LexiconBd-30
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Lexicon busted passing Oppo off as a $3500 Blu-ray player
If Lexicon is your favorite brand then here's a shocker, the company figured if it isn't broke, then don't fix it and grabbed an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player and encased it into a high end chassis and listed it for $3500 -- a $3000 case, wow? We know this type of thing goes on all the time in the world of electronics, but wow, this is just unbelievable. The folks at Audioholics didn't believe it either, so they stripped the two players down and did some bench testing to reveal that indeed both were identical -- other than the case that is. Now to be fair, we realize that companies like Lexicon probably sell this to distributors for $1000 and the rest is all retailer markup, and of course Lexicon insists it has made upgrades beyond that of the Oppo, but come on, this is just wrong.
Harman Specialty Group shows off new gear to bust your wallet
When most people with sub-seven figure incomes hear "Harman," they think "Kardon." High-enders with more... advantageous... economic situations might think of names like Mark Levinson, Revel and Lexicon. For them, the Harman Specialty Group is rolling out some appropriately over-the-top gear to go along with the Lexicon BD-30 Blu-ray deck. The Mark Levinson No. 500H-series amplifiers continue with the familiar tower design, but tout new circuit topology -- we're assuming Class H -- into the various multichannel models, with the top-dog 535H punching out 1,000-Watts. On the speaker side of the house, Revel is bringing the Ultima Rhythm2 and Performa B150 powered subwoofers to the party. Revel considerately throws in amplifiers (2,400-Watts for the Ultima and 1,200 for the Performa) rather than forcing you to pick up another Mark Levinson amp. Pricing undetermined, but you can look to other offerings from these brands for suitably stratospheric guidance.
Lexicon prepping BD-30 Blu-ray deck for CEDIA
Lexicon owners who have been holding out for a brand-matched Blu-ray deck will want to turn an eye towards CEDIA, where the company will debut its BD-30 player. Hopefully by then, the Profile 2.0 player will also be wearing a THX-approved badge on the fact-tag that includes universal disc support, fast loading, Anchor Bay VRS video processing, and -- wait for it -- RS-232 control. The tin-foil hat crowd will find something to like in the PR that touts the decoding and mixing of lossless codecs in the player for LPCM streaming to downstream Lexicon gear, and makes no mention of bitstreaming. You know this isn't going to be priced for mere mortals when it releases in September, and Lexicon doesn't disappoint -- $3,499 should fit in with cross-shopping against Denon and Marantz.
