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THE CASABLANCA II MUSIC AND CINEMA CONTROLLER. A NEW KIND OF COMPONENT FOR THE DIGITAL AGE. Casablanca II's "open architecture" design is unique among music reproduction and cinema processing equipment, making personal optimization as easy as "plug and play." Casablanca II's amazing flexibility and upgradability allow you to custom tailor your system to your individual requirements. Your system can expand and improve; you add the capabilities you want, when you want. Why Casablanca II Exists When we realized the inevitability of convergence of home entertainment media, we noted that the music was suffering in the onrush of new technological enthusiasms. People were getting complex, cluttered systems with poor fundamental performance. We listened to "home theater systems" that sounded awful. Big manufacturers said we shouldn't expect a video system to have "good sound" for music reproduction (and suggested we needed separate systems for movies an music!). We envisioned a way to make excellence available without the forced compromises and maddening waste involved in redundant, inferior "Audio/Video" products. This became a major engineering project, resulting in the Casablanca. In 1996, Casablanca was absolutely unlike anything that had gone before. We had to explain this component in detail - to writers, to dealers, and to the public - as it was a radically new kind of component. Over time, we learned ways to make an even more refined, more capable controller. This, then, is Casablanca II… Getting the Music Right We discovered that getting the music right enhances the experience of nearly every film we have enjoyed. Music communicates emotional tone in films. Everyone remembers the theme from Jaws, and the scores Hitchcock used to heighten suspense (think about that shower scene in Psycho. I'll bet you hear the sound of those horrified violins). In tender scenes, peaceful visions, joy or sorrow, the subtle musical textures defining the piping of a flute or whisper of a violin evoke the mood of the moment. Our moment orientation had us enthralled with those nuances for a long time. Far more pervasive than the occasional blast or boom that punctuates action, those textural details - woven throughout a film - can be much more important to the feel of a film than even a really terrific explosion. And the fact is, those relatively subtle musical textures are a lot harder to preserve intact, so that you really experience them. All the sound is important. When the action starts, if something explodes, you will jump a lot higher if the blast is percussive and definite. Dull thuds just don't cut it. Space ships roaring to life, race car engines, and the excited crowd around you in a stadium should all sound distinctly different. They are a big part of the fun! It's easy to see why concerts need good sound. But so does the Superbowl, Le Mans, and the Olympics. Whether the impact is profoundly emotional or something more direct and physical, your visceral response is tied to the sound. You believe your ears as much as your eyes. Flexibility Casablanca II has the flexibility you need to keep up with changing times. Casablanca II is a component that music lovers can update and upgrade over time, and a cinema component offering video technology customized to your choices and changing with the times. Upgrades and additions can be done easily, but a certified technician, in your home or the dealer's showroom: it does not require test equipment or programming knowledge. When a card is changed, your Casablanca II automatically reconfigures. Distributed Intelligence: A Crucial Difference Casablanca II's key intelligence resides on "daughter boards," rather than being locked into the permanent, central "mother board." This makes a Casablanca II even more "future-proof" than your computer! As computer chips increase in power, future systems and techniques will expand their demands for that power. You will want to be able to keep up with those advances. With the Casablanca II you're not married to an old CPU (central processing unit) as you are with PCs. Expensive central processors become obsolete as new technologies emerge, and as ever-more-powerful processor chips set new performance standards. Casablanca's Distributed Intelligence means true upgrades are available without all that waste. The Future There will undoubtedly be changes in technology in the future of video and audio reproduction. Casablanca II's open structure allows for change, growing and improving with your needs and desires. It allows for implementation of new standards in digital or analog conversion, control, routing and processing. This offers striking advantages to a Casablanca II owner. While videophiles everywhere are wondering about the trade-in value on their A/V preamp or thinking about who to give their old surround sound processor to, Casablanca II owners will be considering their options: having the lights dim automatically while switching on the screen and power amplifiers; improving the quality of surround sound processing; adding channels or another surround sound mode. Putting the Proof in "Future-proof" In the February 1997 issue of Home Theater, Al Griffin calls Casablanca "The logical choice for a future-proof high-end home theater system." Other companies are now making "intelligent" audio and A/V products, using one (currently) powerful CPU. Manufacturers like to claim that their units are upgradeable. It sounds good. Some "upgrades" mean throwing away everything but the power supply and the chassis. One major company's "upgrade" turns out to be just a trade-in allowance! The Casablanca II is a major redesign. We made an enormous number of changes. As in our longstanding policy, however, we are making the upgrade path fully available to owners of original Casablancas. An original unit can be made absolutely current. The Science behind the Art Casablanca II is in a realm apart from all other AV components. Theta is legendary for digital to analog conversion. Theta's faithful reconstruction of digital signals - the science behind the art - will bring you true-to-life excitement from movies, concerts, opera, sporting events and even MTV. You'll experience breathtaking soundtracks with stunning, realism that only Theta can give you. Casablanca II's broadcast quality video switching is capable of preserving visual information with amazing fidelity. The balanced options are fully balanced, differential throughout the signal path, allowing levels of fidelity, resolution, and freedom from noise and distortion far beyond what is possible with less heroic designs. Our parts quality is uniformly exceptional. Casablanca II's internal shielding, high grade, multiple power supplies, and the sheer number of parts necessary to do the job right - especially for balanced configuration - make the Casablanca II quite a hefty piece. (To give you a crude measure of the difference, your average audio / video component weighs in at 8 or 10 lbs; even the expensive ones. A fully loaded Casablanca II weighs over 50 lbs. Sonic Excellence The cumulative effect of numerous refinements contribute to the sonic excellence of the Casablanca II. Theta's proprietary Jitter Jail technology virtually eliminates jitter. The circuitry stores all digital audio in a buffer and reclocks it to the DACs using a high-quality crystal oscillator and DSP algorithm. The resulting rock-stable digital audio suffers none of the problems associated with lesser systems. For those who value analog sound, the Casablanca II serves as an audiophile-quality analog preamp. It's a simple matter to bypass all the digital processing, sending stereo analog input signals directly to front left and right analog outputs with all the clarity and transparency that made the original Casablanca so highly regarded by audiophiles. Serious music lovers can enjoy to-quality analog and digital sound from the same preamp/processor without compromising either. Volume Control Casablanca II's volume control is performed 100% in the analog domain! Digital volume control is simple to implement, but at a cost. It works by throwing away information; "bits" of resolution, which define the sound.
Losing this information means that the quality of sound deteriorates; as you lower the volume level, the quality of sound becomes worse and worse. Casablanca II keeps all the resolution there is, even when you've turned the sound down to a whisper.
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