By Perry Piekarski
[Originally Posted February 13, 2013]
You’ve finally done it.
After months of persuasion, your significant other agreed to a new speaker system. The catch (and yes, there is almost ALWAYS a catch): elegant design and a small footprint are paramount.
At first, you feel a flutter of fear and disappointment. What options offer the visual appeal of a soundbar with the performance and expandability of a true component system?
Cut to GoldenEar Technology’s SuperCinema 3D Array (SC3DA) speaker system. Easily mountable and less than three-inches deep, the 49-inch-wide SC3DA is an space-conscious audio lover’s dream come true. Combining the aesthetics and low profile of a soundbar with the audio quality of larger, floor-standing speakers, the SC3DA is a nearly perfect compromise that doesn’t force you to sacrifice sound for design.
“Most soundbars don’t do a very good job with music. When we showed this at CES, two writers gave it ‘Best Sound at the Lowest Price’ for two-channel music,” boasts GoldenEar Technology co-founder Sandy Gross, offering fantastic news if you value music over movies.
Of course, home theater and surround-sound buffs are still sure to adore the SC3DA.
Unlike most powered soundbars (which sport built-in amplification and a tendency toward lackluster performance and expandability), the SC3DA is passive, allowing you to connect it to an amplifier of your choosing.
While Gross admits that the SC3DA is easily powered by most entry-level amplifiers, GoldenEar Technology finds that many customers are pairing it with more powerful, high-end amplifiers.
“You’re not limited in terms of electronics, the quality, or the power,” notes Gross, pointing out that the SC3DA gives you the opportunity to design your system to your own specifications, even when working within a modest budget.
This approach also allows you to enhance your setup by including a ForceField subwoofer for some added “oomph” in the low-end, and even a set of SuperSat satellite speakers for a true surround-sound experience.
But sometimes, space is an issue; GoldenEar understands that, which is why the SC3DA was developed using inter-aural crosstalk cancellation technology. This prevents your left ear from picking up stray sounds from the right speaker – and vice versa – resulting in a vast soundstage and three-dimensional playback.
“We conceived [the SC3DA] to be used with surround speakers, but if you turn off the rear surrounds, it feeds that surround signal into the left and right front channels,” says Gross.
“Because of the crosstalk cancellation, [the SC3DA] still does a really good job of creating that surround-sound experience while giving it a major advantage over other premium soundbars in the market.”
If you’re considering the SuperCinema 3D Array for yourself, Gross insists on only one thing:
“You need to hear it to believe it.”
But you don’t have to take his word for it. Wired, Home Theater Magazine, and Sound and Vision all give the SC3DA rave reviews, with Wired rating it as “Nearly perfect.”
As for what’s on the horizon at GoldenEar, Gross says, “We’re always working on new products,” mentioning the upcoming ForceField 5, along with the new SuperSat 60 and 60c – bigger, better versions of the existing SuperSat 50 series.
Click here to find a HiFi House location near you and experience the SuperCinema 3D Array for yourself.