In most industries, cutting edge, ground-breaking features typically come out first in ultra-expensive top-of-the-line models, then trickle down to the lower priced items. But things have not always been this way in Consumer Electronics. When advanced new lossless surround sound codec, DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD came out, the first products to market were from mainstream brands such as Onkyo, Pioneer and Denon. High end electronics manufacturers adopted these technologies much later, which probably caused them to lose some market share to their less expensive competitors. The reason? The chipsets that were required in order to support these new formats were very expensive, and only became affordable when ordered in large quantities.
But things appear to be a bit different with the latest immersive surround sound technologies: Dolby Atmos and AURO-3D. Each format supplements the traditional surround sound array with height speakers, giving listeners a new dimension in surround sound (quite literally). But this time around, three high-end companies -- AURO Technologies, Trinnov and Steinway Lyngdorf -- are slated to be first to market with processors that support both surround formats.
Although both Dolby Atmos and AURO-3D feature height speakers, the two formats approach immersive surround sound a bit differently. Dolby Atmos is an object-based system expandable to up to 64 independent speakers (34 speakers in its home version), while AURO-3D takes a more traditional channel-based approach to bring three dimensional surround sound into the home, with dual layers of height channels. Supporting both formats in a single processor is tricky business, due to the processing requirements and different recommended speaker positions, but Danish company Steinway Lyngdorf is up to the challenge.
Steinway Lyngdorf's fully digital Model P200 surround sound processor, is expected to begin shipping in Q1 of next year at a list price of approximately $18,000. At CEDIA Expo in Denver earlier this month, the company showed a working prototype of the P200 processor with a full complement of the company's own amplifiers and in-wall speakers filling a very large room in the High Performance Audio area. All in, the system cost (for the audio gear alone) was over $125,000. This included the P200, Model A1 and A2 amplifiers driving five IW-26V and eight S-16IW in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and six of their model LS dual 12-inch "boundary woofers."
The demo was a bit limited in its breadth due to a lack of demonstration material: there's currently only a single demo disc with Dolby Atmos content on it. Dolby Atmos Trailers and movie clips from this test disc sounded fantastic on the massive -- but discreet -- Steinway Lyngdorf system. There was a huge sense of space: sounds seemed solid and three dimensional as they moved up and down and around the room. High frequency detail was precise without being strident, thanks to the Air Motion Tweeter which is used in every Steinway Lyngdorf speaker.
The audio system was supplemented in the video department by a Runco DC-300 projector ($29,995) and a 160-inch wide (183.6" diagonal) Seymour-Screen Excellence Series 3 screen ($6,316). $160,000 may seem like a lot to spend on an A/V system. But with million dollar+ home theater systems being installed all over the world, there is clearly a market for it. And at least with the P200 processor, with its inclusion of both AURO-3D and Dolby Atmos, customers will have some insurance against premature obsolescence.
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