Last month, AWE Europe held a four-day event which saw over 200 industry professionals gather at its show apartment at its UK headquarters to experience the latest and upcoming products from AWE’s distributed brands.
Attendees were able to get in-depth product overviews, immersive live demonstrations, exclusive previews of upcoming products, plus the chance to enjoy AWE’s famous hog roast.
Committed to always upgrading to the latest kit, AWE’s show apartment featured the latest solutions from a host of brands including Sony, URC, Bowers & Wilkins, Marantz, ADEO, Epson, HEOS, SANUS, Denon, Panasonic, Hisense, LG, HDAnywhere, Silent Gliss, Classé, and Base Performance Simulators. The apartment includes a main show space, two dedicated home cinemas for different levels/budgets, a product gallery, and new for 2024, a dedicated music room and boardroom.
Base Performance Simulators (left) & product demo from Hisense (right)
The boardroom demonstrates technologies that are fit for a media room, home office or corporate boardroom, also known as resimercial. It features custom cabinetry from Digital Furniture, which houses a Bowers & Wilkins CI600 Series 3.2 audio system powered by Marantz Cinema 60, with an 85” Sony Pro Bravia display as the focal point.
The new boardroom
The two cinema demonstration rooms, which have both had upgrades, are designed to experience impressing home cinemas at different price points.
The Performance Cinema has recently been upgraded with Dirac Live Calibration and Marantz power amplification. The 7.4.4 configuration features Bowers & Wilkins CI700 Series and shows what is possible in equipment terms from £30-50k, dependent on configuration. The full set up utilises four Bowers & Wilkins ISW-8 12” in-wall subwoofers, powered by the active DSP optimised CDA-2HD amplifiers. This is combined with Epson’s EH-LS12000B true 4K laser projector to give an incredible wall-to-wall image and immersive audio experience.
Bowers & Wilkins hallway
The star of the show, the Reference Cinema demonstrated breathtaking performance with an equipment value of between £100-200k, depending on configuration. Some attendees described the experience as being “blown away”, with one stating that it was “the best I’ve heard for even twice the money”.
Also upgraded, the Reference Cinema is now powered and processed by a Marantz AV10 processor, two AMP10s and four Bowers & Wilkins CDA-2HD amps all in BTL mode and in a 15.4.6 channel configuration. The room also features 15 meticulously angled Bowers & Wilkins CI800 Diamond Series in-wall and in-ceiling speakers for optimal listening. To complement the immersive audio experience, there are three of Sony’s latest native 4K laser projectors to choose from, with the 10,000 lumen GTZ-380 topping the pike. These projectors can be seamlessly switched and fill the ADEO MovieMask LR screen, which is a 4m wide side masking screen, shown switching between aspect ratios including 2.4:1 and 16:9.
Epson's gallery of projectors on display
Visitors could also experience the new dedicated Music Room, with hi-fi demos from Bowers & Wilkins, Marantz, Denon and Classé. Demonstrations covered five innovative hi-fi set ups, delivering audio experiences suitable for a range of budgets and applications, and ranging in price from £600 to over £50,000. Visitors were also able to preview the new Marantz M1 and upcoming audio innovations currently under NDA.
Product gallery featuring products from Stealth Acoustics, URC, HDAnywhere, Sony, Panasonic, and SANUS
AWE Expo also aw the announcement of a new UK distribution partnership with Stealth Acoustics. Visitors were able to preview Stealth Acoustics’ brand-new generation of LineaRadiance invisible speakers, its 8th generation of flat radiating diaphragm speakers. With Stealth Acoustics’ current best-selling 7th generation models available at AWE from June, up to five new full-range invisible speaker/subwoofer models are planned for release in 2024, exclusively available at AWE.