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I can't listen to B&W speakers without thinking about my audio buddy Ralph. Back in 1977, Ralph was a hot young artist rolling in dough. He had just become an audio junkie and picked up an amazing set of B&W's potbellied, time-aligned DM 6s. Sure, they looked kinda funny, but their sound was so good that I developed a bad habit of regularly barging into Ralph's Greenwich Village loft, armed with a bag of take-out Chinese food and a stack of LPs.

It can be a daunting task for some: dipping your toes into the deeper end of the home theater pool and crossing over the $1,000, advanced-swim rope. Sure, we all know that there are people in our little world who will spend thousands of dollars on cable alone. However, the simple reality is that, for those who are unwilling or unable to spend as much money on an audio/video system as they might on a car or a house, stacking up that first pile of 10 or more C-notes for a single system element isn't a decision made lightly. Luckily, options abound at this level, especially in the receiver market. I don't know of a company that makes receivers that doesn't have at least one around the $1,000 price point, beckoning the frugal to dive in. Once you've decided to take the plunge, the only hard part is figuring out which one is right for you.

The first week of April was a tumultuous one for <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com">EchoStar</A>. On April 3, the Littleton, CO&ndash;based direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service abruptly announced that it would terminate any further effort to promote Internet access via StarBand Communications, Inc. The next day, the FCC ruled that EchoStar was in violation of federal regulations with its "two-dish" system for delivering local television signals. The week's one bright spot for the service was a settlement with Walt Disney Company that will keep Disney and ABC programming on EchoStar's menu.

Playback of any kind can never be any better than the recording. With this engineering truism in mind, <A HREF="http://www.photon-vision.com">Photon Vision Systems, Inc.</A> has developed a new image sensor said to offer four times the resolution of high definition television.