Crowson's CEDIA Debut a Huge Success!

After a summer of preparation, the staff at Crowson Technology took off to Indianapolis to open their first CEDIA Expo exhibit. Crowson partnered with Fortress Seating to put together what proved to be a very popular and unique home entertainment experience.

Fortress provided three seating units to be set up with Crowson's TES 100s. One of these units (the yellow chair in the picture) is Crowson and Fortress's new Sentient chair. The Sentient is custom built by Fortress specifically for the TES 100 and features completely hidden and permanently mounted actuators and isolators. Visitors were impressed with the quality of motion they felt while sitting in the specially designed chair.

Also a crowd pleaser was the motorcycle motion demonstration. Back at their Southern California lab, Crowson engineers used seismic measuring equipment to record the motion of the frame of an actual running Harley Davidson motorcycle. The motion recording was taken of a 2000 Harley Davidson FXST (Softail), equipped with a Stage 1 Screaming Eagle Kit on an Evolution 88 V twin engine and Samson Shorty Shotgun pipes (Gross weight = approx. 630 lbs). The audible sound from the pipes was simultaneously recorded using professional audio recording equipment and sound engineering software. The resulting two channel recording was then played back through conventional audio equipment (sound: channel 1) and platform-mounted TES100 Linear Actuators (motion: channel 2).

In Indianapolis, the Crowson Team contacted custom bike builder John Retzlaff of CycleMax and FBI Customworks to secure a show bike for the booth. He generously provided us with a Harley Davidson Dyna Wide Glide which was then supported with the Crowson Tactile Effects System. The bike was customized with a significant amount of Kuryakyn Chrome accessories and a Stage 3 Big Bore Kit mounted to an Evolution V Twin engine (gross weight = approx 620 lbs). Our demo was then set up with channel one being played through a loudspeaker near the rear of the bike (simulating the exhaust location) and channel two through the bike frame (equipped with a n array of platform-mounted TES100 actuators).

The result was an unbelievably accurate and authentic simulation of a running Harley Davidson, so you can imagine the crowd that gathered when the demo ran! When played, the recording started slowly and went through an entire cycle of reving, stalling and finally, fully running. Not your typical CEDIA demo! The bike became a popular place for pictures and a very convincing demonstration of the TES 100's incredibly accurate frequency response. Check out Maureen Jenson, Editor of Home Theater Magazine, trying it out - what a great sport!

Thanks to everyone who was able to stop by our press conference and our booth. If you missed us feel free to email us or call us with any comments, questions, or to just say hi. See you all at CES!