Thanks Avi. I look forward to reading your show report!

I was at the Home Entertainment Expo today. It is certainly worth attending if you are in the NY area. There are many opportunities to see and hear state of the art equipment and to schmooze with fellow consumers, as well as the men and women that make the Home Entertainment industry what it is (whatever it is). Highlights for me included multichannel Demos by Sony (SACD), using Eggleston Soundworks Andra II's in five channels plus a subwoofer, a demo by Denon (5803?), where I sat next to Tom Norton, editor of Stereophile Guide to Home Theatre, as we auditioned and critiqued a pair of of $35,000 speakers from Mission. I entranced by a pair of Pipe Dreams speakers, and enjoyed a Home Theatre Demo sponsored by Harvey Electronics. Small rooms on the 6th and 7th floors are filled with all sorts of equipment from as far away as New Zealand and Australia. I observed the ascendence of DSL projection, which appears to be coming down in price.

Of course I had a highly pleasant visit with the luminaries from Outlaw. Peter, and (particularly) Scott were friendly and informative. There was more chatting going on in that room than demo-ing when I was there.

I plan to return to NYC tomorrow moring (Friday) and will leave my cell phone # with Scott if other people on this list wish to touch base with me. Friday's schedule appears to be filled with seminars and live music.

Mono Man

ps:BYOCD'S

I went to the show nice and early saturday morning. The whole registration thing was a nightmare. It took over a half over, horrible. After I went to Yamaha to get my free headphones I went to Outlaw and they treated me like royalty as a owner of the 950/770 combo. I even got my own Jedi Outlaw lightsaber pen for which I was greatly appreciative. I enjoyed the demo very much and pressed Mr. Tribeman for an answer on when we would see an Outlaw version of THX speakers. No time soon, and asked about the new product information. The only hint I got was that the new product will have a plug. I got to meet Scott and Mike and felt as if I were talking to old friends.

Afterwards I was excited to see front projector demos as thats the next purchase I plan to make. Enter the simseleco 300. After a review I read by Kevin Miller saying the light output was not enough for a big screen I felt I would not be impressed. Boy was I wrong, after the rep. dismissed the review saying Mr. Miller is no friend of simseleco and is a paid runco employee. Even telling me you can not slave for two masters(scandolous I told myself). They were using a JVC HD-VCR as most of the demos did. Incredible, amazing, and the best picture at the show I feel. It was on a 96" Da-lite screen at it was perfect. For 15,000 it was pricey to me. The sharp can be had for $8000 a lot less. The sharp did have its z9000u on display and it could not compare in my opinion. The sharp had a jvc also and I thought it was no comparison.

Then it was the faroudja projector coupled with the native rate dvd transport. $46,000 bucks, are they serious? The demo was coupled with a Krell system, showcase they called it. A $4000 prepro and 125x5 amp for $4000 as well. Then they had the ultra $100,000 LAT1s in the front and 2 pairs of LAT2 for the rears. The latter speakers are $10,000 for each pair. They had a 400 pound subwoofer that looked like a safe. The demo started with chicken run, sad and sorry, animation always lookes better than average. Next was Episode 1, it sounded great but the picture was just average nothing special to me. They ended with super speedway, again it sounded great but the picture was good but nothing to write home about. They did not use HD material from a JVC-VCR, but they should have. Obviously
if they had I am sure the picture would have been better than 480 upconverted.

Saw the Denon demo with mission speakers enjoyed it very much. Some nice specs about the 5803 and a speculation of a new format using coaxial for all speaker connections sounded interesting and that the 5803 is ready for that. I had a very good time and looking forward to cedia.

...working on my show report (takes a lot longer to write that you'd think!), but wanted to give a quick thank you to the folks from Outlaw, who were far more courteous and pleasant than anyone has a right to be when you're stuffed into a tiny, overcrowded room.

Also wanted to reassure the waitlisted lurkers that the 950/770 DO EXIST. I saw them in person with my very own eyes. Some other things you may be wondering: the demo unit didn't have any hiss problem - I put my ears right up to the speakers. And the power button was green.

-avi

I saw and heard the whole thing. I did not go to any of the seminars or to much of the live music, but went at least once to each of the music and home theatre displays. I agree with Mr. Mercado about the Krell/Faroudja system. There was limited news in the world of pre/pros. The Anthem was displayed. I, once again sat beside Tom Norton from SGHT today as he was showing great interest in a system from the British company Naim. Everything but the display was manufactured by Naim. It sounded quite good with the exception of the center channel speaker, which sounded a bit etched in the treble (it could have been the room).
The Polk display was a bit self congratulatory, but decent. Some of the best sound in the show came from the big boys. I think that Mr. Wilson took great care in presenting a two channel display of the new Watt/Puppy 7's. They were in a huge room, backed up with gillion dollar digital and acoustic electronics, as well as the Watchdog (tank) subwoofer, which was covering the range from the low 30hz down. They filled the room with sweet music, with regal authority. Sound by Singer, a large pretentious New York dealer had several rooms in the show, and combined a display of the awesome, huge and expensive Grand Utopias from French manufacturer, JM Labs with their home theatre show, separated by a curtain. I was amused by noticing that in one of their rooms, as I was reading the price list for a $55,000 plus set-up, that the most expensive component in that display was the rattlesnake-sized cables ($22,000). It kind of produces a perspective that says that I hope that I do not get to that point where I have to make purchasing choices like that. I paid a lot of attention to the loudspeakers. There was some beautiful music coming from rooms equipped with Totem, Triangle, Vandersteen, and some baby Avalons ($4,000 price point). There were many rooms filled with speakers that look like they were from old low budget science fiction movies (With most respect for the German mbl's, which sounded great).

One of the high points of the show for me came Satruday night. Samsung gave out free tickets for an exclusive digitally projected showing of Star Wars, Attack of the Clones, at the Zigfield Theatre (They are doing some heavy marketing of the DLP projection systems. They plan to do this all over the country, so look out). The theatre, which is a huge throwback to cinemas of yesteryear ( execept for being fitted with an ample sound system) is across the street from the Hilton. This made it quite convenient. To top this off, when we walked in we were treated to free beverages, popcorn, t-shirts and a box filled with packages of m&m's twizzlers, milk duds, jugyfruits and more (I used to have dreams like this when I was a kid). The film was a trip for the senses (though by no means a challenge for the intellect), and was made more envelloping and enjoyable with the implementation of the new technology. My only minor quibble was loss of some resolution in the darker scenes.

I checked in with the Outlaws several times each day. It was interesting to observe the evolution of that experience. Initially, when I came on Thursday and early Friday there was a lot of hanging out going on. I was also given, with much ceremony, an Outlaw pen that lights up when you open it. I got used to getting a lot of attention from the crew. By Friday afternoon, it got so busy in that little room at the end of the corridor on the sixth floor, that it was hard to get near it. Peter no longer recognized me, and I had to re-introduce myself several times. (I kept overhearing conversation about where they were going to go for dinner each time I came, no matter what time of the day it was). There was good feed back from the public about the Outlaws presentation. To me it was nice to go to a room that was quite "real world" in it's equipment. This room had a normal DVD player, Atlantic Technology speakers and a good quality DLP projector. Most of the other rooms, even ones selling relatively inexpensive equipment boosted what they were displaying with expensive doohickeys and thingamajigs. The Outlaw Room was set up for the "People" (forgive the throw back my 1960's political days).

My last experience with the Outlaws came about 4:30PM Sunday, when everyone was beyond tired. I finally came by to see and hear their display. Peter, who seemed to be doing all of the pitching, finally rememberd that I was a satisfied customer and took total advantage of my vanity by forcing me to talk to the room full of potential outlaws about the company and their line of products (There will be payback for this).The display was a scene from the film Vertical Limit that supplied a full complement of crashes, crunches avalanches, and explosions. The 9950/770 held thier own.

My biggest regret was not having an opportunity to meet some of the others from this list who came to the show. Perhaps next year?
Mono Man (on the mend)

Rather than cutting and pasting, let me direct you to the site below for more NYC Home Theater Expo talk:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73860

We now return you to the discussion here....

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RAF

My HT (latest update 04/17/02) Now includes Outlaw 950 and Outlaw 755

[This message has been edited by Robert A Fowkes (edited June 03, 2002).]

My show review has been posted at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity ( http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_2/hifi-show-ny-wrap-up-greengart.html ).

-avi

You might want to correct the price you have down on the 950. You have $700 bucks, should be $899 unless you know something I don't. Enjoyed all the pictures Mr. Greengart

Well if you buy a 770 at the same time, you get $200 off... I guess you could say you're paing full price for the 770 and getting the 950 for ~$700.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

Chris Montreuil gets credit for the photos and captions. I don't know if the price he quoted assumed the discount or was simply an oversight, but I'll pass it along.

-avi