Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Unity Home Theater System Promoted As New Audio Category

Indianapolis – In2Technologies, an audio/video product development and
consulting firm, wants to increase the attachment rate of audio to TV purchases
with its Unity Home Theater System, which packs home-theater audio electronics,
speakers and a 3D Blu-ray player into a floorstanding platform for flat-panel
TVs.

The San
Jose company, led by industry veterans Todd Beauchamp and Mike Fidler, wants to license Unity’s
design and proprietary acoustic technologies but might bring the product to
market on its own.

The system, promoted as a new audio-product category,
delivers sound quality exceeding that of soundbars and HTiBs and approaching
that of separate audio components, the executives said while demonstrating a
prototype at an off-site location during the CEDIA Expo. Though delivering
near-component sound quality, the system simplifies the buying process, simplifies
setup and operation, and integrates with a room’s décor more easily by
eliminating speaker clutter and eliminating speaker-cable runs from one part of
the room to another, they said.

The Unity systems also reduces the number of purchase
decisions to two — Unity and a TV — from three: a TV, a TV stand and an audio
system, they added.

Unity consists of a T-shaped platform on top of which consumers
can place a flat-panel TV up to 60 inches in size. The TV connects to Unity via
one HDMI cable. Alternately, consumers can eliminate the TV’s pedestal by
attaching a standard VESA mount to the back of the Unity system.

The horizontal portion of the platform doubles as an
enclosure for three front-firing 2-inch midrange/tweeter drivers operating from
150Hz on up. Two 5.25-inch mid-bass drivers mounted on the underside of the horizontal
enclosure fire down and deliver omni-directional audio from 70Hz to 150Hz. The
central tower holding up the horizontal platform features two 12-inch
subwoofers, one on each side.

Two wireless surround speakers round out the speaker
complement to create a 5.1 system.

Besides housing subwoofers, the central tower
incorporates 3D Blu-ray player, surround-sound processor that includes Dolby
True HD and DTS HD Master, amplification, and DSP to time align the midrange/tweeter
drivers with the mid-bass drivers.

Setup would take about 15 minutes, the company said.
Consumers would place the horizontal platform on top of the central tower, both
of which feature connectors to make the connections between the tower’s
amplifiers and the platform’s speakers. A wireless receiver/two-channel
amplifier module would connect via speaker cables to the surround speakers.

The back of the Unity system contains three power outlets
to plug in the TV and two components such as a game console and cable box,
which would sit on top of the horizontal platform.

The prototype’s configuration could retail for $999 with
Internet streaming services and Wi-Fi, but the system could be scaled up to
include larger drivers or scaled down to a 3.1 system.

Before becoming president of In2, Beauchamp was responsible for product development and testing within
Apple’s iPhone, iPod and iPad division. He has more than two decades of
acoustic engineering and electronic systems experience in the consumer,
professional, and military audio markets.

Chief
marketing officer Mike Fidler has more than 30 years of
consumer electronics experience, having previously served as a senior marketing
and engineering executive at Sony and having led the home products groups at
both Sony and Pioneer. He is also the former CEO of Digeo.

Featured

Close