LATEST ADDITIONS

Warner Home Video president and DVD pioneer Warren Lieberfarb abruptly departed from the company Friday, December 20. No official reason for his resignation was given, but some industry insiders alluded to his dissatisfaction with upper management at media conglomerate AOL TimeWarner.

In January, football fans will get an unprecedented opportunity to explore high-definition television thanks to an agreement reached December 20 between CBS Television and Thomson Multimedia's RCA division. The partners have signed a deal for sponsorship of American Football Conference Divisional Playoff games on January 11 and 12, 2003, and the AFC Championship game on January 19, 2003.

A flagship pre/pro, Arcam's way.

If there's one thing I know about Arcam, it's that they like to do things their own way. Yes, this is a high-end company and, as such, is relatively small—which usually means that they wouldn't have the resources to do major product overhauls or built-from-scratch developments very often. This being Arcam, though, it didn't surprise me when I heard that they were spending gobs of time and money developing a new statement pre/pro for their top-shelf FMJ line. Back in February, I spent some time with their DV27 DVD player—another built-from-the-ground-up effort—and was sincerely impressed, so I was curious to see what these fellows across the pond could accomplish when they set their sights on the world of flagship pre/pros.

Just how does the StudioCinema 350 speaker system find that mystical balance between high performance and low price?

I used to wonder why I felt such an affinity for so many of Definitive Technology's speakers. What is it, I asked, that gives these slender, sock-smothered sirens their perennial appeal? Is it magnetism? (Well, surely, they use magnets, but that couldn't be it.) Is it the sexy allure of not being able to yank off a speaker's grille cloth to reveal what's hidden underneath? (Instead, you have to gently coax the soft sock covering down, slowly undressing the speaker. It's an act best done in the privacy of your own home after the children have gone to bed.) Maybe it's some secret, arcane knowledge inherited from the Knights Templar (promising riches, wealth, and speakers with popularity beyond reason)—or possibly it's from an earlier era, gleaned from chiseled hieroglyphics on the ancient stone walls of the pyramids at Giza (regaling in an afterlife filled with music and movies).