As Alcons Audio’s presence in the global home theater market continues to grow, 2018 marked the third year that the Alcons Pro-Ribbon Immersive Experience has been present at the annual CEDIA show, one of the premier showcases for the US home technology industry. This year Alcons walked away with the prestigious Best Of Show demo award from AVS Forum, the world’s leading online information resource for residential AV equipment.
The Alcons Pro-Ribbon Immersive Experience has been a highlight of CEDIA every year since 2016. This year, for the first time, it was hosted in a sound room on the tradeshow floor, allowing visitors to make more immediate and accurate comparisons with other systems. This made winning the AVS Forum award all the more rewarding for the Alcons team.
“The response to our CEDIA demos has got better each year and this year it was incredibly positive. There was a real buzz on the show floor and, although the demo was running every 30 minutes, everyone was packed and we had a line of people waiting for the next one throughout the show,” says Alcons US national sales manager David Rahn.
Featuring all-digital, lossless signal distribution from source to amplification, this year’s Pro-Ribbon Immersive Experience saw the full debut of the new CRMS LFE18 subwoofer, showcased in a 9.x.6 system. Four CRMS LFE18 were used with three CRMS mkII cinema reference monitor systems, eight CRMSC SRHV compact horizontal/vertical reference surrounds, two CRS8 medium format reference surrounds for front width channels and six Sentinel10 amplified loudspeaker controllers. Audio processing was by Storm Audio’s ISP 3D.32 Elite Reference Édition immersive sound processor, with visuals courtesy of a Sony VPL-VW5000ES 4K home theater projector and ScreenAcoustics UltraWeave V6, fitted with the MotoMask PRO masking system.
Each demonstration included a short introduction from each of the participating companies, followed by clips ranging from a classical, spacious Zubin Mehta concert to the largest explosions in the film Deepwater Horizon.
“Although we’re not the type of ‘award-chasing’ company, this one came at the right moment,” says Alcons co-founder Tom Back. “Ever since we started at CEDIA Expo in 2016, we’ve been working on fine-tuning the performance of our Pro-Ribbon Immersive Experience – on the loudspeakers, the processing, the acoustics, the content and even the picture quality. Every aspect is always being reviewed. In that sense, CEDIA is unique with very high expectations and fierce competition from long-present brands.
“This year it all came together at CEDIA 2018, being recognized by the huge amount of interest and receiving the Best Of Show Award from the AVS Forum. I’m very proud of the persistence of the team; it’s a great motivation to continue our innovative developments!”
“Winning the AVS Forum award has felt like a coming of age for us, showing that all the time Alcons has spent developing this market is now paying off,” adds David Rahn. “The US residential market is really starting to appreciate the difference between Alcons and other systems, with our solutions being specified for high end screening rooms in both the home and professional markets.
“We have a number of new projects coming online, notably in the Hollywood area where people have heard everything and only the best systems are specified. The momentum is really ramping up and we are very pleased that winning this award has highlighted the quality that Alcons systems have to offer.”
For more information, please visit www.alconsaudio.com , www.stormaudio.com , www.sony.com and www.screenacoustics.com.
