It was interesting. If I can jump ahead, that with one or two exceptions like those, although the synthesis one is not new, there were no new AVRs then and not everybody was there. Sony was on the floor with last year's Aviars. Yamaha was on the floor with last year's AVRs. Denon and Marantz, which is soon to be acquired by Harmon, were on the floor, but also had a floor in the Le Meridian Hotel. Onkyo was not on the floor and did not show AVRs. But all of the major traditional legacy AVR manufacturers did not introduce new models as CES, nor is Cedia, nor might they even at CES in 26. And there are a lot of complex supply chain and the T word, which you didn't want to mention at this show, but tariff issues and economic and supply chain issues and some technology issues, that there were no new AVRs.
Michael Heiss [00:13:37]:
But then you could say, and again, when you're dealing with people who are selling this stuff, you can say to the consumer, to the client, this is good. It's last year's. No, it's this year's. And it's so good that it'll be good for the next few years because there really isn't anything that you can think of coming down the road that would make your AVR obsolete. And so that's to me, for the consumer, for the folks that are watching this, that's great news.
Scott Wilkinson [00:14:06]:
Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Okay, moving on to speakers. I wanted to start with Grimani Systems, one of my favorite brands, because that's what I use in my home.
Michael Heiss [00:14:19]:
One of my favorite guys and one.
Scott Wilkinson [00:14:20]:
Of my favorite guys, Anthony Grimani, he had a new speaker there, the MP84, which is a biamped in ceiling speaker. So he's aware of how many people like having some speakers in the ceiling. But more interesting is that he received a CEDIA Lifetime Achievement award. So congratulations to Anthony Grimani. Here's a picture of four.
Michael Heiss [00:14:47]:
Who are those guys?
Scott Wilkinson [00:14:48]:
Who are those guys? Four lifetime achievement award winners, starting with you.
Michael Heiss [00:14:55]:
Yeah. Wearing my jacket.
Scott Wilkinson [00:14:56]:
I love that jacket, man.
Michael Heiss [00:14:59]:
My ability to make a fool out of myself knows no bounds. It's my trademark.
Scott Wilkinson [00:15:05]:
You got your lifetime achievement award in 2020, I believe.
Michael Heiss [00:15:08]:
Yeah. During COVID And I didn't like get to stand up and give a speech and have a nice video made, but it's sitting in the other room.
Scott Wilkinson [00:15:16]:
There it is. Okay. In that photo, we, we want to point out, also Rich Green is next.
Michael Heiss [00:15:22]:
To you next, the guy with the Ribbons.
Scott Wilkinson [00:15:23]:
The guy with the ribbons, he has a lot of them. He got his last year. And next to him is Anthony Grimani, who got.
Michael Heiss [00:15:30]:
You almost said it.
Scott Wilkinson [00:15:31]:
I almost did. Yes. And. And finally, Bill Scare, who's a cd.
Michael Heiss [00:15:38]:
A longtime CD installer and was really instrumental in a lot of the inner workings of Cedia and, and, or Bail from Texas. And he's a great guy. And it, you know, it's like the Saturday Night Live Five Timers Club. I kept kidding. I kept kidding. Mr. Grimani, you're gonna have to teach them the secret handshake.
Scott Wilkinson [00:16:04]:
Right, right. Exactly. Other speakers that I read about were interesting from Paradigm and a force canceling vibration canceling in wall subwoofer, the FSC12SW, which I think is a great idea. Send sound into the room, but cancels the vibration so your drywall doesn't shake apart. Procella had a couple of interesting things. Some new UNO subwoofers and a P5 OCW on wall on ceiling speaker. Here's a. This is a graphic that they provided.
Scott Wilkinson [00:16:46]:
I'm a big fan actually, of on wall and on ceiling speakers. That's what I.
Michael Heiss [00:16:51]:
A lot of people. Because there were a boatload of them. That was a. You know, in fact, now that you mention it, there were very few, what we'd call in the old days, box speakers. There were some, but the in ceiling, on wall, in wall type of arrangement was very prevalent. And I know you're going to talk about it, but the best demo I heard. Well, if not the best, clearly the best or second best demo that I heard at Cedia was using that type of speaker.
Scott Wilkinson [00:17:28]:
Right. And we're going to get to that in a minute. I also wanted to point out Procella's P628 above screen speaker, four LED screens for these DV LED screens that we talked about in part one. It goes over the screen and points down toward the listening area. And there were at least a couple of demos that use that kind of speaker. One that used that very speaker. We'll talk about that in a minute. Wisdom Audio.
Michael Heiss [00:18:03]:
That's the problem. That's the biggest problem. You can't drill holes in those screens.
Scott Wilkinson [00:18:08]:
That's right.
Michael Heiss [00:18:08]:
Or you can do it, but it doesn't.
Scott Wilkinson [00:18:10]:
Yeah. Void the warranty. For sure.
Michael Heiss [00:18:13]:
Yeah, for sure. And that is a problem that the brightest minds in the speaker world have been trying to solve since the start of DV LEDs, including the first one up in. Was it Chatsworth in Winnetka? I don't know why I keep confusing them that well, because they're next door to each other, probably that. And jbl, you know, had all sorts of different arrangements, and it was either speakers on the side, speakers on the top, and different brands. But using the sort of technique that you just showed is sort of the way these things are going. And, you know, the Nobel Prize is waiting for the folk who can figure out a way to do this. JBL used to do bouncy, bouncy speakers where they would reflect the sound off the screen. And it just.
Michael Heiss [00:19:04]:
The imaging just wasn't there. And everybody found that it was better just to, you know, to put them atop and below the screen.
Scott Wilkinson [00:19:11]:
Yeah, yeah. Wisdom Audio was there. They're one of my favorite speaker brands. Their stuff. They had some Sage series all weather speakers and some more on walls, including the L75 here. They're. They're very well known for these line arrays, which are long, tall, skinny arrays of speakers that give you really nice imaging horizontally.
Michael Heiss [00:19:40]:
And K array and L acoustics also were in that similar vein, right?
Scott Wilkinson [00:19:45]:
Yeah, exactly. Bluesound, Canadian company had their Pulse Cinema sound bar 3.2.2 Atmos with 16 drivers and a mini version of that. A number of companies had what. What I'm calling invisible speakers. JBL has done that for a while. They've. They have the conceal line, which actually can be mounted behind drywall. Anthem does it.
Scott Wilkinson [00:20:15]:
Paradigm does it.
Michael Heiss [00:20:17]:
There was another one from Sweetwater called Edge Sound.
Scott Wilkinson [00:20:21]:
Oh, yes, yes.
Michael Heiss [00:20:22]:
Which I. Which I went to see.
Scott Wilkinson [00:20:25]:
And what'd you think?
Michael Heiss [00:20:33]:
There's an application for that kind of approach, as I believe. Are you. I'm not a fan of what some of us might call butt kickers, but this was not a butt kicker.
Scott Wilkinson [00:20:45]:
This was not transducers in the seat.
Michael Heiss [00:20:48]:
Well, no, below the seat. And that's where to call this a butt kicker is not fair. Mounted behind the wall with a little transducer. And there. There you see it.
Scott Wilkinson [00:21:05]:
It's mounted behind the drywall.
Michael Heiss [00:21:08]:
Behind the drywall or in one case, wood paneling. And there are clearly applications where that is. Is a valid approach and an audio file solution. It was not to my ears.
Scott Wilkinson [00:21:23]:
No.
Michael Heiss [00:21:23]:
However, this was originally designed by Sweetwater, which is a big commercial contractor group. And let me see. It is. It's in the sphere. It's NFL.
Scott Wilkinson [00:21:36]:
You know, it's in the sphere in Vegas. Really? Yep.
Michael Heiss [00:21:39]:
It's in the sphere in Vegas. And this is called embodied sound. And again, it is something built to meet a demand. So it is very unfair to compare them to a traditional Speaker. And I think they'd be the first to say that's not what this is for. But that's the whole point of CD Expo is that the CDFO are looking for solutions and what works for one doesn't work for everybody else. I wouldn't have Joe Kane adjust my 32 inch Insignia TV in the kitchen.
Scott Wilkinson [00:22:17]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:22:18]:
But that's not, it's not meant for that.
Scott Wilkinson [00:22:20]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:22:21]:
And it's the same thing here.
Scott Wilkinson [00:22:23]:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Still it's interesting and it served.
Michael Heiss [00:22:28]:
And again it served the purpose very well. The trick is for that the people who install it have to make sure that it's the right stuff for the right job.
Scott Wilkinson [00:22:38]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. A couple other quick things. One is KaleidoScape introduced an AI powered discovery recommendation feature. I'm surprised they didn't have it up till now. But Kai will now recommend stuff maybe better than some other recommendation engines. The thing though that you sent me a picture of that I, that I went, oh man, that takes me back to the 70s is the egg chair is back. Look at that thing, man.
Michael Heiss [00:23:17]:
If I didn't have my backpack and a lot of junk with me, I would have gone and sit in it. But yeah, that's very. The prisoner. I am the new number two.
Scott Wilkinson [00:23:26]:
Yes.
Michael Heiss [00:23:27]:
Number one.
Scott Wilkinson [00:23:27]:
Yes.
Michael Heiss [00:23:28]:
Number two. Don't worry about number one.
Scott Wilkinson [00:23:30]:
Exactly.
Michael Heiss [00:23:32]:
And that's what that's for. And that's that one that you're seeing now is available as 5.1, 7.1 or 11.1. I was going to ask the fellow on the booth what the price was, but it's a very high end Japanese kind of thing and the fellows English wasn't that good. But I don't know if you remember when you used to go to NAB the nhk, the Nash, the Japanese public public broadcaster.
Scott Wilkinson [00:23:59]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:24:00]:
Right. They used to have a 22.2 system.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:03]:
Yep.
Michael Heiss [00:24:04]:
Which was a little bizarro. But another group working with the folks that make that egg have a version of that that's 22.2.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:17]:
Wow. Now that thing is meant for two people.
Michael Heiss [00:24:19]:
Yeah. Who are very close to each other.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:22]:
Yes. Who are very friendly. It also comes in a single seat version.
Michael Heiss [00:24:26]:
But that's no fun.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:27]:
That's no fun that. But this one is meant for two. So I just, I had to say that that was, that got the, the, the, the weird product of the show award for me.
Michael Heiss [00:24:37]:
But laundry jet was still there.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:39]:
Laundry jet was still there. Okay, so that's good. All right, let's talk about a couple of the big demos. You Went to some of them, not all of them. I know, because you were really busy. Did you go to the. The Seymour Screen Excellence Christie?
Michael Heiss [00:24:55]:
I did.
Scott Wilkinson [00:24:56]:
And that was over a million dollars.
Michael Heiss [00:24:59]:
They said 1.3 mil at.
Scott Wilkinson [00:25:01]:
At 14 point, 18.10 sound system. That's 14 speakers around 18 overhead and 10 subwoofers.
Michael Heiss [00:25:12]:
And I don't want to get in trouble, but to my ears, it was too loud.
Scott Wilkinson [00:25:18]:
I'm not surprised.
Michael Heiss [00:25:20]:
And if you were there, you'd, you know, have your, you know, I'd have my.
Scott Wilkinson [00:25:25]:
I would be measuring it and I would be going, it's too damn loud.
Michael Heiss [00:25:28]:
That's right. And it sounded good. It was. And again, you know, I'm not a golden ears guy. And after that demo, my ears are a little bit less than golden because it, it was good and they will sell a lot of them and good for them. Yeah, not to my taste.
Scott Wilkinson [00:25:48]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:25:49]:
But, you know, and you know, it was an interesting collection of gear.
Scott Wilkinson [00:25:55]:
Seymour Screen Excellence Multi format retractable screen.
Michael Heiss [00:25:59]:
Doing some interesting things that the screen itself, actually, to my. Hats off to Seymour. That was my father's name. But the hats off to Seymour was. It was a very interesting screen that had some unique tensioning rods on the side.
Scott Wilkinson [00:26:14]:
Right.
Michael Heiss [00:26:14]:
Lift it up and masking things that came down the screen for me was the best part of that demo.
Scott Wilkinson [00:26:21]:
Now, Christie Eclipse Projector, $400,000 projector. Don't look at the projector. Panamorph lens, anamorphic lens for 20 grand. MAD VR NV extreme processor for 16 grand. Storm Elite 32AOIP processor. Accendo Halo speakers. Oh, we gotta look at these. You got some pictures of these?
Michael Heiss [00:26:45]:
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Wilkinson [00:26:46]:
Check this out.
Michael Heiss [00:26:47]:
That picture is. It's a little fuzzy and I apologize. But they had the room dark, which is what they would typically do for these. Sure, I had a really, you know, monkey a little bit with the, with the picture, but that's sort of an unusual. That sort of donut thing with the six drivers around the edge and in the middle. It's not a donut hole, there's another driver. Yeah, that guy. There you go.
Michael Heiss [00:27:13]:
Thank you. And you can see that they still had the projector on, but they lifted the screen. That's why it looks a little funky. And. And again, it, you know, I don't want to say. Not for me to say, but I'm sure that there are people who like it and there are people that, you know, weren't that impressed with it, but it made a point. This is a demonstration system in more ways. Than one.
Michael Heiss [00:27:41]:
It is a demonstration and it proved the point that things can be. Can be good when they're expensive and. And, you know, maybe not necessarily so well. And again, I'm not putting them down. It's, you know, my personal opinion.
Scott Wilkinson [00:28:00]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, what. Not. What we didn't see in that picture was two 64 inch subwoofers.
Michael Heiss [00:28:06]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I. My camera was wonked out and I took some pictures and they were too fuzzy. Don't look at the projector and don't stand next to the subwoofer. You'll literally be blown away. Yeah, I will say the bass in that room was really, really good.
Scott Wilkinson [00:28:26]:
Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, then probably, I think your favorite, as I recall you telling me, demo was the Quantum Media Systems.
Michael Heiss [00:28:38]:
Well, Quantum Media Systems and Theory.
Scott Wilkinson [00:28:42]:
Theory, yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:28:43]:
In fact, Theory, which a lot of people have always said, Mike, go to Theory. And they coincidentally are in the same hallway in the exhibit area where Quantum has their booth and Epson and techniques. And I. Who are those Theory guys? And so he said, oh, Mike, you really got to go and see it. And I did. And I was totally blown away with the quality. Paul Hales, who, as the designer and I guess the guy who runs the thing.
Scott Wilkinson [00:29:12]:
I'm very impressed with him. I've enjoyed my times with him very much.
Michael Heiss [00:29:16]:
He not only gave a master class in audio, he gave a master class in presentation, because that was. And I do a lot of them. That was one of the best presentations I have ever seen. Even before he started playing stuff to choreograph the things that were in the room and the message that he was trying to convey. And the interesting part is you just Talked about the $1.3 million system, the synthesis demo, which was very good that I saw, I think they said was like 3, 4, $500,000. Now what's. What's a couple hundred thousand dollars between friends?
Scott Wilkinson [00:29:54]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:29:57]:
Paul said, after demoing this stuff, said, here's what a million dollar home home theater is with Theory. The total price of this system that you just heard, which was really damn good with his speakers, which require his DSP and his amplifiers, was $83,000 then to make it a $1.3 million system. Buy a big house in North Carolina. And he had that on the screen and there. And I think that that's kind of his shtick, but it was done so well. And people, you can see people going, that makes sense. And he doesn't. Didn't have that many SKUs, that many products but the stuff, that's somebody who knows their stuff.
Scott Wilkinson [00:30:50]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:30:51]:
And just like everything else, is it for everybody. And the answer is no. And he comes out of the pro world, so, you know, you have to figure that into it. He took the drivers that were in the front for the cinema demo, and they were in pendants above you. And so it was not just for what they call voice of God or heist speakers, but he turned off the front speakers and just had these four pendants, you know, two front and two rear. And the imaging was. Was pretty damn good for nothing. That was up front.
Scott Wilkinson [00:31:28]:
Yeah.
Michael Heiss [00:31:29]:
So that was one where I have to say I was really, really impressed with something that shame on me. I'd never seen before or heard.
Scott Wilkinson [00:31:41]:
Well, I'm sure you'll go see him again. I've seen. I've visited with him a number of times over the years. And yeah, I agree with you 100%. He knows his stuff. He knows what he's talking about. There's a. I think I've got a graphic of the quantum media system diagram.
Scott Wilkinson [00:32:00]:
There it is.
Michael Heiss [00:32:01]:
Yeah. Because that. That's using a speaker line called tpi, which is not well known, but to the point that you made in the first part of this presentation, you could see there's the different modules making up that screen, and he's got three speakers above, three speakers below. You got good imaging. And then there were speakers at the. Actually rather large speaker systems at the rear left and right, and front left and right. So they were also. This was just in a big meeting room.
Michael Heiss [00:32:38]:
No acoustic treatment. It's not like the. The other big demos where they make a big point of showing what the work that was done. They didn't. They're not doing it anymore. But what. Chernov and Perlison used to do an acoustica. Athena, the big demo for the last two or three years, which, I mean, that thing was amazing.
Michael Heiss [00:33:00]:
They really built. Not a home theater. They built a theater theater on the floor. And it's a little expensive, which is why they're not doing it this year.
Scott Wilkinson [00:33:07]:
Yeah, right.
Michael Heiss [00:33:08]:
What. What they did was quantum just in a hotel, big meeting room. Sounded wonderful, but it was hard to judge because the picture was so good you couldn't listen to the sound.
Scott Wilkinson [00:33:21]:
You got to.
Michael Heiss [00:33:22]:
Do you know where to send it? No, I can't do that.
Scott Wilkinson [00:33:26]:
What'd you think of the Samsung Harmon JBL synthesis demo?
Michael Heiss [00:33:32]:
I was. I was very impressed. And again, I don't know how many of the people who are listening and watching the show, and maybe you're not in the business of selling things to people. But if you want to demo now, maybe you are selling things. If you want a demo, whether it's to your significant other to explain to the other significant person why you spent all that money on this thing, or you want to impress your neighbor, the key is curationing of the curation of the material, given that the thing has to be set up. Right. I mean, that goes without saying, but I think that that was pretty much the best demo. It had an Epson, the $30,000 projector, and of course, the audio and the speakers are all synthesis.
Michael Heiss [00:34:15]:
And the fact that they use the right demo material in a properly calibrated system. And that's part of the whole thing about synthesis. Yes. I presume you can buy the components, but they really don't want you to. They want to have a CD or. Or a certified person install it, and that's what makes the difference. Yeah, and it sounded really, really good.
Scott Wilkinson [00:34:43]:
Really good, I think. You didn't get to see the Prosella demo.
Michael Heiss [00:34:47]:
Is that. No. Damn it. And Chuck. Well, Chuck back, who's a, you know, longtime.
Scott Wilkinson [00:34:53]:
He's a friend. Oh, yeah. Fellow traveler. Yes.
Michael Heiss [00:34:56]:
And we'll have to say that I don't know the door. What do you call it? I apologize to Chuck that I didn't see it, but I heard that it was very good. And I also. I'm embarrassed to say I palled around with Mr. Grimani, but I didn't see his demo this year.
Scott Wilkinson [00:35:15]:
Oh, that's too bad, because he's another one. He's another one like Paul Hales that is just phenomenal. Knows his stuff inside and out and.
Michael Heiss [00:35:24]:
Well, because he. As do I. I was going to say, regrettably, he goes back to the origins of when, in conjunction with Roger Dressler and John Kellogg and a little bit of yo and Allen at Dolby. When. When he worked at Dolby, he was in the forefront of getting Matrix home theater out to the market. And then I first ran into him at THX in the Carriage House when I was a THX licensee. But the speakers that he sells, he designs.
Scott Wilkinson [00:35:59]:
Yes.
Michael Heiss [00:35:59]:
Speakers that he sells, he installs and commissions. And that's the key. And again, to people, you don't have to be a CD person. But as much as anything, it's not the gear. And I know you're a big proponent of this. It's how it's put together and how things. You know, that's why things like the Rack have become very popular, because that's a shortcut way to do this or the other technologies that are similar and that makes all the difference in the world.
Scott Wilkinson [00:36:30]:
Yep. Same as what Samsung and Armen do. The Presella demo we had, I have a graphic, sort of a diagram of what that looked like and that was pretty amazing. 135 inch DV LED screen with these P628 speakers above the screen with a bunch of surrounds and subs and, and amps. I'm sorry, you missed that one, I'm sure.
Michael Heiss [00:36:57]:
No, and, and, but that's typical of those big demos. And if you look at that slide, the other big demos have speaker arrays that are not unlike that. Yeah, and, and whether, except of course, if it's a projection system, you put the speakers behind the screen, you know.
Scott Wilkinson [00:37:17]:
Which is acoustically transparent.
Michael Heiss [00:37:19]:
But then the trick is to make. To get the imaging right. And it's all about the imaging.
Scott Wilkinson [00:37:23]:
Yep, Yep. Exactly right. Well, tell us if you have any final thoughts about this year's CD Expo.
Michael Heiss [00:37:34]:
I was pleasantly surprised at the attendance. There were a lot of people there, which is good for the association, but it's a good sign for the economy that there are a lot of people from all over the world that and all over the country, places that you wouldn't think would be hotbeds of home theater or, you know, smart home. Smart home that were doing things there. You know, again, it's sort of off topic for home theater geeks, but things like Josh AI and Control4 and Crestron with the, you know, the digital distribution was there. So I think that, you know, with any luck, it'll be a good year. I hope it'll be a good year for everybody.
Scott Wilkinson [00:38:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, me too. Me too.
Michael Heiss [00:38:19]:
We can use it.
Scott Wilkinson [00:38:20]:
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for sharing your experience with us over these two episodes. It's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much.
Michael Heiss [00:38:28]:
Yes.
Scott Wilkinson [00:38:29]:
See you after CES and before you go, tell us where we. Where anybody can find you online.
Michael Heiss [00:38:35]:
You can find me online and occasionally in print at Residential tech today restech today.com or hidden wires. Hidden wires with an s.co.uk or you can find my crazy website. We can find out how to. If you live in the neighborhood, I'll come and notarize stuff for you. Michaelheist.com so can I do one last story?
Scott Wilkinson [00:39:00]:
Sure.
Michael Heiss [00:39:01]:
As you know, my people don't know, my wife, Leslie Nathan is a retired licensed New York and California architect. And when she finally, right before we got married and moved to la, she got her New York architect's license. And in those days you had to stamp a document. So bloody jealous. She could stamp things. And for years and years. And he said, what do I do? He says, you can't touch that. You.
Michael Heiss [00:39:27]:
It's against the law. I said, you know what? I'm going to become a notary public so I can stamp stuff.
Scott Wilkinson [00:39:35]:
And so you did.
Michael Heiss [00:39:38]:
So, yeah, there you go. Free notarization with every home theater.
Scott Wilkinson [00:39:48]:
Well, thank you. Thank you, Mike, for being here. That's Michael Heiss, industry consultant, journalist, and a jolly good CDF fellow to boot.
Michael Heiss [00:39:58]:
Thanks, Scott. Take care.
Scott Wilkinson [00:39:59]:
You bet. You too. Now, if you have a question for me, please send it along to HTGWIT TV and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And as you know, all of TWIT's shows are available on YouTube for free but with ads. If you want to go ad free, join the club, go to Twit TV Club Twit and join today. Until next time, geek out.
