LATEST ADDITIONS

Pioneer nearly swept <I>UAV's</I> version of the Oscars this year taking home the trophies for the top flat panel display of the year, and winning our overall Product of the Year with the Elite PRO-FHD1 1080p plasma.

The G95 is this high-end digital icon's first product to combine preamp, surround processing, and amplifier functions. Power is rated at 100 watts times five. Also included is a DVD/CD drawer (with DVD-Audio compatibility). The price is a mere $8400 and surround-savvy, spaced-starved audiophiles are salivating. Meridian also showed off a new variant of its Faroudja video processing with motion compensation, not to mention a trendy iPod dock.

Speakers of the future will go green. Among the several environment-friendly materials Infinity is considering is recycled-denim insulation (not to mention bamboo plywood). It will soon arrive in product. Just think, what was warming someone's booty yesterday may be in your speakers tomorrow.

In-wall subs are a fast growing category, and BG has its own wrinkle on the concept. The company's new BX-4850 in-wall subwoofer consists of four modules, each of which contains 12 micro-woofers. One of these modules is shown in the photo. The four modules may be positioned together in the room or separately, and an on-wall version may also be made available. The 12 micro-woofers are each separately enclosed and face each other in pairs. The bass generated by them fires out from the center of the array, through the opening between the left and right sets of drivers, and into the room. Mechanical vibrations are largely cancelled out due to the opposing drivers, minimizing the transmission of bass into the walls, which can muddy the bass and transmit low frequencies to the structure of the room and into other parts of the house.