First up for my group on Tuesday was a visit to the Pioneer Kuro Loft where Pioneer pulled out all the stops with a furnished a loft loaded with a sweet home theater setup comprising of a Pioneer Kuro Plasma HDTV set as the centerpiece, along with their Pioneer HT receiver and speakers to bring to life the audio and visual experience that was waiting for us in the form of high definition content from their Pioneer Blu-ray player.
-Patrick Sun
(Top) Jennifer Melia, Michael Deakin, Susan and Michael Reuben arrive on the elevator up to the Loft.
(Right) Debrah Shaw relaxes in the lounge’s shag chair
Going back to the wall of the 6 flat panel sets, which offered ease in comparative viewing, it was apparent for most that if you were looking for amazing black levels, the Kuro plasma sets did not disappoint at all. We were given remotes of the other models and allowed to fidget with the video settings of all the models as an exercise to get the other models to look as good as the Kuro sets, and it was a somewhat daunting task.
-Patrick Sun
Next, the kind folks from Pioneer gave our group a sampling of demo's from "Gone Baby Gone", "Dave Matthews in concert", "The Dark Knight"'s 6-minute opening from the "Batman Begins" Blu-ray edition. All were effective demo's in creating the experience that pulled us into the film or concert, all benefits from an outstanding display, and an enveloping sound system targeted towards the home theater enthusiasts.
-Patrick Sun
Dupe Bosu heads up the audio demonstration
I'd have to say Pioneer's demo was great, if only because it was one of the only sessions to emphasise the sound in addition to video. Many of the other studio meets showed off improvements in video and BD-Live features...but the lossless sound on BD is, IMHO, a significant part of the experience. Maybe because sound is already at its maximum (PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA) there isn't much to improve on, but certainly the gunshot in Gone Baby Gone and the 96kHz/24bit fidelity of the Dave Matthews disc are showcases for how sound can engage you emotionally...
-Joe Wong
Thanks for allowing us to visit. The loft is a sweet place and I'm ready to move in. Shows off how great the Pioneer plasma TVs really are.
-Dave Whipps
Rich Gallagher (left) and Vern Dias (top) enjoy a little added comfort.
