Elite Screens: ezFrame AcousticPro 1080 Fixed Frame Projector Screen Review-2

Posted on January 17, 2009 by Art Feierman

Please note, I'm an old "audiophile" with a pair of what were, pretty state of the art conventional speakers from the early '70s (IMFs), and I still take my audio seriously. I watched/listened to several Blu-ray based concerts with this screen.

On the other hand, I'm definitely "an old guy" relative to the ability to hear high frequencies. As such I can't comment on the amount of loss of extremely high frequencies as I doubt I can still hear above 13K or 14K (in the good old days, I could easily hear 19K). Those of you younger than I may well detect more loss of highs than I can. That said, Elite claims only a very modest loss of high frequencies - 2db at 20K, which if dead on, I would consider excellent.

The image immediately below of James bond (Casino Royale), projected onto the Elite screen with a calibrated Sanyo PLV-Z3000 projector. Looks good here, looked even better "live".

Elite Fixed AcousticPro Screen Highlights

Black mesh backing allows screen to perform well, even mounted in front of a white or near white surfaced wall
Very limited loss of sound quality (high frequencies)
Texture is more coarse than some other acoustic screen surfaces
Elite Screens MSRP (list) prices seem to be well below the low street selling prices of other name brands like Da-lite and Draper. A quick comparison finds that Da-lite acoustic screens, for example, can sell for up to 50% more than the Elite with AcousticPro surface
Very slight color shift toward yellow, (very correctable)

Unlike many other manufacturers, the Elite's long side frame pieces come in two pieces each, instead of single pieces. This allows the entire screen to be packed into a much smaller box, one that avoids the high extra shipping costs normally associated with fixed frame screens, due to their size requiring significant "oversized" box shipping charges.

Assembling the ezFrame AcousticPro fixed wall screen

It sure eems simple enough. I, however, am not one who looks forward to doing such things, so, of course, I convinced Elite to deliver the screen, along with someone who would assemble it in my presence. This works because Elite Screens is located less than an hour from my location. Basically it took about 15 minutes for the screen to be assembled. Dave Rodgers from Elite did all the work, while I watched. First step after unboxing the components (a nice small box), was to connect the pieces of the frame. Remember, Elite instead of using single long pieces for the frame, breaks the long sections down into two pieces.

After the frame was assembled, the frame was placed face down on my floor. The screen surface, and the black acoustic cloth were laid on top, and fastened into place by several dozen little white clips. The large number of clips is to insure even tension so that the screen surface remains perfectly flat.