[Chris Dallas]

This is for all those that are interested & living in the Toronto area. There is a high end audio/video show starting & I have attended the last couple of years & want to add that it is well worth your while if you plan to attend.


For those that are interested here is where it is & what times:


Home Entertainment Show

Holiday Inn 416-599-4000

370 King St W

King & Peter st 1 blk east of Spadina.


The show will take place on several floors but mainly on the 9th fl, 10th fl & the mezzanine. Registration is on the Concourse level.


Fri Oct 19 from 1pm till 8pm

Sat Oct 20 from 10am till 8pm

Sun Oct 21 from 11am till 5pm


I will be there & plan to have fun with all the new audio & video that will be presented so if you're going have fun!


Chris

 

[Alan Gouger]

Hi Chris


Just heard about the show at the last minute.


Please give us your feedback after the show. Tell us what me missed!!

 

[Warren460]

The only projector showing at the show was presented by Audio excellence on Bayview Avenue in Thornhill. I was quite surprised that an audio video store that focuses on mid to high end equipment and even sells Ampro 9" lens CRT's would use a Plus sub 6lb business projector as the centre piece of there demo. I spoke to the owner and asked him why he carries and sells the business projector. He said that you can't beat the value from a customer perspective.


Seleco sells for nearly twice the cost of this unit. We discussed the margin issue and he agreed that there is almost no margin on the plus. He stated that the home theatre projector companies are geared to sell low volumes to its dealers while the business projector distributors are used to shipping in large volumes ( ie. Dell) This is part of the reason that margins are much lower. I aksed why he would sell it give the negligable margins. He said the colours are great and he is in business for the customer. To sell other units at twice the cost without a significant improvement is not fair.


The preceeding comments were paraphrased. However, I think the message is clear. An audio video store with that cares about the customer. Bravo to Audio excellence.


This by the way was the only front projection unit at the show. There were a few exhibitors with projection television units but not many.


Most of the brand names on the audio equipment I did not recognize. There was not even a demonstration of a unit such as the Denon avr 5800 or a Yamaha etc.


It really is an audiophile show and not a home entertainment show.


I was dissappointed.


Warren

 

[KFung]

Do you know what model of PLUS projector he was showing? It could definitely be the new Piano and the price is in the right ballpark. Nice to see a dealer that is actually aware of the home theatre merits of business projectors. Margin is not everything...


Regards,


Kam Fung

 

[GaryWW]

Quote:

Originally posted by Warren460 you can't beat the value from a customer perspective.

It doesn't even come close (value-wise) to the NEC LT150 when Dell puts them on sale Even at the LT150's regular (Canadian) price, its probably still a better value - depending on the Plus model you compare it to.


I too was disappointed. There was even less HT equipment at this year's show than last years. And there wasn't much last year. Except for the Pioneer plasma display, all of the others were there to support the speaker (and to a lesser extent, DVD player and A/V receiver) demonstrations.

 

[Warren460]

The value point was in comparison to the Seleco Dwin etc.


The dealers point was that he finally found a business projector that he felt was suitable for HT.


Everyone here knows full well about the LT50 and the Dell deals.


I was the guy who spent many an evening talking with Grant Smyth about the specs on the business projectors and identified Duocom as a possible soure. I also travelled to Kingston as soon as Grant got his hands on the LT150 to evaluate it in a proper environment.


In spite of the above, it is a big step for a AV dealer to move into business projectors.


I do not know what model plus they were using except it was 1100- 1300 lumen, $8k, lots of halo, a little rainbow, good picture. Call them directly ask to speak to the owner. He is very pleasant and would love to talk.


I dont think it was the piano though.


Warren

 

[mwan]

Warren,


Funny thing. Audio Excellence is with out a doubt my Favourite Audio store in To. I was in a couple of weeks ago with my Lt 150 to show them... I thought it handled itself quite well against the Dreamvision Moviestar. I wonder if I helped the thought processes any? I will ask Mike the model number of the plus next time I call...


Miles

 

[DenisT]

The show was good if you are into tube amps and leading edge esoteric gear like $6,000 64/324 out board DAC's. Without broader appeal, this could be the last year for this show.


There were two other significant FP firsts in our area this week.


1. Future Shop, the largest, computer/AV/Car audio retailer in our area with many out lets and very good pricing on DVDs, had an FP on display in the computer section. It was not operational, but ut was there to see.


2. Staples (Businees Depot) an office supply place with many outlets geared to home/small business and with many outlets in Toronto area had an FP in their last flyer delivered to homes.


These three developments could lead to greater acceptance (read lower prices) for FP's in Canada.

 

[GaryWW]

I didn't realize that the Plus was in the $8k range. That makes me feel very good about my LT150 purchase because I'm sure the Plus did no better than the LT150 would have done. (Just my opinion based on the 5 minute demo of Dinosaur I saw)


It would have been very interesting to compare the images had they had the Faroudja setup for a demo.

 

[goodsonr]

I doubt it was the Plus Piano. I was talking to a distributor here who.. as a favour.. phoned Plus while I was there. He was told that the Canadian MSRP will be about $5K. This is a bit higher than the 3K U.S. * exchange rate.. but not much (gotta pay for that health care and other benefits somehow).


There is a store in Edmonton that sells PLUS U3s for 6k and 8K (SVGA and XGA). I asked him about the Piano and he didn't seem interested in carrying it.... perhaps because he had a bunch of the 6K and 8K items to sell sitting in boxes on his floor.


Ron

 

[BGane]

In fact, I did ask Mike for the model number. It was not the Piano. They could not get that in time. It was the U2-1130 (1300 Ansi Lumens model).


The screen they were using was a standard mat Stewart. Again - they could not get a Grayhawk in time.


Also, they were running the video straight from the processor to the Plus. Apparently they had cable trouble at the last minute, so had to make do with a direct connect - no scaler - no video processing, and S-Video at that!


But it still performed VERY well. It was working in 16:9 display mode. They were showing clips from Dinosaur and Star Wars. The colours were great. The brightness was fine - the room was dark, but not black. And the contrast wasn't bad either (believe it is actually rated 800:1).


$ for $, I'm not sure how it would compare to the LT150, as I haven't seen the LT150 yet. But the performance and prices on these projectors is definitely converging on something that is attractive for the home consumer.

 

[Keith Bilinsky]

As with some others... I heard about this show at the last minute as well and my girlfriend and I decide to go have a look (it was only an hour drive away.)


We were both VERY disappointed. We were in and out of the show in roughly 1 hour.


The show was a high end stereo show for people who wanted tubes and preamps.


I like listening to high end equipment as well but this is all the show was. Video was next to non existant and don't even think about using the R word becuase all the wonderfull speakers were much to good to be cheapened by a reciever.


We wound up going for a long walk that eventually took us by Bay Bloor Radio. We probably had a better time at Bay Bloor then we did at the show.


They had a Dream Vision hooked up to the top of the line Denon DVD player and boy did it look bad. The DVD player was worth quite a lot more then my THPC and yikes!


I have a Dream Vision and I used to have it hooked up to a iScan (before the HTPC) so I've never even really used it through it's internal scaler, boy is it bad. Jagged lines every where...