Insider | Digital Trends

• Performance Audio Product
• By John Senters

MARK LEVINSON 50TH ANNIV. AMPS

• Home Audio | Home Stereo | Home Audio | High-End Audio

Mark Levinson 50th Anniversary
Mono-Block Amplifier
ML-50

The ML-50 celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Mark Levinson brand with a limited-edition amplifier delivering reference-class performance together with high-performance design and craftsmanship.

A monaural chassis amplifier package or pair, the ML-50 showcases Mark Levinson Pure Path design topology with a glass top panel, dramatic internal lighting, and historical design cues inspired by celebrated amplifiers of the brand’s 50- year history. Limited to only 100 amplifier packages globally, the ML-50 is the ultimate expression of power, precision, and purity.

The Mark Levinson team optimized the electrical layout of all component circuit boards in painstaking detail. The result is an interior that is simply a work of art visually and electrically.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Limited to Only 100 ML-50’s Globally
• Less than 10 ML-50’s remaining for sale in the United States
• Sequentially Serialized Pair Numbering and Badging
• Reference Class Amplifier Performance
• Mark Levinson Pure Path Circuit Design
• Custom Glass-top and Internal Lighting
• Vibration-damping, Mechanically Isolated Foot Design
• Designed, Engineered and Assembled in the USA

DETAILS

• 425W RMS at 8 ohms, 20Hz to 20kHz, at < 0.3% THD
• 850W RMS at 4 ohms, 20Hz to 20kHz
• 2 ohm Stable
• 115 lbs
• Width 17-1/4″ x Height 7-3/4″  x  Depth 21″

PRICING

• PRICE: $50,000

Summary

Mark Levinson has created a product that could be considered the final evolution of any audiophile’s dream system. Not only is it visually stunning –  the build quality is second to none. Is this a Ferrari of amplifiers? Perhaps an Aston Martin?  This is a reference product, an all out assault on the high-end amplifier with a design and pedigree that like Ferrari and Aston Martin, few can match.

There are many reviews available on these exceptional amplifiers. We encourage you to review what a 50th Anniversary product can be from the storied brand of Mark Levinson.

• Performance Audio Product
• By John Senters

JBL HDI Series

• Home Audio | Home Stereo | Home Theater

JBL HDI Series “The modern JBL speaker”

The HDI Series is the modern showcase of JBL’s industry-leading acoustics technologies, packaged in an elegant cabinetry with a modern design aesthetic. The HDI series features state-of-the-art waveguide technology coupled with their patented 2410H-2 1″ high-frequency compression driver. You could think of the HDI as today’s L-Series. With a sophisticated curved and sleek cabinet, the HDI Series is the embodiment of the modern JBL high-performance loudspeaker.

Designed and engineered in JBL’s world-famous acoustic engineering facility in Northridge, California, the HDI Series lineup is simple. Two towers, one bookshelf, one center and a subwoofer. All the speakers, save for the subwoofer of course, utilze the well regarded 2410H-2 compression driver.

The tower speakers are the HDI-3800 with three 8″ woofers and the HDI-3600 with three 6″ woofers. The bookshelf, HDI-1600 features a single 6″ woofer. The center speaker, the HDI-4500 features, and you guessed it, four 5″ woofers.

All the speakers share similar woofer construction, featuring a massive magnet structure with an advanced aluminum matrix cone woofer that is exceedingly powerful, delivering dynamics and exceptionally fast and accurate bass. We are very impressed with the bass performance. This is bass with speed, weight and definition. All the HDI enclosures are heavily braced and provide a solid acoustic foundation.

Finishes for the modern streamlined curved cabinet are an automotive-grade painted high gloss black, or furniture-grade satin walnut or gray oak wood veneers. A black cloth, magnetically attached grille completes the elegant appearance. Leaving the grilles off, especially on the black, provides a sophisticated, yet industrial look.

Ready for Audition

Summary

The JBL HDI Series provides a dynamic range and contrast that should be heard to understand what that adds to the acoustic experience. Additionally, the bass performance of the towers and especially the bookshelf is nothing short of extraordinary.

• Smart Car Product
• By John Senters
• Performance Audio | Smart Car

revel & Levinson ARE now in Ferrari f1?

revel speaker in lincoln’s… Mark Levinson in Lexus…

Mark Levinson, Revel, JBL, JBL Pro, Arcam, AKG, are all part of the Harman brigade,  and per their press release are “focused on designing consumer experiences at automotive grade, and have announced a multi-year, multi-faceted partnership with Ferrari focused on bringing the next generation of in-cabin experiences to market, today. Ferrari will leverage HARMAN Ready Upgrade hardware and software, to deliver fully upgradeable consumer electronics-level experiences into the cabin across their vehicle lineup, quickly and cost effectively.”

Revel and Mark Levinson parent company, Harman, is the worlds largest manufacturer of automotive sound systems and driver enhancement systems. Harman in-cabin technologies includes an expanded dashboard, with heads-up displays and data streaming with on-the-fly package upgrades allowing for more interesting feature sets and personal configuration, essentially tailoring all aspects of the car to your personal dimensions, subscriptions, preferences and performance.

Leveraging AKG’s microphone R&D, Harman will debut its sound and vibration sensor and external microphones as part of the safety and driver operation.

The partnership extends to the racetrack, as HARMAN Automotive becomes the exclusive In-Cabin Experience Team partner of Scuderia Ferrari beginning with the 2023 Formula 1 season.

CLOSING

Clearly Ferrari and Harman want a global stage to demonstrate the expertise that Harman possesses with automotive cabin and human cognition / performance improvement, so aligning with Ferrari in the development of the Ferrari F1 and their racing applications makes sense.

It is very expensive to sponsor an F1 team, especially the one on top of the F1 ladder, Ferrari. Time will tell if the visibility of the brand and the resulting performance enhancement and experience gained, are shared by both partners.

Revel & Levinson are in the back of the garage with the fastest racing team in the world, while Harman automotive is developing and refining a superior in-cabin experience for the F1 driver.  We will have to wait and see if the technology developed here will trickle down to the Lexus/Mark Levinson and Lincoln/Revel cabins, dashboards and audio offerings in the future.

• Smart Home Product
• By John Senters

JOSH AI Control Solution

• Home Automation | Smart Home | Home Control

Like Siri or Alexa, Josh AI is a player in the Smart Home control market, and uses voice commands.
What separates JOSH AI from its other voice control competitors is unique and valid.
CAPABILITIES. 
PRIVACY.

First, the capabilities of Josh AI are incredible. In fact, they are downright magical.

Josh AI is a smart assistant designed especially for luxury smart homes. It integrates seamlessly with control systems from Control4, Crestron, Lutron, Honeywell, Baldwin, Sony and hundreds more… allowing for full control with just a few words.

Second, Josh AI, deals with you and your guests in a far different way.

It is well documented that Google and Amazon are selling your information, and are indeed listening to your conversations, regardless of whether any command is actuated. While they maintain your anonymity is protected, however, the nature and content of your conversations are not.

Privacy is a key differentiator for Josh AI.

Privacy – the new pivot-point for modern technology.

With Google and Amazon’s Alexa, the reality is that your conversations and discussions in your home are being shared with third-party contractors around the world for “marketing and voice recognition research…”  Okay, yes, you may be anonymous,  but your conversations about stock trading, intellectual property, private and legal matters are not.

With Alexa, Siri and Google, your conversations and data are uploaded to the “Cloud.” The cloud in reality is a server that can be in Denver or Dubai. With Josh AI, your commands, your conversations, your data, never leaves your home.

Unflinching Privacy.
Josh AI has made privacy a cornerstone in the company’s product engineering.

“We understand the importance of protecting personal data, and we engineer our products to continuously enhance those protections.”

Summary

We have Josh AI installed and ready for demo, but more importantly, for you to interact with it.  Smart home control solutions are all about the user experience. At some point, you need to have a test drive. The power and simplicity of voice control is magical. We invite you to stop in our showroom and interact with the future of smart home – Voice Control and discover just how nice it is to be heard and in control.

• • Reference Video Product
  • By John Senters

  Kaleidescape Movie Servers

  • Home Video | Home Theater | Digital Streaming

  Kaleidescape Movie Servers

  Kaleidescape is a movie streaming service that delivers high-resolution, sound and picture performance for home theater. Think of it as the QoBuz or Tidal for movies.

  Why do I need this? Video-on-Demand (VOD) streaming from Apple, Hulu, Netflix etc… are not the same video or audio resolution as Blu-ray. They’re not even close. They are downsampled with a data reduction algorithm – this is not compression – this is data reduction to speed movie download time and increase the ability to stream on lower bandwidth 50 to 20 Mbps WiFi networks. Just like audio MP3’s, the lower the bit-rate, the lower the resolution which noticeably degrades audio & video resolution.

  Lower quality audio and video resolution is avoided on Kaleidescape’s movie servers by delivering the highest resolution possible – the same as the original master recording – which in some cases surpasses the Blu-ray Disc and most certainly any other VOD.

  The average movie from a VOD service averages 6-8 Mbps, while a quality BluRay disc is around 50 Mbps. The Kaleidescape delivers 65 Mbps. Kaleidescape has its own movie store for customers to download bit-for-bit Blu-ray movies to play on the Kaleidescape movie server.

  With VOD competitors, most movie audio tracks are Dolby Digital Plus, a few services offer limited Atmos support, but it’s a data reduction form of Atmos built on top of Dolby Digital Plus. With Kaleidescape, you have fully uncompromised, high resolution audio. Downloads offer the quality of Blu-ray, with uncompressed Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA soundtracks!

  Ready for Audition

  Scheduling Tool

   

  Summary
  For high resolution TV’s and projectors in the home or a dedicated home theater, you have a movie that is equal to or superior than BluRay. Kaleidescape delivers the very best VOD movie experience. You can see and hear the difference.

  Read More at Kaleidescape

The Story behind the “KEF KC65 Subwoofer”
The development of a small subwoofer that for all practical measures, performs as well as a 12″ or 15″ subwoofer is truly a landmark achievement! We see this type of product breakthrough once a decade. It is no wonder the SC62 won this year’s EISA “Best Product” in the Subwoofer category. The KEF KC62 in on display and we want you to experience just how impressively a sub – this small – performs this big! Clean, performance below 15Hz and compact. The KEF SC62 is amazing and that’s no marketing fluff. This is a breakthrough product.

The Story behind the “Everest Project”
Under a program called Project Everest, JBL^® engineers endeavored to create the ultimate home audio loudspeaker, the Everest DD6700. Using the unrivaled R&D resources of Harman, they created the finest speaker we have ever had in our showrooms. Our display model is finished in a beautiful rosewood with other custom paint finishes available. The JBL Summit Series Everest are $37,500 each. Expensive yes, but world class is never inexpensive. We invite you to hear them and perceive music as it was intended – live musicians – playing in the room!

The Story behind “Foundation Series”
Original founder Scott Bagby, along with his brother, John, purchased back the controlling interest of Paradigm in May of 2019, the very company they founded. Since then, Scott and John have reignited their company to focus on what made great: exceptional products for the dollar. The Founder Series reflects that commitment.

“New ground can only be broken once, and Cambridge Audio’s hi-res wireless Alva TT turntable is now a benchmark product…The fact it’s able to stream wirelessly to a 24bit/48kHz aptX HD standard makes it number one in a field of one. No other record player from any better-established brand in this sort of market – Rega, for instance, or Clearaudio – is able to come close to this level of convenience. No other record player is as friendly or adaptable, and no other record player will fit in with your wider lifestyle so seamlessly. That’s why the Alva TT is so easy to recommend so wholeheartedly.” – Jeff Dorgay, TONE

“Beware of being beguiled by their good looks lest you forget that what you are getting for all that cash: the most advanced state-of-the-art engineering you will find in a modern loudspeaker.” – Jeffrey Bradley, Dagogo

“This is a speaker that reveals the finest nuance, allowing me to evaluate different components with ease, yet is also a speaker with which I love to just sit and listen to music for pleasure, even after a 12-hour day of component reviews. This is the highest compliment I can pay the Blades—…” – Jeff Dorgay, TONE

We hope you will take the time to hear what legends are made of…

“At this price, we can’t think of a more complete alternative than the Edge Amplifier. Cambridge has done a terrific job” – WHAT HIFI, United Kingdom

“I loved the unusual styling and the software is superb; the sound is inspirational…” – Mark Sparrow, Forbes, United States

“The Edge NQ and W can connect all the connected aspects of your music-reproduction life. They do so reliably and easily. The overall achievement as a product line clearly built by proud experts in their fields deserves respect and acknowledgement. Beautiful, substantial, and intelligent separates that should be sought out for audition. “ – Allan Moulton, The Absolute Sound, United States

We hope you will take the time to hear this celebration of a 50 year heritage and enjoy what a well designed and beautifully integrated networked preamp and amp combination can bring to your life.

This article identifies how outdoor speakers perform and provides tips and insights to get the most from your outdoor speakers in Columbus, Ohio.