SV Staff

Denon The first universal player from Denon, the DVD-2900 will play both DVD-Audio discs and Super Audio CDs, and it has Dolby Digital and DTS decoders, too.

JVC No room for one more component in your rack? How about half of one? At 2 1/4 inches thick, JVC's XV-N5SL DVD player won't crowd anyone. It still does everything a chubbier player can do, including deliver progressive-scan images through its component-video output and perform 2:3 pulldown to compensate for frame-rate differences between video and film.

Harman Kardon Master of the digital domain-Harman Kardon's DPR 1001 Digital Path Receiver is designed to keep digital signals digital right up to the final output stage. It's rated to deliver 50 watts each to seven channels and can decode Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES soundtracks.

Maybe This Christmas, Various Artists Here's one of the best various-artist collections in years, focusing on new names like Coldplay, Phantom Planet, and Bright Eyes.