In addition to the company's own stand, Alcons provided an audio system for ISE's 3D Theatre, a co-operative venture by a number of 3D technology manufacturers, including screens, projectors, media-servers, audio systems and acoustic panels. Featuring hourly presentations from the different equipment suppliers about 3D related topics, visitors were informed about the latest technology and it gave company co-founder Tom Back and his team the opportunity to demonstrate how their systems enhance the 3D experience.
Back conducted a daily Alcons presentation, explaining the specific challenges for audio systems in 3D cinema applications. These range from the effects of long speaker cables and of the screens themselves, to implementing line-array technology in cinema and the advantages of pro-ribbon transducer technology over traditional compression-based systems. The presentation concluded with high-resolution 5.1. surround recording demos and a 3D sound demonstration.
"The 3D Theatre was a tremendous success," he says. "In fact, so much so that we have already confirmed our participation for the 2012 event as well as our stand on the show floor, which will be in the same position as at the 2011 show.
"The highlight for us was a 3D-recorded mini-concert of German hip-hop band Die Fantastischen Vier (The Fantastic Four). Here, the performance of the C-series, and of the Cinema Ribbon Monitor System in particular, showed its unique strength of combining Hi-Fi sound quality with concert sound pressure levels.
"The idea for the recording came from Alexander Schaefer, who said that he'd never before heard the recording with this quality / clarity in combination with the high concert sound levels. It was a genuine goose-bump experience."
He continues, "We had a very good show on our stand as well, with high levels of traffic, meeting a lot of new clients that we don't meet at other shows in Europe. Most of the visitors were attracted by the C-series cinema range of systems and the LR7 micro pro-ribbon line-array. The C-series CR1 and CRMS systems received a lot of attention from dealers worldwide, installing larger home theatre systems for the 'prosumer' market.
"It certainly helped that more loudspeaker and audio system manufacturers were grouped in Hall 6. It made for an attractive and easy-to-visit group of companies, rather than visitors having to walk through four different halls to visit different sound system manufacturers."
(Jim Evans)
