First and foremost, Happy holidays to all and I wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2010.

I’ve been trying to follow CES 2010 news this year, specifically for any information with respect to Atlantic Technology. I feel that with the relationship between Outlaw and Atlantic that there may be some insight as to what we may see this year in new Outlaw products. The most news worthy of course is the H-PAS technology that Atlantic will be bringing to the market. Here are two links to the only CES 2010 coverage that I could find thus far:

http://blog.hometheatermag.com/ces2010/010910atlantic2/
http://blog.hometheatermag.com/ces2010/010810atlantic/

Even though that I find it interesting and impressive that H-PAS will be able to produce such specs in relatively small enclosures, I wonder if speakers that are capable to reach such lows are even necessary in a home theater environment. The reason that I ask such a question is because of the crossover point that most of us set our equipment at. I am speculating that it is around 80 Hz which is a recommendation from THX and also seems to be a very good range. I don’t think that it would be too desirable to have our front and center channel speakers accepting signals much below 80, unless of course that you are using speakers that go lower. But even if you were:

1. Would it be mere speculation to assume that audio below 80 Hz, especially LFE, would have a much better sound and impact coming from a larger enclosure of a subwoofer?
2. How can a small enclosure with H-PAS technology that hits 40 Hz, pressurize a room like a subwoofer box can?
3. Would we rather crossover at a lower point if we could efficiently?
4. If the answer to #3 is yes, then will future subwoofers get smaller as opposed to larger which appears to be the direction of the industry? (SVS, HSU, ED, etc.)

Obviously these are question that will be answered in due time and I think the coming year will be very interesting indeed.

Personally I like my sub handling the audio below 80; therefore my fronts need to be able to reach down to 70 Hz which is a very easy number to reach in today’s market. I am leaning too believe that H-PAS is targeted to mostly music and two channel set ups.

Finally, I wish Peter T all the best with his new products and I sincerely hope that Atlantic Tech and Outlaw do very well with H-PAS.

I think it's hard to say. There's a reason that folks have long sought "full range" main speakers. There are plenty of companies that build very large towers to achieve output down to 40Hz when much smaller speakers could get to 55Hz very comfortably (see Outlaw's diminuitive BLS for example and compare it to something like the Axiom M80, SVS MTS-01, Paradigm Studio 100, and a lot of other big towers).
Don't know, but that's apparently part of the point behind the H-PAS concept. The first link in your post noted that folks were impressed with the low frequency performance when the demo was in a 70,000SF room. That's a tall order for any speaker, including powered subs.
One of the arguments that THX made when they set 80Hz as the optimal crossover point was that anything higher started to become "directional" - you could start to identify where in the room the sub was. From that perspective, lower is better.
I don't know that H-PAS will be an industry revolution so large that it changes subwoofer design. Even with this, you can't get 40Hz out of a box that will fit in the palm of your hand. The arrival of flat panel TV's means there are still lots of people who want those tiny speakers, and those tiny speakers are still going to be lucky to get down to 80Hz. Plus there are plenty of people who really want that bass punch and will stack three or four large subs in a room to get it. There will always be big subs - especially from companies that specialize in subs (SVS, ED, and HSU Research).

At the end of the day, H-PAS is probably best suited to two-channel audio systems. In that regard, it's just like the RR2150 (which, not coincidentally, is what powered the prototypes at CEDIA last fall). It can and will also work well for home theaters, too, though. There are plenty of folks who want to run large front speakers because they prefer to not have a sub active when listening to music in stereo. Just looking at the folks here in the saloon, we've seen people doing that in their home theaters from day one. If these towers are small enough to blend into a living room or den (gotta think about WAF) and get down far enough to cover the low end for most music, there will be people to pursue it for just that reason. Personally, there's a corner of my brain that wonders what the following stereo setup would sound like: RR2150, BDP-83 (stock or, better yet, SE) and Outlaw H-PAS towers.

I managed to spend a little time at the Venetian high-end displays at this year's CES, and most importantly spent a fair amount of time talking to Atlantic Technology (AT) President & CEO, Peter Tribeman, and Solus' President, Philip Clements, about the Atlantic Technology AT-1 speaker, which uses the Clements-designed H-PAS bass technology.

While I was in Vegas for other reasons (golf being number one) hearing the AT-1 H-PAS speakers first hand was in itself worth the cost of the entire trip. Truth!

The AT-1 uses two 5 1/4" drivers in an ~1.6 cubic foot enclosure to produce bass with a claimed 29 Hz -3dB extension at an SPL greater than 107dB (with less than 3% distortion). After hearing a wide range of demo material (including some tracks that one visitor sprung on Peter when he was going through his demos) I have to say: this is the real deal!

These are not one note wonders. Bass appears flat throughout the whole range - and is very dynamic. I have never heard a speaker that could pressurize a room at both very high and very low loudness levels as did the AT-1. One track was played at less than nomal listening levels but there appeared to be an almost surreal ability to feel the bass when it was there. But there was no boominess (or one-notedness) at loud (or any) levels.

And while the focus was on the bass performance, the mids and highs were very very good as well. Peter did say that one of the differences between the demo and production models would be a frequency contouring switch for the highs. He felt (and I somewhat agree) that a little roll-off might have worked - at least as they were set up in the demo room.

Expected retail price will be $1995 - and the first units will ship this Spring.

Bonus inside news: Outlaw Audio will release its own H-PAS technology speaker some time after the Atlantic Technology product is selling and while it will share some similarities with the AT-1, the Outlaw version will be different according to Peter.

By the way, according to Phil Clements, the original patents on the H-PAS technology were filed thirty years ago - which means they've long-ago expired. The technology had sat dormant with him for years until Peter approached him to revive it. With the benefit of computer horsepower that he did not have at H-PAS' first creation, Phil has made a significant number of improvements to the original patents which means that H-PAS, at least the best version of it, will only be available via licence from him, AT being the first to offer it commercially.

Phil told be that the technology scales extremely well in both directions: bigger and smaller. The trick (among others) is matching the driver size to the length of the transmission line. (An no these are not just transmission line speakers: H-PAS combines elements of bass reflex, inverse horn, and transmission line technologies according to AT's press release.) Expect to see small versions in consumer products ranging from tabletop radios to iPod docking stations. I told Clements that I'd be very happy to have him try scaling up a pair to my main HT's 6.5' high ceiling with the goal of hitting 18 Hz flat. He said "no problem" - as far as it being possible to do!

What I can say is that at extremely high bass levels, I heard no distortion, incredible bass extension, and (this is the kicker) noted that those little drivers could not be seen to move from our 9-12 foot listening position (nor when I walked almost right up to them.) You really would have lost if you bet that there was a big sub (or two) hiding somewhere in the room.

Every listener that was there when I was, was equally impressed - as were a number of folks from the trade press. Expect to start reading about this in a few months.

AT is releasing these as a stand-alone stereo version. You can expect multi-channel HT versions in future.

Some other claimed specs for the AT-1: 29-20kHz, +/-3dB, sensitivity of 89dB, and a 20-200 Watt RMS recommended amplifier power. Dimensions are 8 7/8" x 41" x 13 3/4" and they weigh 54 lbs each.

If anyone wants to know more about my first-hand listening experience, please feel free to post.

Thanks for the great write-up, Jeff! I'll be curious to see what Outlaw does with this technology - it could make for a sweet tower speaker to round out their line.

This really grabbed me. A -3dB point of 29Hz is just amazing for a speaker of that size and driver compliment.

Jeff,

Thank you for your post. It was great to meet an Outlaw at the show. Suffice it to say that we will let the dealers and reviewers write about what they saw and heard with this first advanced H-PAS product.

It is true that Phil invented the basic concept some thirty years ago and it astounds us that it was forgotten about for all this time. Since (with our encouragement) he has resurrected it, he now has the use of computer technology to dramatically improve the performance: He can take speakers lower with smaller drivers, smaller cabinets and achieve extended deep bass response, high dynamic range and exceptionally low distortion.

By the way, Jeff’s friend, who was a skeptic and had posted his doubts about H-PAS months ago, had a bet with us that it would not work. He visited the room and he results of are here:

http://forums.soundandvisionmag.com/showthread.php?t=610208&page=3


Finally, for the record, Atlantic Technology is not only introducing this first but has been granted rights world wide to license the technology to other companies.

Coming full circle that means Outlaw Audio is an early licensee and work is continuing on our first H-PAS product. Also for the record, with the exception of this CES (where Atlantic shared a room with Parasound), every single public demonstration has been conducted utilizing the RR2150 as the electronics.

Peter

IG heard it, too? Excellent.

Sounds like a promising speaker. Any idea of what drivers are being used? I'd be interested to hear some more technical details.

The drivers are designed by Atlantic and have been customized to have a fairly high resonance. (About 65 HZ with a very robust x-max). This is counterintuitive in the world of conventional speaker design. The real heavy lifting with H-PAS is executed in the cabinet design. There is a labyrinth of ducts and chambers that capture the back wave of the driver as it starts naturally rolling off. The cabinet has elements of acoustic suspension, bass reflex, inverted horn, and transmission line and there is also a bass trap to strip the unwanted second third and fourth order harmonics. These cascaded design elements pressurize and physically boost the decreasing level of the back wave.

As a result the bass response increase exactly matches the speaker’s bass response roll off until it exits the vent in what we describe as a “controlled explosion” of low frequency energy. An H-PAS design can achieve flat frequency response down to 30-40 Hz below the resonance point of the drivers. The result is substantial dynamic range, very low distortion, and of course deep bass response out of moderate size drivers.

Conventional thinking with audiophile speaker designs is to specify very low resonance drivers. This approach taxes power, and dynamic range for the sake of achieving deep bass response. With H-PAS the cabinet does the heavy lifting. Therefore, higher resonance drivers develop the control back wave and the cabinet takes over from there. The drivers don’t have to move as far and due to this one characteristic there is an order of magnitude less distortion and very extended bass response

This approach reminds me of the Broadway show "Wicked" where everything you believed about "The Wizard of Oz" is upside down.

I don’t blame anyone for being skeptical because H-PAS challenges everything we know about speakers. We had tremendous fun at this show just watching the expressions on the faces of all the visitors to our demo room. When we played the speakers someone likened it to the “Susan Boyle moment”

Any chance (or plans) to apply H-PAS to build a small, deep (sub 20Hz) and efficient subwoofer?

Great overview, Peter. It sounds like these would actually be reasonably easy speakers to drive - maybe not insanely high-efficiency, but certainly not huge power-hogs like some speakers can be.


This is an interesting question. I wonder how small a cabinet could be to incorporate a somewhat larger driver (maybe an 8" instead of 5.5"), amp, and the "labyrinth" of internal gyrations involved? The question then would be how it would compare on cost and specs to the smaller sealed subs that have been around for years now. If it worked, it would be rather entertaining to see a modest-sized ported sub with an 8" or 10" driver that did things we're used to seeing from monster subs.