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25

Report from A&V Festa 2005

This entry was posted by on Sunday, 25 September, 2005 at

As noted below, there was an Audio & Video exhibition in Yokohama this past week. I promised a report from it, and here it is.

First of all, it was not such a big exhibition. It was divided into one main hall where the big companies like Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha, and Pioneer were, and then three smaller halls and a few separate seminar and demo rooms. All in all, I covered the whole exhibition in about 1,5 hours. Although, it needs to be noted that I didn’t stay and listen to any demonstration for an extended period of time (and there were lots of them).

First “big” thing I noticed: Both Yamaha and Sony presenting a big front-speaker (about 30-40 inches wide I think) which gave complete 5-channel surround sound (or so they said, I never got to hear a demonstration). I got to see the inside of the Yamaha speaker though, and it was made up of a huge number of small elements. I think the basic idea was that they would produce sound which then bounced of your walls and ceiling to give that surround effect.

Second, I watched two absolutely FANTASTIC projector demonstrations:

Sanyo LP-Z4, an absolutely amazing XGA-resolution LCD projector. It was the best looking projected images I’ve ever seen (at least for home theater use). It’s being release in November, and it will cost around 300,000 Yen ($3000).

Epson EMP-TW600, also an impressive LCD projector. Specs are similar to the Sanyo, although a little bit lower (this one had 10-bit color, to the Sanyo’s 12, and a contrast rating of 5000:1 to Sanyo’s 7000:1).

When I find the products’ respective homepages I will post them. I recommend both of them highly. The Epson did not have a price yet, but I guess it is similar or a bit lower than the Sanyo.

[To be continued]

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