LATEST ADDITIONS

Sonus Faber speakers are really pretty special and every time I've heard them, fantastic sounding. They developed some special speaker cable that they used internally in their Stradavari flagship speaker and their method, quite unique I'd have to say, lead them to introduce the Yter series of speaker cables. These forged cables are terminated in special banana shapes only because they're made in the same pouring and forging process. The silver alloy used in these cables is literally melted and poured into the final shape. By audiophile standards, the price of $1,500 for an 8' pair is actually quite reasonable.

Runco’s Video Xtreme line of DLP front projectors has been knocked up two big notches- while other manufacturers are aggressively marketing single-chip 1080p DLP, Runco is offering a series of three-chip 1080p models.

In the Faustian struggle for the soul of the audio industry, Mephistopheles mans the sales floor, giving the public what it wants, namely on-wall speakers. The beckoning demon's proposition is irresistible. If you're hanging a flat-panel display, why not hang speakers there, too? All other things being equal, on-walls are at a sonic disadvantage when it comes to soundstage depth. But, as any competent demon knows, all things are rarely equal. So, let's restate the proposition: If on-walls are what you want, why not buy the best-sounding ones you can find? If they sound good in the space and look good on the wall, you might find yourself handing the demon your credit card.

Neil Young was on NPR chatting about his new movie, Heart of Gold, when he uttered a line that stuck with me: "The art of singing is making a sound that comes from your heart." Thanks Neil, I'm co-opting the idea to describe what distinguishes great home theater systems—their sound touches your heart. Yeah, that's it. While components are getting better all the time, many lack that special something. There's nothing obviously out of whack, it's just that their sound doesn't connect on an emotional level. Sometimes the individual components are all top notch, but, if they're not well matched to each other, the sound suffers. When everything clicks, you know it. That was certainly the case when I hooked up Marantz's SR8500 A/V receiver with a set of PSB's VisionSound VS300 speakers and SubSeries 5i subwoofer. They're all charmers.