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Harman Targets CEDIA Expo 2011 as New Beginning
Harman set to launch several new products at CEDIA Expo 2011, revamping its product line and moving beyond recent product missteps.
Jim Garrett, market manager for Harman’s high-performance audio/video, says the company will be revamping its product line at CEDIA Expo 2011.
There are a lot of reasons for the optimism Jim Garrett, market manager for Harman’s high-performance audio/video division (HPAV), is expressing as the company prepares for CEDIA Expo 2011
Garrett concedes that Lexicon, a Harman brand, has had a rough time the past couple of years due to the complacency of its line and a damaging review of a Lexicon Blu-ray player. He says Lexicon is moving ahead and is developing a new home theater processor.
“We are going to publicly announce we’re working on a Lexicon processor, the MP20 and one of the technologies in the unit. We’ve had [a DSP processing technology called] Logic 7 for years. We have a new technology we think is better, it’s called QuantumLogic,” he says.
“It was going to come out first in our home products, but our automotive division released it first. It’s designed for home and recording, and the automotive division [ended up] using a stripped down version of it for the Ferrari FF. There’s a JBL branded system [in the car] with QuantumLogic. The Lexicon MP20 will have a more advanced version of QuantumLogic with five height channels.
“Once people see the MP20, it’s going to do quite a lot for the Lexicon name. Its capabilities and technologies are really unequaled right now. Processors are just a difficult thing to develop. The processing power in a modern pre/pro is staggering. Lexicon is working to improve its products; processors are very difficult to develop with moving standards like HDMI and new decoding algorithms from companies like Dolby.”
Lexicon also has a new whole-house amplifier that was developed jointly with its sister company, Crown, and Texas Instruments (TI). Garrett explains that at the heart of the new whole-house amp is a concept in which the company combined the various stages of an amp circuit onto a single chip. He says to make it happen, Harman partnered with TI to develop a proprietary chip that would fit the drive and output stages on a single chip, enabling the company to manufacture an eight-channel amp that’s capable of producing 1,000 watts into an 8-ohm load.
“The way the amp is designed, it’s stable at 4 ohms, but it does not increase its power. It can drop down to 2 ohms,” Garrett points out. “During our development we were listening to the amp on Revel Salon2s. This speaker can be an unfriendly load to some amps. It did a respectful job of driving the Revels. When we were developing the technology we were driving it with some tough loads. It’s a really good amplifier.”
Garrett adds that Revel will show products like its new architectural speakers at CEDIA, and Mark Levinson will mark its 40th anniversary in 2012 with some special happenings scheduled for Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Garrett concedes that Lexicon, a Harman brand, has had a rough time the past couple of years due to the complacency of its line and a damaging review of a Lexicon Blu-ray player. He says Lexicon is moving ahead and is developing a new home theater processor.
“We are going to publicly announce we’re working on a Lexicon processor, the MP20 and one of the technologies in the unit. We’ve had [a DSP processing technology called] Logic 7 for years. We have a new technology we think is better, it’s called QuantumLogic,” he says.
“It was going to come out first in our home products, but our automotive division released it first. It’s designed for home and recording, and the automotive division [ended up] using a stripped down version of it for the Ferrari FF. There’s a JBL branded system [in the car] with QuantumLogic. The Lexicon MP20 will have a more advanced version of QuantumLogic with five height channels.
“Once people see the MP20, it’s going to do quite a lot for the Lexicon name. Its capabilities and technologies are really unequaled right now. Processors are just a difficult thing to develop. The processing power in a modern pre/pro is staggering. Lexicon is working to improve its products; processors are very difficult to develop with moving standards like HDMI and new decoding algorithms from companies like Dolby.”
Lexicon also has a new whole-house amplifier that was developed jointly with its sister company, Crown, and Texas Instruments (TI). Garrett explains that at the heart of the new whole-house amp is a concept in which the company combined the various stages of an amp circuit onto a single chip. He says to make it happen, Harman partnered with TI to develop a proprietary chip that would fit the drive and output stages on a single chip, enabling the company to manufacture an eight-channel amp that’s capable of producing 1,000 watts into an 8-ohm load.
“The way the amp is designed, it’s stable at 4 ohms, but it does not increase its power. It can drop down to 2 ohms,” Garrett points out. “During our development we were listening to the amp on Revel Salon2s. This speaker can be an unfriendly load to some amps. It did a respectful job of driving the Revels. When we were developing the technology we were driving it with some tough loads. It’s a really good amplifier.”
Garrett adds that Revel will show products like its new architectural speakers at CEDIA, and Mark Levinson will mark its 40th anniversary in 2012 with some special happenings scheduled for Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
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About the Author
Robert Archer, Senior Editor, CE Pro
Bob is an audio enthusiast who has written about consumer electronics for various publications within Massachusetts before joining the staff of CE Pro in 2000. Bob is THX Level I certified, and he's also taken classes from the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) and Home Acoustics Alliance (HAA). In addition, he's studied guitar and music theory at Sarrin Music Studios in Wakefield, Mass.
2 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
Seems they are getting back into distribution after cutting off many dist buyers a few years ago. When I sold HK 3-4 years ago, thier HDMI was a headache!
I love their amps and I hope they will try hard to win us back….
Page 1 of 1 comment pages
I believe it should read, “an eight-channel amp that’s capable of producing 1,000 watts into 8-ohm loads” not “into an 8 ohm load”. This is a subtle distinction, but an important one. The amp will drive eight 8 ohm loads at 125 watts each for 1000 watts. It will not drive a single 8 ohm load at 1000 watts.