Newport Beach, Calif. – The high-performance audio industry will converge here Friday for a look at new suppliers and new products from more than 400 manufacturers, including the first products from German maker Elac in years.
The Home Entertainment Show is in its fifth year and runs from May 29-31.
Elac, PS Audio, startup Lambert Company, GamuT, Larsen, and Pear Audio Blue are among the companies bringing new products to the show.
Elac, for example, is coming with the newly developed Debut speaker series, which was designed by Andrew Jones. Until recently Jones was chief speaker engineer at Pioneer Electronics Technical Audio Devices (TAD). His 35-year career also includes work at KEF and Infinity.
The Debut lineup consists of eight speakers, including bookshelf, floorstanding, and center-channel speakers, a Dolby Atmos speaker module, and three powered subwoofers. All are said by Jones to “achieve the most accurate sound possible in speakers that deliver performance far exceeding their cost.” The company “built serious value into the Debut series,” he said.
Elac makes passive, active, single-room wireless, and custom-install speakers, and the company plans to expand into other categories in the future, said Elac’s Chris Walker, who left Pioneer as director of product planning and marketing.
For its part, Antipodes Audio of New Zealand will show two new variants of its music servers, both with increased storage capacity and new signal-output stages.
The top-end Antipodes DX will be available with 3TB of solid-state internal storage at $8,500. The DX series will continue to include models with 1TB SSD storage at $6,500 and 2TB SSD storage at $7,500. System-compatibility of the DX series has been increased by the addition of auxiliary S/PDIF and analog outputs.
The Antipodes DV will be available in a new 6TB version with 2.5-inch HDD at $6,000. The DV will continue to be available with 1TB or 4TB of HDD storage at $5,000 and $5,600, respectively. For consumers with large NAS libraries, the DV-Zero is available with OS on an SSD and no internal storage at $5,000.
The Antipodes series also includes the $2,700 Antipodes DS with 1TB of HDD storage, small chassis, and analog and USB outputs.
All models feature auto-ripping of CDs, playback of files up to DXD and Double-DSD, and remote control from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.
PS Audio will also go to the show with the first amplifiers in its four-decade history with vacuum tubes. The Bascom H. King Signature 250 and 300 amplifiers begin shipping in the U.S. in June at $7,499 each, marking the highest priced products ever in the company’s line.
Both amps feature a 6922 dual triode tube front end followed by all-MOSFET circuitry, including the output stage, the company said.
The 250 is a stereo amp rated at 2×250 watts into 8 ohms and 2×400 watts into 4 ohms. The 300 is a monoblock amp rated at 300 watts into 8 ohms and 500 watts into 4 ohms. It features twice the current-capacity of the 250.
The amps were designed by Bascom H. King, whose 50-year career includes work for Infinity, Conrad-Johnson, and Constellation. The amps are King’s first for PS Audio.
The Lambert Company of New Zealand, marketed in the U.S. market through TAN Distribution, will show its “Small Wonder” line of compact high-performance audio components, which consist of a set of audio products that can be integrated individually in audio systems or used to create a complete audio system.
The basic system consists of the Control pre-amp with Bluetooth 4.0, the Force 2×50-watt amplifier, and the Last Word/The Bottom Line 2.1 speaker system. The Full Force mono-block amplifiers at 100 watts into 8 ohms and 170 watts into 8 ohms are also available.
Also at the show, distributor Gamut Audio will unveil new hand-crafted products from European brands GamuT, Larsen and Pear Audio Blue. GamuT will premiere its GamuT RS3 stand-mount speaker and Di150 limited-edition dual-mono integrated amp. Larsen will premiere its Larsen 6 Ortho-Acoustic speaker, and Pear Audio Blue will unveil its Classic integrated amp.
