Audio Design Associates (ADA) is expanding its custom install selection with its second multiroom receiver and its first color touch screen, which fits in a two-gang electrical box.
The receiver is the Suite 8100, an eight-source, eight-zone audio-only receiver with 16×50-watt class D amplification and tuner slot to accept an HD Radio, Sirius or XM tuner module. Additional outboard satellite radio tuners and other sources can be connected to the receiver’s back panel to deliver eight-source capability. The internal tuner is considered one of the unit’s eight sources.
The rack-mountable receiver, due in April, is targeted to retail for about $4,000, less than the price of the company’s first multiroom receiver, the $10,000 HTR-2400 A/V receiver. The 2400, still available, features surround sound decoding for the main home theater room, and with 24 amplifier channels, can drive a 7.1-channel home theater simultaneously with eight other A/V zones.
Initially, the Suite 8100 will ship with blank anodized-black front panel without a front-panel controller. Future versions will feature an optional front-panel touch-screen controller.
Both the 8100 and 2400 receivers can be controlled from ADA’s first color touch screen, which ADA believes might be the industry’s first color touch screen to fit in a two-gang electrical box in the wall. Unlike the 2400, however, the 8100 requires a component called Control Suite for connection to ADA keypads and to the TS-5000. Control Suite’s price hasn’t been set.
The TS-5000, which features 4-inch TFT LCD touch screen, is preprogrammed to control all ADA devices, including iPods placed in ADA’s recently shipped iBase tabletop docking station. The screen also displays text and video.
The touch screen will retail for an approximate suggested $1,500 when it ships in September.
By the end of the first quarter, ADA hopes to offer an optional HD Radio module for the 8100 and 2400 receivers and for a pair of modular tuners that accept two and four tuner cards, respectively. ADA offers Sirius and XM tuners.
