Audio Excellence, the sound system division of film screen brand Screen Excellence, brings what it claims is a new sonic concept for large TVs and solid screens at ISE 2019-- a solution so unusual the company names it "UFO", as in "Unidentified Flying Object."
The Audio Excellence UFO is named so as a tribute to the local RAF Bentwaters, England extraterrestrial incident of 1980, close to where the company is based in the UK. The company says the solution keeps with the professional cinema practice of placing the centre-, left- and right-channel speakers on the same horizontal plane and behind the acoustically transparent (AT) film screen. It allows customers to experience dialog and action as intended by the film maker, further contributing to the "suspension of disbelief."
The creator of the system, Audio Excellence CEO Patrice Congard, is recognised as an originator of the modern AT film screen. He brings his patented approach to layout logic and signal routing known as the Congard Code. In 2016 he brought to market the Audio Excellence home cinema sound systems, with compact, high-sensitivity, high-SPL on/in-wall loudspeakers, amplifiers and DSP controllers. The systems maximise the initial sound wave-front to deliver more realistic bass, with every seat in the room being in the sweet spot.
“In 1996 I left the sound reinforcement industry to focus on what I perceived as the main issue facing home cinema installations: the conventional solid projection screen was a physical barrier to the proper appreciation of a movie’s sound track,” Congard says. “This has been solved with a new breed of woven acoustically transparent projection screens. However, today as flat screen TVs grow in size, they become a trending alternative for the drop-down projection screens traditionally used in a media room. Yet, this immediately presents a problem. How can the sound come from the image displayed on a large rigid solid screen, like a flat panel TV?”
Audio Excellence will wait until ISE to fully unveil the UFO, but it does provide a few facts. The company has completely developed and holds the patent to the technology and, yes, the solution will indeed be marketed as UFO. It involves limited-range speakers with frequency response ranging from 100Hz - 20kHz, and will be compatible with "classic" speakers used as surrounds, subs and so on.
The technology will potentially be licensed, if in limited numbers. Being scalable, licensees can achieve price points in-line with their particular market segment.