To obtain our video footage, we traveled to 7500 feet (2286 meters) altitude up a mountain here on the front range of Colorado, and we buried the speaker in 4 feet (1.2 meters) of snow.  The recorded temperature at the time was around 10 degrees F (-12 degrees C).

The next day, we returned to the site and used a shovel to dig out the speaker. Just before we began filming, a cloud dropped in on our mountaintop location, and the humidity spiked. Suddenly, the frigid cold felt like it was going right through my winter clothing, and we wished we had winter camping gear! The cloud soon lifted, and we began making the video. If you hear my teeth chattering when you watch the video online, you’ll know how incredibly cold it was the day of this shoot.

You will have to see our video on the new Aguaceiro™ MultiClimate Airspeaker to see the results, including the hole I accidentally put in the speaker grille. Our graphic designer at Clark Synthesis is editing it now, and it will be posted on our website very soon.

Here are Clark Synthesis, we are all looking forward to the official March 1^st launch date of the Aguaceiro™!

Bill

Watch the video here!

Greetings to all from Amsterdam, the site of the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) exhibition.  I am here visiting with Clark dealer partners who annually attend this growing A/V show.

On Wednesday, I met with Ed Quintens from HiFiFan in Belgium who told me about the project he completed last year using Clark TSTs in the platform under 23 massage chairs on a Spa/Wellness Sea Craft called SeaSens. www.seasens.be  The chairs are located in a room which features a laserlight and sound show designed to sooth and relax visitors while delivering “Full Contact Audio” to everyone with Clark transducers!

Frank Hanish from MediaCraft Germany, our distributor in Frankfurt, showed me photos of the amazing new outdoor audio showroom he is creating outside Frankfurt. Frank is renovating a farmhouse and turning it into a wonderful demo location where events will be held to demonstrate all the great outdoor audio technologies which MediaCraft distributes, including the Aquasonic Outdoor Living products.

I also checked in with Clark partners from France (Pani Norindr from Digital Resources), Norway (Maik Maagero from NCM),  Switzerland (Alexander Daum, Tech Supply), Poland (Rafal Kolankiewicz, Qualitec) and Turkey (Remzi Devecioglu, Forum Electronik), giving them updates on the upcoming Aguaceiro MultiClimate outdoor speaker.

My thanks to Bob Snyder from Channel Media, creator of the Rave Europe website and newsletter http://www.proavbiz-europe.com/ for providing meeting space at ISE.

Paul Sabbah

Stamford International

Amsterdam Windmill

Prinsengracht, Amsterdam

What I experienced at the NAMM show in Anaheim was beyond amazing.  I spent some time with one of our customers, Porter and Davies (P&D), who are introducing their line of Silent Drum Monitors to the US market.

 I’ve had the privilege of working with Dil and Tim at P&D almost from the start of their project.  Their Drum Monitor has a Clark Synthesis professional transducer in the drum throne, and Tim built a custom amplifier to drive it. At NAMM, Dil & Tim set up three drum kits, and people started trying them out.  The demo was a powerful experience for every drummer who tried it. A customer would start drumming, usually at a pretty slow tempo with the amplifier’s volume turned all the way off.  The volume would be slowly increased until the customer started smiling.  Then the customer would start drumming faster and faster, and the smile on their face would turn to a look of astonishment.

 After about five minutes of hard drumming, the customer would lay down the sticks and start talking.  Drummer after drummer talked about the troubles they have with stage monitoring, and they were thrilled to discover how this product would solve those problems.  Many drummers were ready to purchase the P&D Silent Drum Monitor right there on the spot.  Drummers expressed surprise that the Monitor not only gave them feedback from the kick, but that they could hear the toms, snares, and even the cymbals through the monitor just by sitting on it.

 I remember one customer named George who told me that he was walking down the aisle when he heard someone playing drums say, “I shouldn’t be having this much fun.”  George told me that he didn’t understand what the drummer was talking about, especially since the drummer was playing only a kick, snare, and a cymbal.  So, he waited in line for his turn, and was completely blown away by the experience.  He hung around playing and praising for 20 minutes before leaving the booth.  George returned about 30 minutes later with a friend, and personally took his friend through the demo.  His friend also was completely taken by the feedback from the Monitor. They left, and then returned 45 minutes later with another friend, and made sure that friend got the complete demo.   The fascinating thing is, that this is not an isolated story.  This happened again and again at the P&D booth.

 With three different amplifier configurations to choose from, all using the Clark Synthesis Full Contact Audio line of professional transducers, Porter and Davies has a Drum Monitor for every drummer, from local club bands to international touring acts.

Bill

The North Hall of CES is starting to feel like the Detroit Auto Show, with new models being shown next to concept cars.  Mercedes showed a concept info system with the entire windshield displaying travel graphics that are controlled by hand motions. Ford’s concept car has 4 gull wing doors and looks especially fun to drive.  I do believe that, someday, we will see a transducer in a production automobile.  A high quality transducer gives the experience of large subwoofers without taking up the space of large subwoofers.  You can imagine what a pleasure it was for me to go through the auto sound area at CES, because there are still manufacturers building large subwoofers.  I saw one that weighed as much as a small car engine. This oversized technology definitely will disappear in my lifetime! Mark Abate with Sound Choice Audio was showing a custom chopper with an awesome sound system – the kind that would make cruising on a sunny day a delight.

Also at CES were cuddly toys that look cute and make cooing sounds.  The baby dinosaurs were especially cute.  I must have seen over 200 companies selling iPhone/iPod/iPad accessories, which of course are red hot, right now.  They ranged from aluminum frames to waterproof covers to fashion purses.  One  iPhone holder even has a bottle opener built in!  The guitar neck iPhone holder seemed just a little over the top.  The pitch for this was that you could put your sheet music on your iPhone and play the guitar.  I couldn’t figure out how to turn the pages.  The iShower streams audio via Bluetooth to a device that hangs in, you guessed it, your shower.  Don’t know how it sounds when the water is running, but it looks fun.

Bill

One of the highlights at CES is discovering new products, and I definitely saw more fun products Day 2.  One Chinese company has a small, battery powered transducer that works with your MP3 player to turn a small surface into a speaker.  I’ve seen products like this before, and they normally have a tinny sound.  This one actually had some low-end sound, which was impressive.  I’m always looking for technology and products we can use at Clark Synthesis, and I asked the company to send me more product information.

There was a really awesome gaming station with an adjustable 3-screen video display.  The company is selling it as a workstation for the office – strange. This gaming/workstation is not destined for my office, but it must have a market!

Ran into Gallager here at the CES show.  Do you remember him? – the comedian that destroys watermelons and other foods with a sledgehammer? I wonder if anyone else recognized him….

Went to the “O” Vegas show last night.  This was my first Cirque-du-Soleil show, and I was blown away.  The show is hard to describe but superlative to experience.  If you get a chance to see it, it’s worth the price of admission.  The show includes synchronized swimming, and the choreography was fantastic.  Clark Synthesis has been supplying underwater speakers to the show for many years, and we are honored that they continue using our products.

Bill

LG has a gigantic wall of 3D TVs and a 3D custom video that is spectacular.  It was fun to see Earth Wind & Fire in concert at the Sony pavilion.  Of course, there are the other fun things like the dancing and singing robot.  This guy must be somewhere between 6 and 7 feet tall! The Ultrabooks being promoted by Intel are amazingly thin.

Once again, I’ve seen displays of 3D TVs that don’t require glasses, but they just don’t look that great.  No matter, Sharp has taken some of the advanced video processing from their top-of-the-line models and put in into their lower-end TVs.  The depth is amazing.  It may be a close as you can come to no-glasses 3D that looks fantastic.  Sharp also showed their 8K monitor with custom 8K video.  This TV displays eight times the video information of a 1080p set.  They have brought a new level of realism to video.

Of course, I’m always looking for new technology for Clark Synthesis customers.  I may have found some.  Its prototype technology now, but has some real possibilities.

Bill