Old One Eye's CES Report
Pg. 5 of 23
Crunch/Hifonics
Well, the booth looked the same as last year. Another bug in the booth, this time pushing an OEM upgrade type of kit. Nothing major (oh, wait… another fat surround woofer) Besides that, nothing of note on the Crunch side of the booth. New look to the amps as well. www.crunchusa.com
On the Hifonics side, things looked much better. The Hifonics amps are on the XI general, and the look is quite cool (not blue or white but a champagne sort of color). Optional remote gain control, phase shift control, balanced inputs, some have cooling fans. Really nice looking compared to the last series. Speaker and power connections are now on board, so no plug in stuff. Subsonic filters, built in crossovers just to name a few of the features. Remote gains can be daisy chained (so one control can control the gains on several amps just by using a slave, master configuration (or is it client/server?). Even the bottom of the line stuff doesn’t look half bad. The top of the line stuff is now called the Andromeda. Very cool looking, with a hinged panel that hides all the controls on the top of the heatsink. These amps have the big 70 amp mosfets, balanced inputs, dual 2 guage inputs that will allow you to run two power wires, or a power wire and a cap in parallel (saving you the hassle of figuring out where the cap is going to get wired in). Phase shift functions are built in as well as a remote volume and phase shift controller for the front of the car. www.hifonics-audio.com
Here is a picture of the Colossus. Huge amp, I like the new look of the stuff.
Of course, Hifonics has a fat surround sub as well.
Here are some of the signal processors. One is a phase shifter, looks similar to the one built into the ESX amps. The other is a preamp I believe.
Also new in the booth was a new line of OEM integration kits called System Audio. These feature an enclosure with a built in amp that hooks up to a factory stereo. Nothing major, and it didn’t sound that impressive (compared to the CD Technology stuff anyway). It isn’t even compatible with many of the amplified OEM systems available (like Bose, Infinty, JBL, etc.)
Dynaudio
My favorite. They had the same BMW as last year in what really was a poorly positioned booth (Dynaudio product doesn’t belong surrounded by neon license plate frames and gold plating equipment). Anyway, the guy I asked about the new Dynaudio equipment said "New equipment? We’re still waiting for the competition to catch up." That was pretty sassy if you ask me. On the one hand, he had a good point. On the other hand, that’s the attitude that killed the Betamax and the Atari. It would be nice if they could take all the latest technology from the home stuff and continually stay head and shoulders above its competition. I guess it’s easy when you’re the best. www.dynaudiona.com is their quite comprehensive website.
CD Technologies
Last year, one of the best sounding systems I heard at CES was the BMW owned by CDT’s owner. This year, I have to say that this one is pretty damn close as well. It was a Dodge Ram quad cab with a CD Technologies drop in system running of the stock deck. Sad that people spend thousands and get less. The CDT boxes are pretty much a box with a built in monolithic amp, CD subs, interface and a bass up front processor (which they should license since no matter what you did you couldn’t pull the signal back).No need to change the factory head unit either, which is always a plus. They have several different models available, but the Ram is the only custom sized box (although I envision that they will have more custom fitted in the next year). For 2 hours of labor, you have a very good sounding system that really works. The rep that gave me a demo was also a really nice guy and my territory was available (I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was an imposter, but oh well). They have two sites, www.cdtechnologies.com and www.carstereotogo.com
MTX
Well, MTX brought out Jason Plank’s Mustang again, as well as the 60’s Mustang Fastback that belonged to Alice cooper they were giving away and a VW Beetle. At least they didn’t count on the Beetle to bring people in (since it was the belly button of cars at the show, everyone had one of these in a booth). Well, the bad news was that Grizz no longer works for MTX. I’m not going to speculate why they would do something this stupid, but that’s just my opinion since I have met Grizz and talked to him on a few occasions. I wanted to thank Grizz for hooking me up with Manny whom provided all the info I needed. www.mtxaudio.com
The ThunderForm is now available with a 100 watt, D class amp built into it, as well as high level or low level inputs, 18 dB variable crossover, and auto turn on circuitry.. Now, most models are available in loaded, unloaded and amplified. New models include one for the Beetle, Durango, Civic, Neon, f-150, Accord, Expedition, Tacoma, and Dakota Club. The Amplified ThunderForm was awarded The 1999 Innovations Design & Engineering Award.
The Road Thunder line now has a bunch of new models (looks kinda like the old thunder line, but probably priced much cheaper to place it at the bottom of the line). They have a 40 x 2, 50 x 2, 100 x 2, 200 x 2, 45 x 4 and 70 x 4. In addition to the amps, they got some new Road Thunder Pro Subwoofers in Medium (10") and large (12"). 250 watts power handling, which isn’t too shabby.
Two new class D amps in the new Blue Thunder line. A 125 x 1 at 4 ohms, 250 x 1 at 2 ohms. And a 250 x 1 at 4 ohm and 500 x 1 at 2 ohms. Besides that, they have similar features that the other Blue Thunder line has. The Blue Thunder line looks really cool. Looks kind of like a light gunmetal finish on the amps, and they are supposed to be the top of the line stuff (its what’s now in the Thunderforce Mustang). The features don’t look terribly earth breaking, although they do take an 8-volt input, individual gain controls for each channel, larger terminal blocks to handle up to a 4-gauge wire, and large mosfets. In addition, they have a variable slope xover that starts at 24 dB/ octave and gets steeper as you go higher to top out at 30 dB/ octave. All good stuff to have if you ask me. 9 new models in all, with 2 class D mono amps, a 5 channel amp with a class D mono sub channel, 4 2 channels (50 x 2, 75 x 2, 150 x 2, 300 x 2) and 2 4 channel amps (50 x 4 and 75 x 4). In addition to the amps, they have a new blue thunder legend line of subs, with a silver finish that looks like the finish on some of the pioneer subs (with the 4 dimples). These have the regular baskets and lower power handling. The next step up is the Blue Thunder Extreme subs, with power handling from 500 - 1500 watts. Cast frame, 2.5" voicecoils, and more. The biggest and baddest boy they had at the booth was a RFL (really f$%king loud is my guess) series subwoofer. Two sizes, damn loud (10") and that plane almost hit the car (12") sizes. These subs are aimed squarely at the SPL crowed. They designed every aspect of this thing towards SPL, from the cast basket, to the venting for the spider and voicecoil, to the machined backing plate to the 2.5" peak to peak excursion and a frequency response from 50-60 Hz. Power handling is rated at 750 - 1500 watts. The only thing that left me wondering is the 1.5" voicecoil. 1.5" for a SPL woofer? Well, they must have had a good reason for this. Besides that, much of the line looked pretty much the same to me.
Here is the MTX Blue Thunder amp.
Here are the subs, sitting in the Thunderforce Mustang.
Last but not least, is the SPL sub.
