New C600 offers high performance at a surprisingly affordable price.
Proficient Audio today introduced the C600, a new in-ceiling speaker that delivers exceptional value in response to dealer installer demands.
“An inexpensive, entry-level 6½-inch ceiling speaker is important for our dealers. The everyday price means that a dealer can pick it up any day of the week and not have to wait for a sales promotion,” Proficient Audio president Keith Marshall said. “Dealers have been telling us that it’s difficult for them to sell a budget speaker that doesn’t have good sound quality. We challenged our guys to develop a speaker that sounded great, and we think they succeeded. This little guy punches above its weight class.”
The woofer in the C600 uses a polypropylene cone, well known for being stiff yet light for good bass with low distortion. The C600’s ½-inch fixed position polyethylene dome tweeter perfectly complements the polypropylene woofer – it’s light, fast and features wide dispersion.
The 8 Ohm C600 is rated to handle maximum power of 75 watts, and produces a frequency response of 55Hz to 20kHz with a high sensitivity of 89dB 1W/1m. Suggested retail price of the C600 is $130 per pair. It’s shipping and available now.
Visit Proficient Audio Booth 611 at EHX. For more information and specifications on the C600 and other Proficient Audio products, visit www.proficientaudio.com.
Flagship GL6 Cabinet Loudspeaker Designed for Two-Channel and High-End Cinema Systems
Proficient, best known for serious dedication to unsurpassed sonic quality, today introduced the Proficient Signature Series GL6 cabinet loudspeaker, a one-of-a-kind statement of power and performance designed for two-channel and larger home theater jobs.
The GL6 is the flagship of Proficient’s lineup of loudspeakers. The principal design is dual 6-1/2 inch woofers and a one-inch tweeter, housed in a cabinet with a luxurious 7-layer high-gloss piano black finish.
“We really owe our acoustics engineers for this one. Both are committed, career loudspeaker devotees who came up through the ranks in recording studios and tour sound. They took an aggressive set of performance criteria and turned it into a truly formidable loudspeaker. Their efforts are obvious and the results are outstanding. The GL6 loudspeaker will sit at the very top of our brand,” said Keith Marshall, President of Proficient.
The GL6 uses dual Injected Molded Graphite woofers in every cabinet. These provide a focused vertical output and wide horizontal dispersion pattern. The result is higher output and lower distortion over a single woofer system. Simply put, the woofers don’t work as hard and create less distortion, resulting in much cleaner and more detailed sound. The woofers produce solid, deep bass with a very natural, yet detailed, mid‐range. To enhance bass performance, the GL6 uses a bass‐reflex design with dual flared‐end port tubes. These tune the enclosure and minimize both air turbulence and port compression, providing maximum bass performance at roll‐off.
For high frequency reproduction, the GL6 uses a 1‐inch voice coil diameter silk dome tweeter. Silk is a great material for tweeters since it is lightweight and holds its shape, but remains flexible enough to produce high frequencies with good bandwidth and sensitivity. By nature of its dome shape, it provides excellent off‐axis response, working well in the Woofer – Tweeter – Woofer configuration. A second order crossover topology is used in the GL6 to provide optimum summing at the crossover frequency and protection to the high‐frequency driver components.
“Proficient has really taken to using Injected Molded Graphite woofers and silk dome tweeters over the last few years. This combination sounds awesome and they have become our drivers of choice,” Marshall said.
Aesthetics accompany high performance in the GL6 system loudspeaker. The enclosure has an environmentally friendly, seven-layer, high‐gloss black finish. The coating helps to acoustically seal and dampen the enclosure. An easy-to-remove treated wood frame cloth grille with Neo magnets completes the contemporary aesthetic of the GL6 system.
“The GL6 is a superb match to all of the high-end 7.1 receivers and high-current 2-channel amps on the market today. We’ve also been playing the GL6’s with our new Proficient ZEROTM wireless 35W x 2 digital receiver and they sound awesome, the GL6 just won’t fold up,” Marshall noted. “We’re getting stunning results because the Texas Instruments EquibitTM chipset which pushes digital sound reproduction to the highest level of fidelity available today. The GL6 sounds incredible when coupled with the new Proficient Zero new digital receiver.”
“Our dealers will now have a top-notch, drop-dead gorgeous product in the Proficient Signature Series GL6, a loudspeaker that will more than satisfy any of the demanding situations that they encounter”.
The GL6 has an MSRP of $750 each. It is backed by a 10-year full warranty and begins shipping in Q4 2011.
Proficient Audio today augmented its subwoofer line with the GS10, their new top-of-the line, floor-standing sub. The 10” sub has a long-excursion, treated paper cone woofer coupled with a 250-watt Class D amplifier. With a frequency response of 28 Hz to 200 Hz, the GS10 can deliver high output, low distortion and excellent resolution of bass detail.
“When we release a new subwoofer, all our dealers expect exceptional performance and the kind of reliability that they have come to expect from all of our other powered subs.” said Keith Marshall, President of Proficient. “With its elegant 7 layer black gloss finish, one might be tempted to dismiss its performance, but don’t. There is power and agility hiding under all that gloss.” Marshall continued.
To achieve fast and accurate low frequency response, the 10” GS10 woofer cone is formulated with a blend of paper-pulp and a mixture of strengthening materials. The voice-coil is constructed with high temperature fiberglass and SV wire that maximize durability and improve power handling. A large-radius surround controls excursion demands and voice-coil alignment at all drive levels to minimize distortion and maximize power handling.
A phase switch provides phase adjustment to ensure optimum coherence with the main speakers. Inputs provided are Left and Right, summed internally and LFE inputs, using filter settings from sources that provide LFE output.
“The GS10 sub was developed in parallel with our new GL6 dual-woofer cabinet loudspeaker. If you pair a couple of GS10 with two of our GL6, it makes for a potent combination, delivering high performance and stunning aesthetics. The Proficient Signature System is designed to be used in a 2.1, 5.1 or 7.1 home theater. These are Proficient’s highest-performance products, They’re fast and detailed and have the power to reproduce the most demanding music and movie soundtracks.” said Marshall.
The PROFICIENT ZERO Wireless Music System adds powerful new features that build on the success of the brand’s AirFlex system. PROFICIENT ZERO transmits high-quality stereo sound up to 90 feet, reducing labor charges for speaker wire and cable runs through walls in existing homes and buildings. The system consists of the PROFICIENT ZERO transmitter and amplified receiver.
According to the recently released CEDIA Member Benchmarking survey, 63% of revenue for 2010 came from retrofit and remodel installs. With a reduced number of new home starts, people aren’t doing as much house-hopping.
“For installing dealers, PROFICIENT ZERO is ideal for retrofit applications where homeowners would like a whole-house sound system but without the mess and expense of getting into the walls to run wire. Installing dealers can put in a four or six room wireless sound system in one day while they are doing a flat-panel TV job,” said Keith Marshall of Proficient.
“Unlike almost every other custom install product out in the marketplace today, system integrators can easily demo PROFICIENT ZERO in a home or business. They can quickly show the benefits of a wireless multi-room system or a cost efficient improvement to a flat screen’s sound system. That’s why we will be offering to system integrators a “Music in Minutes™” demo kit to easily facilitate demonstration.” Marshall continued.
New features include the capability to expand up to as many as eight receivers per transmitter. The transmitter input connections include three analog audio channels plus optical audio and transmits them simultaneously. Transmitting all inputs enables the use of one transmitter to send “left and right” audio for “Zone 2” or “rear surrounds” as well as audio to a subwoofer for a home theater system.
The PROFICIENT ZERO receiver comes with a high-quality 35 watt x 2 channel digital amp built in. The receiver features stereo speaker outputs, a stereo 3.5mm line out, a mono 3.5mm out (third analog audio channel), an optical in, a stereo 3.5mm input for local source and a front LED display. Analog or digital inputs, as well as a local source input, can be selected from the included IR remote.
