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Long ago are the days when CEDIA could be considered, among other things, a high-end audio industry show. Now it’s mostly for designers, sellers, and installers of various home and commercial electronics products that revolve around home automation—the Smart Home segment. Think automated curtains, lights, home security, and audio/video installations. As an industry trade organization, CEDIA provides its members with help in the forms of education, certification, and symposiums, such as this CEDIA Expo, which took place in downtown Dallas at the Kay Bailey Hutcheson convention center. The bright red Pegasus flying horse you see atop an oil derrick was situated right outside the venue.

CEDIA Expo happens every fall and offers, along with educational and certification opportunities, a huge number of exhibits by various suppliers to the industry. Among the diverse vendors were audio suppliers, some of which are well-known names in high-end audio. 

A couple of years ago, when I mentioned, to a former audio magazine editor, my desire to go to the CEDIA Expo in Denver, he replied, “It’s not for us”. He was right. CEDIA is geared toward a 4% niche market for those who want (and can afford) to automate aspects of their homes, such as security, lights, heat, AV systems, etc… Little of this brings to mind audio quality, other than for maybe for home theatres, although I did find some high-quality audio at the show, as I’ll detail below.

This year’s event featured more than 300 exhibitors*. I wasn’t expecting to find many esoteric audio brands at the expo, and sure enough, they weren’t there. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t find a few things worth seeing and hearing.

Apprentissages

Before most exhibits opened, I signed up to take part in several educational events presented by industry pros. There was an “Ask the Experts” conference on room acoustics I was especially curious about—room acoustics are often a weak spot in home audio. The main speakers—not loudspeakers, human speakers—at this event were Gerry Lemay of the Home Acoustics Alliance and Adam Pelz, an audio calibration expert. I won’t go into detail about what they discussed, but I will say that they’re both involved in tuning the sound of rooms for AV and home cinemas. Jerry even mentioned he was a “recovering audiophile,” whatever that is. The men’s work involves using software-based equalization to finetune a room’s acoustics. Some of the comments the men made caused me to raise an eyebrow, such as when they both agreed that the best room to treat acoustically would be rectangular with speakers placed near, but not against, one of the short walls. The reason for this, they said, was that a rectangular room with speakers in that position is easy to model, while irregularly shaped rooms are difficult to model. My take is that while their claim might apply to home cinema, I’m not sure most audiophiles would condone such practices. I think an irregularly shaped room might have better acoustics than any rectangular room to start with, and that, in itself, would probably alleviate the need to use fancy equalization to make the room sound ideal. But none of that was discussed by the experts.

J'ai également assisté au discours d'ouverture, parrainé par Kaleidescape, une société qui produit des dispositifs de stockage et de lecture pour le cinéma et la vidéo. Une grande partie de l'élite du secteur de l'audiovisuel préfère posséder ou louer ses films 4K, car cela permet d'obtenir une meilleure reproduction vidéo et audio que le streaming.

The following day, I attended what was called a “Deathmatch” session on audio networking. This turned out to be something of a misnomer. I won’t go into detail about what was discussed there, but suffice to say there was neither talk of high-end audio, nor were there matches between people to the death.

Expositions audio

Je n'ai rien entendu au CEDIA qui ne soit pas numérique sous une forme ou une autre. Le seul appareil purement analogique que j'ai vu était une table tournante, qui était exposée de manière statique. Je n'ai vu aucun équipement à tubes, et la plupart des amplificateurs étaient de type classe D, avec quelques classes G (commutation de rail) intercalées. Ces amplificateurs peuvent être considérés comme anathèmes par certains amateurs d'audio, mais il ne fait aucun doute que les amplificateurs de classe D sonnent mieux que jamais, avec une distorsion très faible et un rapport signal/bruit élevé. Plusieurs expositions d'écoute dans des salles fermées ont permis d'atténuer raisonnablement les bruits extérieurs. Presque toutes les expositions comprenaient un système vidéo pour présenter une sorte de Dolby Atmos ou un système de son surround similaire. La seule exception que j'ai trouvée au salon était MBL, qui n'avait pas de système vidéo.

Le salon était bruyant, de nombreux exposants faisant jouer leurs subs à haut volume. Se trouver dans la zone d'exposition, c'était entendre un grondement constant de basses fréquences en plus du bourdonnement constant des voix humaines. Ce n'est pas un bon environnement d'écoute pour les audiophiles. Et si quelqu'un pense que le disco est mort, j'ai entendu beaucoup de rythmes identiques à ceux de l'époque où Donna Summers chantait à tue-tête dans les années 70.

But there were a few pearls. I was invited to a demonstration by manufacturer Perlisten, whose speakers were on static display in the main exhibit hall. Fortunately, Perlisten also had an offsite listening room which I visited.

Nos hôtes étaient les fondateurs et partenaires de Perlisten, Dan Roemer et Lars Johansen. Leur salle comprenait un système avec un ampli AHB2 de Benchmark, une paire de moniteurs S5m de Perlisten et un subwoofer R212 de Perlisten. La salle était calme et installée de manière conventionnelle, mais un bourdonnement de boucle de sol, faible mais persistant, a perturbé les parties calmes de la musique. Cela dit, je n'avais jamais entendu la chanson "Liberty" d'Anette Askvik aussi bien jouée. Les voix étaient superbes et le saxophone baryton jouait avec un tel réalisme que l'on pouvait presque le toucher.

Je joue l'une de mes pistes d'essai préférées, "The Ghost" de Patrick Doyle, tirée de la musique du film, Hamlet, demonstrated how good the speaker-sub combination was. The bass drum on that track is hard to reproduce with impact, but the sub managed to hit the fundamental without overemphasis. Solo instruments imaged in a spatially realistic manner and had perfect timbre. “Ghost” is a particularly good track for evaluating imaging. Despite the hum in the quiet parts, I felt this Perlisten combination was about as good as it gets.

I’d heard the same tracks the prior week on the new Wilson Alexia V speakers, which were superbly set up in a New York listening room. Performance-wise, I’d give them the edge over the Perlisten combination but, at 1/3rd the Wilson’s price, the Perlistens may be the better deal. The Wilsons, of course, didn’t need a sub to get down to the very deep bass that was evident in Bela Fleck’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo”, which I heard on both systems, albeit a week apart.

Another well-known high-end brand at CEDIA Expo was MBL, which had an all-MBL system centered around its Radialstrahler 101E Mk2 speakers. The omnidirectional nature of MBL speakers spreads the sound around the room for a more immersive listening experience. After a brief listen, I concluded that the MBLs do a fine job of providing accurate stereo imaging with a broad soundstage and plenty of ambience. MBL’s room was smaller than its room at Florida Audio Fest 2019, but the Radialstrahler still stood out as remarkably detailed and transparent. They do need adequate room to breathe, though, and these were spaced about 4 feet from the walls.

Danish speaker company DALI was also at the show, but had no listening room. The company had a one-piece static display of the new DALI KORE, its new flagship loudspeaker, which looked rather imposing at 5½ feet high and weighing 160 kg, or roughly 352 lbs. Designed with musical dynamics in mind, the KORE is built entirely in Denmark and employs a die-cast aluminum section for the midrange and tweeter assembly, proprietary composite parts, and a resin cement base. It features a curved wood cabinet made by a local Danish furniture master. Each speaker has a complement of five drivers, including twin differentially filtered 11½ inch bass drivers, a 7-inch midrange driver, and an EVO-K Hybrid tweeter comprising a 35mm soft dome tweeter and a 55mm x 10mm ribbon element. I certainly would have liked to hear this monster play, but alas, that will have to wait for another show or dealer showroom experience.

Bang & Olufsen est une autre société danoise bien connue. Elle disposait d'une belle installation de home cinéma tout B&O, mais ce qui m'a le plus intrigué, c'est la paire d'enceintes qui se tenait juste à l'extérieur de la pièce : les $115.000,00 Beolab 90. L'entreprise n'a pas hésité à monter le volume à fond, inondant l'espace ouvert d'un grand nombre de bruits magnifiques. Un tel environnement, sans salle d'écoute, ne permet pas de goûter à une expérience domestique, mais il a montré que les composants de B&O peuvent donner une très bonne image et produire une excellente reproduction sonore globale.

Canadian company Totem was demonstrating their speakers in a home theater environment. The speakers were diminutive in size compared to the DALI or the B&O behemoths. Still, they produced substantial bass response when played in stereo mode even without the use of a subwoofer.

Devialet, marque française connue pour ses enceintes amplifiées compactes mais au son gigantesque, a installé une salle AV en son 7.0.4. Le "0" dans la désignation indique qu'aucune enceinte n'a été utilisée. Devialet affirme que ses enceintes sont à large bande et qu'elles ne nécessitent pas d'amplificateurs séparés. Ses modèles Phantom I et Phantom II m'ont fait penser à une tête de cyclope allongée, avec un tweeter pour l'œil et de grands éléments pistoniques semi-sphériques pour les oreilles. Les pistons des oreilles servent de haut-parleurs de basses qui se déplacent vers l'intérieur et vers l'extérieur avec de grandes excursions. Il semble que ce soit l'astuce pour obtenir des basses importantes à partir d'une enceinte aussi petite. Longue vie aux cyclopes !

There were also plenty of small active desktop-size speakers. One such speaker was the tiny BluOS-equipped PSB Alpha iQ streaming speakers, which put out a much bigger sound than their size would suggest. They’re offered in a variety of colors and can play from multiple sources. They’re also powerful; their internal class-D amps can produce 180 watts of power.

Other items of interest to audiophiles included the huge bank of McIntosh gear on display. The company still maintains its design and production facilities in Binghamton, NY, but it was recently sold to Highlander Partners of Dallas, Texas. 

Classé présentait son ampli Delta, en version stéréo et monobloc, ainsi que le préampli correspondant. Adcom et Marantz ont exposé plusieurs de leurs préamplis / streamers, processeurs AV, récepteurs et amplis de classe G, mais la plupart n'étaient pas utilisés et je doute que l'on puisse tirer des conclusions définitives sur leur qualité sonore dans l'environnement très bruyant où ils se trouvaient.

Résumé

CEDIA seems to have fully recovered from its COVID-induced coma of the previous two years. But overall, it’s like my former editor said—CEDIA is not a show for serious audio enthusiasts. It’s a noisy event, and there was nothing there for tube lovers, vinyl aficionados, or for those looking for more exotic audio products. There also wasn’t much in the way of high-end audio cables or accessories. Still, I was happy to see the few high-end brands that did show up and are still making fine-sounding products. Some of my experiences were first-rate. One of them was in the listening room hosted by Perlisten, a company whose speakers aren’t priced in the stratosphere, but deliver true high-end sound. Larger manufacturers like Marantz, Bowers & Wilkins, and Classé were all exhibiting audio products with high appeal to those of us who relish the best in audio reproduction. So, I say, play on, CEDIA!

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ADDENDUM POSTÉ PAR CEDIA APRÈS LE SPECTACLE :

Alpharetta, GA (11 octobre 2022) - CEDIA Expo 2022 annonce un total de 15 497 inscrits avec une fréquentation vérifiée de 11 946 professionnels de l'industrie et 317 exposants ont participé à CEDIA Expo 2022 du 29 septembre au 1er octobre 2022, à Dallas, Texas. Plus de 40% des participants étaient des primo-participants, ce qui démontre notre engagement continu à mettre en relation les exposants avec de nouveaux clients.