Last year about this time, I was looking forward to CEDIA because I thought we might see an announcement from OPPO Digital about Blu-ray. (Sure enough, the BDP-83 showed up in ABT's booth as a static display.) This year, though, I have no particular interest in 3D HDTV so didn't know that I was going to pay much attention to CEDIA. Then something interesting crossed my path: an announcement from Atlantic Technology about a radical new take on speaker design. They're calling it H-PAS . Based on this press release, they're going to demo a speaker at CEDIA that achieves 29Hz (-3dB) from a pair of 4.5" drivers in a 1.4ft^3 cabinet. Atlantic Technology plans to have their first H-PAS product on the market by the end of this year.

My curiosity is two-fold. First, it sounds pretty slick. After all, small speakers can be really convenient but normally involve a compromise in low-frequency punch. Second, the announcement includes several posts from Atlantic Tech's president, some guy named Peter Tribeman. That's the same Peter Tribemen who is president of Outlaw Audio. Clearly, while he and other other Outlaws have been pestering Sherwood to get the 997 platform ready, Peter's been finding other ways to keep himself busy. And since Atlantic Tech will be licensing the H-PAS system (which appears to be a design process incorporating several existing speaker design techniques, not any sort of "black box" electronics), dare we wonder if one of those licensees might end up being Outlaw?

Just think........an 8" subwoofer in a toster-sized box hitting 12Hz!

Uh-ohhh…now this is something that's up my alley. I joined this forum several years ago looking for small speakers with good bass response. Kinda surprises me on another level, though: Now that the home-theater market has led to the popularity of the subwoofer (which Outlaw has marketed several of), it's interesting that getting low-distortion bass out of small enclosures is still on the agenda. Of course, the flip side of that is how digitization (playing music on laptops, mp3 docks, etc.) has trimmed down what some consumers use for listening. H-Pas sounds like a maverick development nevertheless.

A first couple articles have shown up online about H-PAS: About.com and Sound & Vision . I suspect we'll see more in the days ahead. EDIT: Here is one from Ultimate AV , as well.

And it looks like Outlaw is one of the licensees...how did ya swing that, PT?

So the Bose people with their radio were right all along?

Just think what this is going to do for those of us who already have a WAF do deal with.

I bet that Scott knew somebody on the inside...

Anybody notice the receiver pictured in the background on this blog post ?

Must be a high-end unit :p

Looks kind of familiar!!!!

The H-PAS demo got mentioned near the bottom of this Stereophile page , as well, plus a couple additional blog posts at Home Theater.

And another one , including a mention of the RR2150. I can't tell what the disc player is, though...

My knowledge of technical stuff is pretty limited, but because my NHT Classic Three speakers are also an acoustic suspension bookshelf design, the efficacy of this H-PAS technology makes some sense to me. The Classic Threes have measured down to 45Hz (+/- 3dB) using a 6.5" woofer. And yeah, they definitely sound great with my RR2150. Bravo, Peter. Looks like this development is about to take wings and fly.

This article goes into some depth on the H-PAS demos last weekend. It also mentions again that Outlaw is a licensee for the technology.