LATEST ADDITIONS

Judging by mainstream press coverage, you'd think plasma display devices were taking over the market. "Plasma" is the buzzword, even among consumers whose only sighting of a plasma screen was an airport "Arrivals and Departures" display. And that's about all that the pathetic $3000 (add $160 for delivery), 42-inch, standard-definition models being sold today to unwary, buzzword-bitten consumers are good for.

Personal video recorders(PVRs)—or digital video recorders (DVRs), as they are sometimes called—may not be as inevitable in most consumers' homes as some experts are predicting. The reasons? Try invasion of privacy and deletion of desirable features.

This week, Pete Putman sets up the <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/showarchives.cgi?125">Marantz VP-1252 DLP projector</A> and gives it a complete examination. PP remarks that the Marantz "did some things well, and others things not so well."

Like three-button suits, ribbon drivers seem to go in and out of fashion arbitrarily. But there's a pattern. First, they're all the rage for their airy, transparent, detailed sound. Then they're shunned because of inherent technical limitations or their low impedances (which present a difficult load for an amplifier to drive). Or because of the complexities involved in getting them to mate with the traditional cone drivers typically used to produce low frequencies. Or because new materials and technologies have improved the performance of cone and dome drivers, which, being easier to manufacture and use, make ribbons' theoretical advantages not worth the hassle. Then there's a breakthrough in ribbon design and the cycle repeats.