New Products

Niles If you have a whole-house system and add a TV in a remote room, you'll want to hook it up to the speakers in that zone. Niles's TVA50 power amplifier has circuitry that will automatically switch the audio signal from your TV over to your room speakers when you turn the set on. It can deliver power to two stereo pairs and is rated at 50 watts per channel into 8 ohms. Since it's a digital amp, it's small - only 8 x 2 3/8 x 8 inches. Also helping with your installation are a 12-volt trigger, a removable power cord, and removable screwless speaker terminals. Price: $350. www.nilesaudio.com, 800-289-4434

WireTracksNobody wants to see wires all over the floor, and hiding them behind the baseboards can be problematic (what do you do if you have to cross a doorway?) or simply not possible. WireTracks' crown-molding (CM) wiring channel will keep cable out of sight by stringing it along your ceiling, and best of all - no wall-cutting is required. Male connectors that you put on the inside of your molding attach to female connectors mounted on the wall and ceiling. The connectors will work with any crown molding 3 inches tall or larger, angled between 30° and 60° from the wall. Cable clips inside hold onto your wiring. Wasn't that easy? Price: $70 for a 12 x 12-foot room. www.wiretracks.com, 888-886-9473

ParasoundDesigned to slip nicely in your custom equipment rack, Parasound's Zamp v.3 stereo amplifier is only 1 3/4 inches tall, taking up just one rack space. The Class AB amp is rated to deliver 45 watts per channel into 8 ohms, but you can bridge the channel pair for 90 watts of total power. Mounting holes in the front panel and a removable power cord will ease installing it in your system, and signal-detection circuitry activates the amp automatically. The back panel has line-level inputs and outputs, multiway binding posts for your speakers, and an individual gain control for each channel so you can adjust the levels to your liking. There's also a front-panel headphone output. Price: $300. www.parasound.com, 415-397-0144

RTI Programmable remote controls can be a godsend, but what happens if dead batteries take your programming with them? RTI's RP-6 remote control processor, which enables an RTI or other learning remote to control equipment all over the house, stores all your macro commands in flash memory so you'll never lose them. The six input/output ports are compatible with standard infrared emitters and repeaters, and they all have protection against overloads. Your installer will configure the 9 3/8-inch-long processor with RTI's TheaterTouch Designer software. Price: $599. www.rticorp.com, 952-253-3135