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The struggle to displace CRT front projectors from their lofty perch continues in the home-theater world. Cathode-ray tubes still produce the most lifelike images, with wide gray scales and excellent contrast, but they require a fair amount of setup, calibration, and periodic maintenance to keep looking their best.

Photos by Tony Cordoza Anyone interested in an ultra easy-to-set-up home theater system usually has only one recourse: a system-in-a-box, comprising a combination DVD player and A/V receiver, five satellite speakers, and an optimistically designated "subwoofer." The weakest links in most of these systems are generally the speakers.

Sony insists that I pronounce this TV's name correctly: Wega (Vay-guh). I think Wegg-ah is so much more amusing. Perhaps Wee-ga. If only Sony had gone all out and put an "e" at the end of Grand. I can hear the annoyance of salespeople everywhere as customers come in looking for one of them thar Grand-ee Wee-gas. It's too bad that the rest of the model nomenclature is hard to poke fun at. After all, how funny is KF-50XBR800? KF-50Exburrerr… never mind. Names aside, the TV itself is very hard to make fun of. Mostly.

Have you considered room acoustics? That's my first question when people ask me for home theater advice. Your theater's acoustic environment is as important to your system's sound quality as any single component. Sure, you can improve the sound with a new amplifier, new speakers, or the latest and greatest EX/ES processor; however, if your room isn't acoustically optimized, you still won't get maximum performance from your system, no matter how much it costs. Adding acoustic treatment is probably the easiest and most effective thing you can do to improve your sonic environment. Granted, it can be daunting to calculate reverberation times so that you add the right amount of acoustic treatment. Fortunately, Performance Media Industries (PMI) has done the work for you with their CinePanel acoustic-treatment kits.