LATEST ADDITIONS

Thiel's eagerly anticipated CS3.7 was on display and playing music, with the help of Audio Research tube gear and power by Richard Gray's Power Company.

Although everything was blue at the Blu-ray introduction, including the martinis,no one was feeling blue when we were invited into a large theater and shown comparisons of standard definition video vs. high-definition on one of Sony's 4K SXRD digital cinema projectors.

With a rack of their familiar gear driving top-of-the-line Atlantic Technologies speakers plus <I>four</I> Outlaw subwoofers, those scoundrels were stealing another show with the best home theater demo at HE 2006. And even if there had been more than three serious home theater demos at the show, they probably still be laughing all the way away from the bank.

Vandersteen does build center channel speakers, subwoofers, and hang-on-the-wall speakers suitable for surrounds, and began as a company that specialized in high performance but surprisingly affordable speakers. They still do build less expensive models that compete strongly in that market segment,, but their flagship Model 5As, at around $15,000 and driven by Audio Research's $40,000/pair Reference 610T, 610W (!!) tube amp (sporting 36 viswible tubes in its two channels and warming up the room quite nicely) weren't designed for the beer-budget crowd. And surrounds, subs, and center channels weren't on the wine-list at the show, either.