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High-tech wonders like the DVD and Dolby Digital get much of the credit, but the home theater revolution owes just as much to a more mundane development: compact, affordable subwoofer/ satellite speaker systems.

Among products dazzling home theater fans at HE 2004 are several new models of Tetra loudspeakers. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Tetra is launching its gear in the US in cooperation with its newest US dealer, Spectra Audio Design Group of New York, owned by Michael Goodrich.

The war of the high-resolution audio formats has ended in an unofficial truce, with both sides declaring face-saving victories. Not everyone has won. Consumers who took sides and bought either a DVD-Audio or SACD player lost big time, because they're left unable to access all of the great software available in the other format.

Been to your local electronics store lately? If you have, you've probably noticed that price tags on HDTVs don't hit you with the same sticker shock that they used to. Even those sleek plasma and LCD models - once reserved for people who spend as much on a TV as a new car - have prices a lot less coronary-inducing.