Demo Alley Review: Who Won and Why

Comparing home control to traditional theater is a difficult task because of the obvious sizzle that home theater offers with music and movies.

However, I found Lifeware's demo to be informative and organized. I believe that its end user aspects would easily translate to a showroom demo that installers could employ.

Onkyo, Atlantic Technology, Mitsubishi, Draper Labs and Dolby Labs Offer Affordable Demo

I found it interesting to sit through AVAD's and Onkyo's demo rooms because they were very similar.

There were several differences, however. The total cost of the system in Onkyo's room checked in under $20,000, and they used "Eleanor Rigby" from the Beatles' "Love" disc in the demo.

The reason why I mention the system cost is because it was significantly less than any other demo, proving that consumers don't have to pull a second mortgage in these tough times to enjoy a quality theater.

Walking through the demo process, Atlantic Tech's Peter Tribeman briefly explained each component, why they chose to work with Dolby Labs and what to look for within the demos.

I found the Beatles cut to be excellent with the surround mix panning the instruments hard to each side of the sound stage and for revealing how the engineers felt about placing a dry vocal track in the center channel.

Overall, the only point that was missed was the video combination was hot spotting slightly just to the left of center on the screen. Other than the hot spotting, the image looked great and the whole experience was fun, which is of course the ultimate goal of any demonstration.

JVC's Projectors Speak for Themselves

Running a simple but completely effective room, JVC kept its demo straightforward: one RS2 projector and one DLA-RS20 projector.

I was disappointed that the demos weren't more organized to explain what content we were seeing, but the images produced by the projectors are so stunning they practically spoke for themselves.

There's no disputing that JVC's projectors are some of the best projectors on the market and that I would love to see one under my tree this holiday season, but with a little explanation about the products and some audio to tie everything together, JVC could have made a bigger impression on show attendees.

With that said there was no doubt which room had the best video on the floor.