New Products

New Products — November 2003 Page 2

Magixmagix - new products - nov 2003Hissing? Crackling? Popping? Must be an old vinyl LP that hasn't been dubbed digitally using Magix's Audio Cleanup Lab. As its name implies, the software package is intended to remove the telltale noises of analog media. The audio source connects to your Windows PC's sound card, but you can clean up digital files already on your hard drive, too. While removing pops, the Cleanup Lab will also level out any changes in volume. Included are programs for managing your music, adding sound effects, creating mixes, and burning CDs. You can even record from Internet radio stations, and the timer makes sure you'll never miss a favorite show. Price: $40. www.magix.com, 888-326-2449
Terk terk - new products - nov 2003Before you can enjoy those off-air HDTV broadcasts, you need to pull high-definition signals from the airwaves. So get out your ladder, clean off the roof, and make room for Terk's TV38 antenna. This big guy - 12 1/2 feet long - is a 43-element directional yagi-type antenna that receives broadcasts in the UHF, VHF, and FM bands. It's designed to pull in signals over long distances - ideal if no high-def cable provider is in your area. Everything you need to install the antenna is supplied, including a 5-foot mast. The double-boom design gives it extra strength, and the antenna elements are made of heavy-gauge aluminum and galvanized steel with a polymer finish. Price: $200. www.terk.com, 631-543-1900
Boston Acoustics boston acoustics - new products - nov 2003Vying for a spot in your home theater are the members of Boston Acoustics' Video Reference (VR) series. Three floor-standing models - the VR1, VR2, and VR3 - are sold in stereo pairs, and the VRC center speaker is timbre matched to complement them. The VR3 (shown), standing 40 inches tall, has dual 7-inch copolymer woofers, a 4 1/2-inch midrange driver, and a 1-inch tweeter. Frequency response is rated as 35 Hz to 20 kHz ±3 dB, sensitivity as 93 dB. The VRC is 22 inches wide and couples the same midrange and tweeter with two 4 1/2-inch woofers. Every speaker in the VR series is available in either black ash or dark cherry veneer. Prices: VR1, $300 each; VR2, $425 each; VR3, $625 each; VRC, $400 each. www.bostonacoustics.com, 978-538-5000

Blaupunktblaupunkt - new products - nov 2003Handy for those long road trips, a headrest LCD screen like Blaupunkt's IVMS-6502 can help silence noisy kids or backseat drivers. The 6 1/2-inch widescreen display has a mounting depth of less than an inch, with controls and a composite-video input on the front panel. A single 13-pin DIN cable handles the hookup to your main rig, including a router for infrared signals, enabling the front sensor to control a hidden DVD player or other device. Images are said to be uniformly bright at viewing angles up to 60° to either side. The display even has its own speaker as well as a headphone jack. A breakout cable - to ease hookups with gear from other brands - and a remote control are supplied. Price: $650. www.blaupunkt.com, 800-950-2528
Cerwin-Vega cerwin-vega - new products - nov 2003Ready to turn your listening room into a home theater, Cerwin-Vega's AVS 5.1 speaker system has what you need to start hearing surround sound. The four left/right satellites, center speaker, and subwoofer are all magnetically shielded to make sure they don't interfere with your TV. Each satellite has a 4-inch midrange/woofer and a 1-inch Mylar tweeter (with dual 4-inch drivers in the center speaker), and all five come with universal mounting brackets. The 8-inch ported sub has a 100-watt amplifier and measures 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 13 1/4 inches. Rated bandwidth of the system is 35 Hz to 20 kHz, and all components have a graphite finish. Price: $399. www.cerwin-vega.com, 805-584-5300

BenQ benq - new products - nov 2003Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology is fast staking out its territory in the front-projector world, and BenQ's PE8700 shows why. Producing images with a high-definition native resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels is no small feat for any projector, let alone one that weighs only 15 pounds. HDTV signals can be fed to its DVI input or the wideband component-video/RGB+H/V connectors while composite-video, S-video, and component-video inputs handle standard-def programs. The six-segment color wheel and a refresh rate of 300 Hz help keep the picture clean, and both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios are supported. Contrast ratio is rated as 2,000:1. Price: $7,995. www.benq.com, 866-700-2367
Tivoli tivoli - new products - nov 2003Think of a clock radio. If you're picturing a short, brown rectangle with inch-high red LEDs, Tivoli's Model Three is about to shake up your preconceptions. First there's the clock - a stylish analog design housed in a 8 3/8 x 4 1/2 x 5 1/4-inch box with a wood finish. You set the alarm simply by turning the clock's bezel, waking up to music or a buzzer. The mono device becomes a stereo system when you add the optional extra speaker box ($50), and if you want dual alarms, you can get the second speaker with its own alarm clock ($100) - perfect for a spouse on the other side of the bed. The large knob for the AM/FM tuner allows fine adjustments to help receive hard-to-capture stations. Price: $200. www.tivoliaudio.com, 877-297-9479
TDK tdk - new products - nov 2003We all like portable music, but sometimes you want to share your tunes when on the go. With TDK's I'maspeaker, your tunes can be freed for all to hear. It's a case for holding CDs, but its name tells you what else it can do. Just hook up your portable player to the miniplug, and the flat speakers, based on NXT technology, will do the rest. It's available in 12-disc single-speaker (shown) and 24-disc dual-speaker versions, measuring 7 x 7 x 2 and 15 x 7 x 2 inches, respectively. Both run on AA batteries, which are said to last 7 to 8 hours. I'maspeaker, and I come in blue, black, or red. Price: 12-disc, $20; 24-disc, $30. www.tdk.com, 800-835-8273
Runco runco - new products - nov 2003The Runco CW-50MC is a 50-inch widesceen plasma set that packs some extra hardware - a modular card with the company's proprietary Vivix video processor. Vivix's orthogonal line processing and deinterlacing are said to result in a picture free of video artifacts, and its Active Grayscale Rendering smoothes blends from light to dark areas. The set is only 4 3/8 inches thick, with screen resolution of 1,280 x 768 pixels. High-definition sources like a satellite tuner or a D-VHS deck can connect to the component-video, RGB+H/V, VGA, or DVI inputs. Contrast ratio is rated as 1,000:1. An RS-232 port allows control of the TV through a custom system. Price: $13,995. www.runco.com, 800-237-8626
Bose bose - new products - nov 2003Calibrating your home theater system to your room's acoustics couldn't be easier with the Bose Lifestyle 18. This home theater in a box includes the company's ADAPTiQ audio-calibration system, which analyzes a room's acoustic "fingerprint" and adjusts the speaker levels and equalization to match. The five identical satellite speaker cubes each have a single 2 1/2-inch driver, and they're accompanied by dual 5 1/4-inch drivers in the Acoustimass bass module to fill in the lows. The DVD player/receiver provides Dolby Digital and DTS decoding as well as Bose's proprietary Videostage 5 processing to produce 5.1-channel sound from mono, stereo, or four-channel sources. Feel free to pop in a CD with MP3 files. There are line-level outputs for a second zone, and the supplied universal RF remote control lets you operate the system from another room. Price: $1,999. www.bose.com, 800-444-2673
Mordaunt-Short mordaunt-short - new products - nov 2003British speaker manufacturer Mordaunt-Short (Marantz distributes its models in the U.S.) has introduced the 900 series of home theater speakers. There are nine models, including the floor-standing MS-914 (shown), a two-way design that sports a 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter and a 6 1/2-inch aluminum woofer. The woofer's Continuous Profile Cone has a smooth concave surface said to give the MS-914 fast transient response and wide dynamic range. Bandwidth is rated as 50 Hz to 22 kHz, sensitivity as 89 dB. Its 8 x 35 1/2 x 10 5/8-inch cabinet comes finished in black, cherry, or graphite. Price: $650 a pair. www.marantz.com/mordauntshort, 630-741-0300
ARTICLE CONTENTS

X