Any one see the Lexicon MC-12HD replacement at CES? - Page 4

No different than Theta. These older, HDMI-updated pieces are [finally] getting liquidated.

They cleared out their old processor and I imagine the CBIV and new Lexicon is coming to CEDIA 2012.

I heard newer JBL pre-pros would be ready during this fall. As per a dealer if specs are implemented as JBL claims this would be the pre-pro to watch for. I never got any inside scoop/info from him on the product-he told me to wait

Cheers,
Kishore

Look at the new ADA, Classe> I can tell you it is fantastic (and loaded with features), older models like the Lex HD and the CBIII HD will still sound
dated (forward sounding, lesser dynamics).

I own the ADA and find it amazing. These new generation devices have taken SSPs to a level where BD players are in terms of consistent, excellent PQ/AQ.

And, as I have known and implemented for years, PEQ / DSP is mandatory if you are serious about your sound.

Subscribing to follow this topic.

Jeff,

Yeah-ADA will be in my toys to play with during late summer time. If they have 1 box Trinnov I can expect it to be a killer.

Cheers,
Kishore

It is killer. Very smooth at reference level, and ultra stable.

I don't hear them talking about an all in one unit. Right now, they are working on getting out the uber-Trinnov standalone boxes...

Great stuff! I'm glad to see that like BD players, SSPs are starting to get to a point where sonically, there is little left to achieve.

Now all we need is a super bright LED, 2.35 PJ at $10K and all would be perfect!

Up til now JBL Synthesis units have been essentially rebadged Lexicons; I doubt if that will change. My JBL AV-1 is basically a black MC-4.

Now, does anyone know if the new platform will be utilized in a more price-friendly model, similar to the (somewhat) affordable MC-4 and MC-8? I certainly hope so.

I had spoken to the (now former) VP of marketing for Harman Specialty Group (Lex, Revel, ML, JBL) a couple years back and he said that the new Lexicon would be priced lower than the full blown current model, partially because the cost of technology had gotten cheaper but mostly because the market realities. That was at the height of the recession uncertainty. Things have changed since then, so it's anybody's guess. It could end up being the same price as a fully loaded MC-12HD, which may explain the recent price drop (separate the two models by a few thousand dollars).

As for lower priced models, that is very likely. Todd Packer of Harman posted at SMR Forums that the new platform is not a single model. Yes, the first release will be the flagship, but MC-8 and MC-4 equivalents will appear down the line. Which isn't unexpected, even with other companies: e.g., if you can't afford the Integra 80.2, then there is always the 70.2 or 40.2.

Nothing earth shattering but a few tidbits of information is in this thread for those interested: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showth...icon-Processor

I will report more as I learn and have permission to share .

Amir, you've mentioned that your showroom has a 20-speaker system. Since the pre-pro outputs 7 main channels (3 fronts, 2 sides, 2 rears), where are you putting the other speakers?

All of our speakers are bi-amped. So there is 7 * 2 = 14 channels. The rest is going to subs which are all over the place from walls to ceiling!!!

Our processor feeds 7.1 to the JBL which then divides that up into the 20 channels. In other words, the source channels are what they are (albeit, synthesized into 7.1 by the processor). The output is 20, EQ corrected channels.

The room actually has about 40 channels of amplification and speakers. There are dual parallel systems which we can turn on to showcase each type of audio systems (JBL vs Wisdom planars).

I am working on a full write-up but for now, here is a quick picture of the back+side walls taken during construction. You can see two of the wisdom subs, plus a couple of of JBLs in the ceiling. There are also two to the left although not fully visible. The standard speakers are self-explanatory.

You do not seriously believe that Theta spend all this time and money to develop their HDMI solution just to clear out some old inventory and liquidate the CB-III, especially since the CB-IIIHD is barely off the ground?
Tell me you are making another one of your Theta jokes and I just didn't get it!

With the off chance that you're actually serious, let me try to help clarify your first major misconception....there is no old inventory of DACs or SSP's to liquidate!

When ATI purchased the Theta brand, sitting in inventory, there was probably a handful of DACs and maybe a few pre-built CB-III's, if any at all.
I understand that there were quite a few different types of power amplifiers, and these they did liquidate before coming out with their new models.

As for their SSP, which you well know languished for far too long, there was probably not even enough parts in stock to build more then a few of any particular DAC and it was the same situation for the CB-III itself.
A company such as Lexicon on the other hand, I am quite sure that they have plenty of parts in stock and more then a few units sitting in inventory to move before releasing a new model.
Now that ATI is rebuilding the Theta brand and they're a much larger company then Theta ever was, in the future they may be in a similar situation but that is certainly not the case yet.

So, I would not expect for you to see a newer model of Casablanca released, especially since they have only shipped 20 or so CB-IIIHD's!

I'm going to make an assumption at this point. I believe you think that because Theta ran a sale on their DAC's, that this was some sort of an indication to you that these were blow-out prices for liquidation purposes.
This is simply not the case and couldn't be further from the truth.
The DAC sale was their way to give a meaningful incentive to current CB-III users to upgrade and to help assure some immediate sales of new CB-IIIHD's.

I can tell you that this incentive was a great success, far greater then anyone could have imagined.
So while it took only days to upgrade the first few CB-III's, including my own, that there were so many orders for both new and upgraded units and new DAC's, that they simply ran out of enough parts to continue building these DAC's and they even ran out of parts to simply upgrade existing units or to build new SSP's.
Needless to say, they were forced to cut the sale short in order to slow things down a bit.

New parts had to be ordered and stocked as quickly as possible, but now that has caused the DAC's and SSP's to be back-ordered by as much as 7-8 weeks
I know you find this all hard to believe since you have no love for the Casablanca, but apparently there is once again quite a demand for this SSP, now that HDMI is a basic function of the Casablanca.

I also know that to your mind, an SSP that is still priced very high is not worth it and has no future, but like it or not, it seems to me from the shear amount of people waiting for new and upgraded units, that a market still exists in this price category and it appears that Theta fully intends to remain in this space.


I have no problem with you making bold claims about gear that you own or even gear that you've heard, it is what we do here.
But to make a statement so matter of fact about a processor that just came out that you've never heard, when you've not even heard the model that it replaced, just seems absurd.

I myself "think" the ADA might not be my cup of tea, but I could never say anything negative about it or make claims regarding it's dynamics since I've never heard it.

As for the CB-IIIHD, the few user reports that are available have all been quite positive and nobody has described it as you have here
What astonished me even more with this last post was the fact that you'd recommend the Classe' while dissuading people from even looking at the Theta, which happens to share the same major processing boards as Classe'! I would think that if the CB-IIIHD was as poor as you describe, in the way that you describe, that the Classe' would not be too much different.
I'm just astounded, since they seem more similar then dissimilar to me and I have had occasion to at least hear the Classe'.

I do not mean to offend you in anyway, but since people often take what you say as an indisputable fact, I felt it incumbent upon myself, after reading what you said, to clarify the fact that the CB-IIIHD was in no danger of being replaced, before it even got off the ground!

Ahh thanks for the update and that new forum!

20 channels wow -- so 2 x7.3 for each speaker system? No height channels? Are the active cross-overs digital as well so you can manipulate on fly?

I would love to hear the room.

Cheers,
Kishore
Edit- saw on your other post that you are using 502 for active-cross over.

Thanx, that explains the 20 channels. How did you decide on where to place diffusion vs absorbtion (I'm guessing the smooth panels are absorbers)?

Amir:

Why the radical differences in the IP addresses of the two SDEC's?

Your guess is closer to the truth than your informant's.

Actually, I missed them at CES but have been in contact since. However, I am being carefully obscure in my statements since the information was supplied to me with the understanding that I would not divulge or publish it at this early pre-production stage.


No.

I didn't configure them and am not the expert in using them. That said, I do know that there is a private link between the two used for Cobranet. Then there is an independent link to our work network for remote programming. Perhaps that is what it is showing.

Thanks.


You have an open invitation any time you are in Seattle area. It is one of those situations that you just don't want to go home and listen to your home system after that .

Cheers,
Kishore
Edit- saw on your other post that you are using 502 for active-cross over.[/quote]
Actually, we are using the JBL/Lexicon processor although could also use the 502.

The room was simulated and designed by Keith Yates before we picked up a hammer. He used computational fluid dynamics to simulate the room and all the transducers in it. Out of that popped the location of every speaker and sound treatment material and choices.

You can read about his approach here: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showth...ll=1#post39754

Essentially, instead of making assumptions about how sound travels in order to design the room, he creates a physics model of it with walls, speakers moving air and such. Once he has that, then he can move the location and number of speakers, seating positions, etc. and simulate them all to arrive a the best combination.

The acoustic material you see is a fraction of what is there. I hope to write up the whole room with Keith and talk more in detail about it.

Until reading Amir's comments I had assumed that the JBL Synthesis models were essentially the same as Lexicons, other than the black color and the different trigger connector (which I prefer). So, Amir, can you or someone explain just how the JBL's have differed in operational terms from Lexicons? I have owned a couple of Lexicons (MC-8 and 4) and have found the JBL AV-1 the most satisfying of them all, and until now I assumed that was because my memory of the Lexicon being somewhat distant. Are you saying the JBL was functionally superior to the Lexicon in some way? Which raises the question: Who is responsible for the design of the JBL models (who does their implementation)?

Ah, say no more (spent the day with him at a house in Newport Beach he was working on). Now all I need is a $50K fluid dynamics program and a grad student from an engineering college in France.

They are. You may be confusing Amir's comments about the outboard room correction devices using in JBL Synthesis systems with the pre-pro used in those systems. The pre-amp/processor is a re-badged Lexicon (always has been). The EQ is a re-badged Soundweb London by BSS Audio.

All correct with the clarification that Harman owns BSS Audio who built the hardware that was branded as JBL Synthesis SDEC-4500.

Sure, Harman owns all the companies that are re-badged for Synthesis: BSS, Lex, ...and doesn't Crown build the amps?

Clever marketing hype but it all depends on how you clarify a "channel".

To me a "channel" is a dedicated path from the source all the way to the speaker. For example a 7.1 system could have seven different mono movies playing, one with a sub channel.

I don't consider biamping creating another channel but does make good bragging rights.

Let's see I must have 13 channels according the this model

Front Left LF
Front Left HF
Center LF
Center HF
Front Right LF
Front Right HF
Side Left
Side Right
Rear Left
Rear Center
Rear Right
Sub Left
Sub Right

That is normally a fair statement. The difference here is that if a room EQ is able to process and correct 20 streams, then it is fair to differentiate that from a device that can only do that to the source channels (i.e. 7.1). This is why I make the distinction as I have been making in the context of the discussion.


True but again, if the device lets you separate the stream using both cross-over logic and room EQ, then it does garner bragging rights as that sharply scales up the processing power required. Our system is indeed applying DSP to 20 (soon to be 40) simultaneous channels. That is 4X more horsepower than a system that just corrects 5 channels.

What is actually gimmicky to me is to claim you are actually playing 20 different streams. There is no content that way and extracting that many channels of information is not in the card. So in that sense, it is much better to "hype" 20 correcting channels to get better sound out of your 5.1 or 7.1 system than to create a ton of phantom channels.