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Philips' Sound Obsession - New AV Devices Engineered for Perfection

By Andy Sim - 21 May 2010

An Alien Streamium And Premium Blu-ray Deck

An Alien Streamium And Premium Blu-ray Deck

MCi900 Streamium Hi-Fi Micro System

The MCi900 Streamium's speakers may take some getting used to due to its alien-esque speaker design. However, there is good reason why Philips designed their SoundSphere tweeters in such a bug-eyed fashion. "Traditional speakers can distort the way instruments sound, often making music seem flat, narrow and tight. With Philips' rich heritage and expertise in high-end sound, we labored over changing the way traditional speakers distort instruments, and designed a revolutionary speaker architecture," says Mr Ryan Tirta Yudhistira, Senior Manager of Philips' Customer Marketing AV Multimedia (Asia Pacific) division. Using neodymium magnets instead of conventional ferrite magnets, Philips has managed to reduce the size of the tweeters, thus minimizing chances of diffraction and impingement of the higher frequencies emitted by its neighboring woofer. Besides offering a wider spatial sound, the Streamium also comes with a color LCD screen and a RMS power output of 100 watts as driven by Philips' Class "D" digital amplifier. Seven years in the making, the MCi900 will hit local shelves in July with an asking price of S$1,299.

As told by the sound engineers at Leuven, traditional speakers are designed in such a manner where music generated by tweeters and drivers not only produces a general uni-directional source, they also have a tendency to cancel out one another at certain mid-frequencies. The SoundSphere tweeters, on the other hand, are engineered to deliver a "point source which emit spherical sound waves for the higher frequencies".

The local version of the MCi900 2-channel Streamium will reach you dressed in a gun-metal material unlike its silvery western counterpart. Instead of  conventional AB amplifiers, the Micro Hi-Fi is powered by an 2 x 50 watts Class "D" amplifier which converts an analog source into a digital signal before amplifying it for the demodulation filter.


BDP9500 Blu-ray Player

Never mind the present madness revolving over 3D displays. This Blu-ray player was built to generate first-rate audio quality besides its ability for stunning visuals. According to statistics presented by Philips, global sales of DVD players have been on a gradual decline while Blu-ray figures have been on a steady upclimb since its introduction a few years ago. In fact, Blu-ray sales have now surpassed the numbers for DVD decks due to a growing demand for Full-HD sources. That's where their flagship BDP9500 comes in. Other than Philips' much talked about Qdeo Kyoto G2 video processor, this Blu-ray player is also equipped with the distinguished Burr-Brown 192kHz/24-bit DAC chip and a separate analogue sound processing circuitry. Not just that, this mean machine also hides a linear power supply and a torodial transformer, dedicated to the player's audio section to ensure minimal noise is produced. The BDP9500 will enter the market with an estimated selling price of S$699.

If you aren't already impressed by its smooth and metallic looks, you might want to know that this BD deck also carries Philips Qdeo Kyoto G2 video processor as part of its hardware. The BDP9500 is also friendly with DivX files as well as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA lossless surround formats.

You can see the Blu-ray deck's dedicated liner power supply and torodial transformer located at the the top left. Such a design was intended to reduce noise levels and minimize interference.
 

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