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Tower Speaker ReviewsSubwoofer Reviews
B&W XT Series Speaker System and PV1 Subwoofer
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 17, 2006
The audiophile and the ecstasy.

Bowers & Wilkins offers an impressive range of speakers in nearly every size and price category, but they're best known for models that demonstrate the company's continuing pursuit of the state of the art. Just last year, the diamond-tweeter-equipped Nautilus 800 Series speakers made a big splash in audiophile magazines all over the world. Those one-plus ultra models all come with breathtaking MSRPs, but you'll find traces of the 800 Series' inspired engineering throughout B&W's new, considerably more affordable XT Series designs. The XT4 tower's gleaming extruded-aluminum cabinetry is fresh, but the déjà-vu curves, yellow Kevlar midrange driver, and bulging topside tweeter pod leave no doubt—it's a B&W.

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AV Receiver ReviewsBookshelf Speaker Reviews
Paradigm Cinema 330 Speaker System and Harman/Kardon AVR 340 A/V Receiver
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 17, 2006
Two products, one look.

It wasn't until I uncrated both the Paradigm Cinema 330 speakers and the Harman/Kardon AVR 340 receiver that I realized I'd found something rare in the home theater realm—a visual match between speakers and receiver. Did some invisible hand simultaneously guide Paradigm's whizzes in Toronto and Harman/Kardon's design squad in Northridge, California? These two large companies have no connection that I know of. Yet, this month's Spotlight System is a genuine fusion of Canadian and Californian design sensibilities.

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Ears On
Mits Big Screen Frightens the Horses
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 17, 2006
A Tokyo racetrack has become home to the world's largest large-screen video display. The screen is 218 feet wide (by 66 by 37). Judging from the picture, its ratio of width to height is way more than the standard 16:9 of DTV in general. Behind the display is Mitsubishi's Aurora Vision LED technology. Here LEDs are being used to produce the picture directly, though they're also creeping into consumer DLP displays as a substitute for the color wheel. The screen was installed in 35 pieces and cost $28 million. Apologies for the headline. Couldn't resist. A larger edit of the picture, and three others, are in the Galleries.
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The S&V Interview
HT Talks To . . . Andy Garcia
Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 16, 2006
Multitalented, Modest, and unassuming: The Lost City's Andy Garcia.

Whether he plays the hero or the heavy, the always-intense Andy Garcia is impossible to ignore on screen. With The Lost City (on DVD August 8 from Magnolia Home Entertainment), G. Cabrera Infante's bittersweet tale of the Cuban Revolution, the Havana-born actor/director has crafted a profound cinematic work and one of his most powerful performances. Just don't call him a sex symbol.

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Music Reviews
Monster Music
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 16, 2006
It's not just cables anymore.

It was in the late 1970s when Noel Lee, a laser-fusion design engineer, started a little company, Monster Cable, which soon spawned, well, the entire high-end audio-cable industry. Over the decades, Monster maintained their dominance in the cable market as it branched into power conditioners and M•Design home theater furniture. Now, with Monster Music, they're jumping into the record business with a line of High Definition Surround SuperDiscs. Noel Lee's passion for multichannel music—and frustration with the stillborn SACD/DVD-Audio formats—pushed him to extract the best sound from Dolby- and DTS-encoded music. Monster Music claims that the SuperDiscs are the first music releases certified by THX for sound quality.

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Other Source Component Reviews
This Is Not a DVD Player
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 16, 2006
Inside Toshiba's HD-XA1 HD DVD player.
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Geoffrey Morrison Blog
More 1080p Questions
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 16, 2006
I've gotten a number of really good questions on my last blog post about 1080i and 1080p. Instead of burying the answers at the end of the comments in the last blog, I figured I'd post them here and answer them. I edited them down for space and stuff (sorry).
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Audio Video News
Heat Buster Junior
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 16, 2006
Flat-panel TVs and high-tech A/V gear may look cool, but in actual operation they're often physically far from it. Active Thermal Management has a way to keep displays and other heat-generating components (like amplifiers) mounted in tight spaces cool and comfortable. Reducing excess heat generated by these devices can often mean much longer lifespans and higher reliability.
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Ears On
Zune Details Emerge
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 16, 2006
More information has emerged about Microsoft's forthcoming Zune music player, thanks to my colleagues at This Week In Consumer Electronics, who always have their ears to the ground on the retail scene. The company has been briefing retailers and TWICE have been prying out morsels of information about Redmond's supposed iPod-killer. Here are the details (I would rather slit my wrists than say deets):
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Audio Video News
HT Mag Editor Goes "Into Tomorrow"
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 15, 2006
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