NuVo’s Grand Essentia is First Multiroom Audio System with Energy Star

The release last year of NuVo's Grand Concerto multiform audio system was wildly successful, according to company president David Rodarte. So why not bring some of the great features of that 6x8 product to its little sister, the 6x6 Essentia?

At CEDIA, NuVo will introduce the Grand Essentia, whose hallmark is the sleek OLED display -- just like the one that makes the Grand Concerto so elegant. For the Grand Essentia, NuVo shrunk the interface to a single-gang display which has the "same level of information, just fewer lines of text," says Steve Horton, director of education.

Similarly, NuVo flattened the original 2U (two rack spaces) Essentia to a slender 1U box, while maintaining essentially the same feature set, including 40 watts of power per zone.

"No other six-source, six-zone system available on the market today fits in a single vertical space on a rack," NuVo claims. The lightweight unit weighs only 6.5 lbs.



How did NuVo pack so much power into such a small piece? "We're getting very good at electronics," Rodarte says.

A key enabler was the switch to digital power, which has the added benefit of decreasing power consumption. The system is so efficient that it consumes less than 1 watt of power in standby mode, garnering an Energy Star rating for the Grand Essentia. The new Essentia consumes only 10 percent of the power of the original Essentia in standby mode.

Energy consumption during idle time is considered the greatest wasted source of energy consumption of electronics in the home today. In the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are powered down, according to the EPA. Across the U.S., this equals the annual output of 17 power plants.



The agency also indicates that Americans spend more money to run home audio products when the systems are powered down than when actually in use.

"There's nobody in our market niche that's there," says Horton. In audio distribution, the trick is to enable standby modes that do not impact the wake-up time of connected devices. "You can walk to the keypad and the zone will come on in less than a second."

Distributed audio systems aren't like other CE devices that are typically turned on and off. You can wait for a home theater to warm up, but not a whole-house music system.

Rodarte says that the green aspects of the Grand Essentia will be used in NuVo's marketing campaign, but he adds, "I don't care if it is [a selling point], it's the right thing to do."

The target price for the Grand Essentia is less than $2,500 including six keypads and a remote.

Specs

System

• 6 source, 6 zone system with 40 watts per zone, expandable to 12 zones
  
• Philips Class D amplification provides cool running, power efficiency in high-output operation. This reduces heat by as much as 100 watts over an equivalent Class AB amplifier.


• Sate-of-the-art switching power supply further reduces heat output, thus protecting the system against equipment failure, the primary cause of issues with any system. Single-rack height, 6.5 lbs


• Communicates with all NuVo sources, including all T2 tuners, NV-M3 Music Server and NuVoDocks for iPod. It uses the new E6G version of NuVoNet Configurator software.


• New Essentia version of Allport connection hub consolidates all speaker connections into one connection hub. Allport cable and network cable are included.


• Two zones provided with line-level outputs, both fixed and variable. These and trigger inputs allow for flexibility for use with an external amplifier, volume controls and additional speakers.


• Bi-directional RS-232 control interfaces allows control from most home automation systems.

Control Pad

• OLED display provides bright contrasting light, making it readable in a variety of settings, including outdoors in bright sunlight conditions.


• Up to four readable character lines with flexibility in size and character height.


• Polycarbonate surface, the same material used in the optical industry for eyeglass lenses, is durable and manufactured to be perfectly flat.


• Surface is scratch-resistant and water resistant.


• Coplanar Plexiglas buttons disappear flush to the black polycarbonate surface encased around them.


• Essentia Control Pads can be used with the Grand Concerto system.


• Ships with four different color trim-plates.