Event Coverage

IFA Berlin, Germany 2006: Show Floor Highlights Part 2

By Terence Ang - 7 Sep 2006

Personal/Portable Multimedia Gadget and Gear - Part 4

ATI, Intel, Kenwood and an Audio Feast

From Computex to CeBIT and now IFA, the ATI girl is slowly becoming a part of our everyday must-see feature at any major tradeshow.

This boy is oblivious to our photo-taking; he must be engrossed by the ATI CrossFire-powered game.

These Intel girls were on hand to educate confused visitors on why Intel has a sponsored sports car in an ATI exhibit (which is now part of AMD). Under the IFA Personal Computing and Games hall, ATI predominated the area quite well, thanks to 1) free big bag giveaways and 2) a plethora of systems, from AMD-based media centers, Intel girls (we have no idea), Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 game consoles and of course, ATI CrossFire-equipped desktop PCs.

If you've read HWM Singapore's Commentary before, you would have read something regarding car manufacturers and their incapacity to integrate IT into the design. Well, Kenwood must have heard us. Their latest in-car audio system has a USB port (it's on the bottom right). This means you can connect any portable USB storage device to your car and listen to fresh music every other day.

One of the many elements that made the IFA show always so entertaining is this high-end audio ensemble by German-based AUDIO magazine. This fantastic system occupies a specially constructed square room near Hall 17, large enough to sit 60-100 people.

The magnificent backend audio setup.

Here's a list of the items used by the AUDIO folks for the setup:

  • Five pairs of Klipschorn Anniversary loudspeakers from Klipsch, each pair flanked by a pair of La Scala loudspeaker boxes and five subwoofers RT-12 D.
  • Four active subwoofers from Teufel for extra bass power.
  • Two double-decker power stages "Evolution One" from Krell, each comprising a power unit and an amplifier section. With two stereo power stages "Evolution 600", the Krell setup is a powerful six-monoblock sub-system utilizing 4,000 watts sine-wave output.
  • The 220kg record player with a pickup arm Transrotor Artus, which is the "heart" and "leader" of the system (pictured below).
  • A Mark Levinson No. 51 DVD player, optimized for DVD-Video
  • Three Digital/Analog converters TEAC Esoteric D-03 for loss-free reproduction of CD, SACD, DVD-Video and DVD audio.
  • A Mark Levinson AV decoder No. 40 for delivery of video images.
  • Runco VX-2DC Autoscope projector
  • High-end cables from Kimber, In-Akustik and Sun Audio for best signal transmission

The heart and soul of the system, the 220kg record player with a pickup arm Transrotor Artus. Impressive looking indeed and it sounded just as well.

Dubbed "the most expensive system in the world", the entire setup costs about 750,000 euros, or a cool US$900,000. We sat in for a 30-minute demonstration and yes, our ears were sold; it's really worth every cent. Seriously.

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