ELKHART, IND. –
Harman’s luxury audio group, formerly
known as the high performance audio video (HPAV) group,
will turn up at International CES with new products bearing
the Mark Levinson, Revel, JBL Synthesis and Lexicon
brands.
Mark Levinson will celebrate its 40th anniversary with
four new products available at various times during the year.
Some products mark the brand’s reentry into product segments
that it left awhile back, said marketing manager Jim
Garrett. The brand will also launch an ad campaign to support
the anniversary, he added.
For its part, Revel is revamping its Performa speaker series
to upgrade performance at lower prices, and JBL is
launching three high-end speakers.
Here’s what the group plans:
Mark Levinson:
Four new products are the No. 52
reference stereo preamp, No. 585 integrated stereo amp,
No. 519 CD/SACD player/DAC, and No. 560 DAC. Three
products will be the brand’s first with USB ports for music
playback, USB connections to Apple mobile devices, and
HDMI ports.
The No. 52 two-chassis stereo preamp, targeted to retail
for a suggested $25,000, will be the brand’s first reference-
level stereo preamp in about a decade. It will join the
$10,000 No. 326S single-chassis stereo preamp.
The No. 52, for use with the No. 53 reference mono amp,
is a pure analog model with solid-state design. Analog inputs
and outputs are incorporated in one chassis to keep
noise from entering control circuitry in a separate chassis.
With the No. 585, Levinson is offering its first integrated stereo
amp in several years, but the new model adds connectivity
to almost all modern digital sources along with its predecessor’s
balanced and unbalanced analog inputs, Garrett said.
The 585, targeted to retail for a suggested $10,000, is
rated at 2×225 watts into 8 ohms. It comes with three USB
ports, one of which streams music from a connected iPod,
iPhone or iPad, and charges an iPod and iPhone. The USB
ports also accept 96kHz/24-bit PCM audio from PCs.
The 585 also features HDMI 1.3 connector to take in
two-channel PCM audio and native DSD SACD audio.
The third new product is the No. 519 CD/SACD player/
DAC with digital volume control, which enables direct connection
to an amp to make a separate preamp unnecessary.
It’s targeted to retail for a suggested $8,000.
For use as a DAC, the 519 features two S/P DIF digital
inputs and two USB inputs capable of decoding multiple
digital music-file formats. One USB input also streams music
from a USB-connected iPod, iPhone or iPad.
The fourth product is the $6,000-suggested No. 560 DAC,
which borrows the DAC technology of the 519 CD/SACD
player/DAC, strips out the transport, expands the number of
digital inputs to 10 from four, and the digital inputs include two
two-channel PCM/DSD HDMI inputs and three USB.
With the 560’s variety of inputs, consumers can connect
multiple digital sources to an existing sound system without
replacing the system’s other components, Garrett said.
Revel:
The brand will replace its entire Performa series
of bookshelf and tower speakers with the Performa3 series,
which sports upgraded performance via advances in driver
design, Garrett said. The price points will also drop slightly
to “get more aggressive in the market,” he added.
The first eight speakers will be priced from a targeted
$1,200/pair to $4,500/pair. Two more speakers due in the
fall will add a third tower at around $6,000 to $6,500/pair.
The first eight speakers will consist of two bookshelf
models, two floorstanding towers, two center channels,
one bipolar surround and one subwoofer.
JBL Synthesis:
The brand is launching three high-end
speakers, including a $20,000/pair S4700 tower positioned
as a more affordable version of the $44,000/pair
K2-S9900.
The S4700 is a three-way floorstanding speaker with 15-
inch woofer, horn-loaded high-frequency compression driver,
and horn-loaded ultra-high-frequency compression
driver operating from 16kHz.
In its Array series, JBL is bringing back two
models discontinued a few years ago. Like other
Array models, both feature a three-way design
with woofer, horn-loaded high-frequency compression
driver, and horn-loaded ultra-high-frequency
compression driver.
The Array 1000 is a floorstanding tower with a
targeted suggested retail of about $9,000/pair.
The Array 800 is a bookshelf speaker at a targeted
$7,000/pair.
Lexicon:
The brand is adding a black finish
option to its $2,500 DD-8 8×125-watt Class D
multi-room amp.
