Premium Audio Track to Be in CEDIA Spotlight Next Week

Audio companies are headed to the CEDIA trade show in San Diego next week with high-end gear for the custom installation and commercial markets. Parasound will bow two amplifiers: the Halo A 52+, a five-channel amp that’s an upgrade to the Halo A 52, adding 55 watts per channel of power and circuitry enhancements, said the company. The Class A/AB amp will be available in Q4 at a $2,995 suggested retail price, said the company. Parasound also will debut the 350-watt-per-channel ZoneMaster 2350 stereo Class D amplifier ($1,295), which addresses installers’ needs for big speakers, passive subs, and long chains of small speakers, said President Richard Schram. Wisdom Audio will introduce the SC-2 and SC-3 system controllers, second-generation models designed to help installers overcome acoustic problems with calibration tools, it said. The SC-2 is an 8-channel-in to 16-channel-out unit, and the SC-3 is a 16-channel-in to 32-channel-out version. Both operate at 24-bit/96 kHz and are based on the Dirac Live platform that's said to remove resonances and acoustic problems in sound reproduction. NEAR will demonstrate landscape speakers in satellite/subwoofer configurations. The Nearscapes IG44.1 ($3,739) has four satellite bollard-style speakers, an in-ground subwoofer and five direct-burial junction boxes, said the company. The IG44.1DSP ($4,739) features the same array and adds a power amplifier to create a turnkey system, it said. The outdoor speakers are to ship in Q1.