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[Art Welter]

Got to see and hear lots of offerings at dozens of booths and rooms at InfoComm in Orlando last week, fun to catch up with the latest and the greatest from new and old folks.
Of everything offered by hundreds of vendors, Fulcrum Acoustic’s passive cardioid cabinets really stood out to me.
The rear rejection was quite amazing for the size, bringing pattern control to low frequencies in cabinets that can be handled by one person,  yet still have good sensitivity.
David Gunness has designed quite a line up of single amplifier passive cardioid, was surprising how many impressive products he has recently offered. As usual, they all sound great, but are able to do things I would not have thought possible had I not heard them.

Although of limited use and fidelity, Holosonic’s Audio Spot Light is also an impressive technological achievement, using 60kHz “carrier waves” projecting speech-range sound in a pattern little more than the width of the 1 & 3/8” deep panels, which are available in a variety of sizes up to 2’ square, the self powered  2’x 2’ weighs only 9 pounds. The demo had two panels on the floor angled up to average head height. The panels were playing sound from two different sports videos about four feet apart, one could clearly hear the sound of either program above the ambient noise when standing on the footprints in front of the panel, but a foot to either side and the usual trade show din was well above the level of the Audio Spot Light.

There was so much to see and hear it was not possible to take everything in, what other standouts impressed any of you attending ?

Art

[Nathan Riddle]

Being a new attendee I was overwhelmed by everything. You are so correct in saying that there is too much to see and hear.

I was able to speak with one of the event organizers and he said they broke all of the records this year so that's good for them?

---
Here's what I took note of:

The K-Array KR series stuff was impressive as heck and I'd love it if I did more corporate/wedding events. Silly amounts of slick looking good sound performance 

Honestly, I was quite impressed with community's passive line array offering. I didn't get a price, but I'm sure it meets a specific target market very well.

The new martin XE series monitor was highly impressive 142dB it's like a mini-Jericho

EAW's new radius series gets my thumbs up and markets well with the younger integration crowd. Primarily because of the software; (using the iPad control to setup/model/test all speakers in series easily, remotely, in real time, give coverage plots to client on site on first visit, automatic configuration, simply fantastic black box setup procedures)

The most impressive speaker I was able to listen to was Danley's new Nano. Not as impressed with the SM80F as I wanted to be It sounded good, don't get me wrong; just not amazingly good.

All-in-all I was happy to meet people (Ivan, others), make connections, learn about products, listen & learn about the tools I might use out in the fields.

[Rick Alan]

it's like a mini-Jericho

That's in the works from Danley

[Lance Hallmark]

That's in the works from Danley

Ivan was nice enough to show that one to me, can't wait to hear it once it's finalized!
I really enjoyed the SM80f/BC218 combo but I'm a dance music club guy who loves bass & clarity.
The Void double 12 sub was nice as well as the Nexus & Air series tops, wasn't impressed with their other subs.
The EAW Anya & Otto with their DSP steering were interesting.
When they did just the stage stack during the Meyer demo it was like Icepick to the forehead to me, the full system sounded OK but was probably $200k+ and wasn't designed to cover the complete auditorium they were in - just doesn't seem worth the money, as far as sound quality goes, not that there aren't other variables in those types of purchases - my opinion on rigs of that size are as a listener.
PK Sound was there but said their system is way too loud to do demos with, uh huh...
Wanted to hear the Fulcrum Acoustic FA15AC but they didn't have them hooked up and no demo room.
Yorkville redid their LS801p as the ES18p - taller, thinner, goes a little lower and a little louder, DSP that can be controlled with a phone or tablet.
I was given a real nice demo of the Chamsys lighting software and wing that pretty much sold me on going that direction.
I really liked the domed video projections that can be done with 1 projector & the new curvable LED video panels.
There was also a video projector that could sense your touching the image projected on the wall as if it were a clickable link that I thought was pretty cool.

Sorry for the rambling, had a great time at Infocomm, always more to see, hear and learn. Spent all three days there this year, still not enough time to experience everything.

[Ivan Beaver]

I would like to thank all the PSW people who came by to say hi.  I'm sorry we ran out of "audio rulers".

It is great to put a face with a name-it is interesting how some people don't look anything like you would think they would.

I heard the overall attendance was up 20% from last year.

It was a lot busier than last year.

Maybe the industry is starting to "make a turn".

Now it's time to get back to the regular work----------

[Jeffrey Knorr - JRKLabs.com]

I was given a real nice demo of the Chamsys lighting software and wing that pretty much sold me on going that direction.

Hi Lance, 

Have you compared Chamsys to Martin M-PC? Just curious as those are my two front runners right now for a HOW space. 

Thank you,

Jeff

[Lance Hallmark]

Hi Lance, 

Have you compared Chamsys to Martin M-PC? Just curious as those are my two front runners right now for a HOW space. 

Thank you,

Jeff

Hi Jeff,
I have not done any sort of in depth analysis yet but it looks like the Chamsys system will offer everything I will need in software and  plenty of hardware expand-ability. While a bit more than the Martin controller, the Chamsys PC Wing Compact has all of the controls I would need, more useful than the Martin M-Touch & M-Play, I feel. I want to pick one to master and I think the Chamsys will be it.

[Adam Kane]

Definitely a lot of cool stuff there this year. I saw some name tags I recognized, but was so busy meeting with reps that I rarely got a chance to stop and have conversations with people.

Stuff that stood out to me:

dB-Technologies: First time ever hearing the stuff. The little ES1200 (I think?) system was very impressive for its size. I can think of lots of places I'd use that. Vio line array sounded nice, as did the 318 sub. They also had a coax wedge (don't remember the model number) that sounded good. In general, seems like nice stuff for the money.

Fulcrum: I'll second Art on the passive cardoid stuff...very impressive. Wish they could have had a demo room. I spoke with Dave and another guy whose name I can't recall...both seem to be top-notch guys.

PK Sound: Interesting concepts in regards to remote-controlled line array splay and horizontal coverage adjustment. The only thing I kept thinking about was how many things could go wrong and how much of a pain it would be to repair. Also, he spent a fair amount of time trashing other companies. That in itself is a turn-off.

Pioneer Professional: I didn't even know this stuff existed. Looks like the primary market would be club/EDM type stuff. Cabinetry seems pretty well built. Some of the HF reminded me of the old Turbo cabinets...not sure what that's about. Never got to hear any of it so I can't comment on sound quality.

L'Acoustics: The Syva and its accompanying low/sub cabinets sounded great. Very smooth and hi-fi. Impressive output for its size.

Danley: The GO2 and Nano were great. As were the J series. The SM80F looks to be an excellent all-in-one solution. I wanted to like the SBH-20, but to my ears, it sounded very honky...not what I was expecting. I heard two different tracks through it and that trait was definitely more pronounced with the first track than the second. Not what I was expecting and not as nice sounding as the rest of the gear in that room.

Nexo: The STM stuff was very nice. Feel like I need to look into that more. Also impressed with the little ID series boxes.

Soooo many LED walls...some looked great, some looked crappy. But lots to choose from.

There was a lot of other stuff I wanted to check out, but ran out of time. One thing that stuck out like a sore thumb though...

I was in a couple of booths/demo rooms where the people could not get the equipment to work properly. I'm not going to name any names. But it was rather disappointing to walk in expecting to be impressed, only to have to wait for a few minutes while watching a few guys trying to figure out why stuff isn't working...or if it was working, not sounding very good.

Also, a golf cart or Segway would have been wonderful.

[ProSoundWeb Community]