Premiere Design

Everyone knows that subwoofers are an essential part of just about any home theater in order to rattle your bones with explosions, rocket launches, and dinosaur roars. But they must also be capable of reproducing - and differentiating - the lowest musical notes in the movie's score. Among the most well-regarded practitioners of both tasks is JL Audio, especially its flagship Gotham g213.

As an A/V enthusiast, you might well be familiar with <A href="http://www.kaleidescape.com">Kaleidescape</A>, a California-based maker of high-end movie servers. <I>UAV</I> hasn't covered its products lately because we are dedicated to high def, and they have been limited to serving DVDs&#151;until now. The company today announced the introduction of full support for Blu-ray with its new M-Class architecture.

It seems I spoke too soon. Last week, I profiled the <A href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/ultimate-gear/audio_note_gaku-on_monoblock... Note Gaku-On monoblock</A>, calling it the most expensive power amp I know of on a per-watt basis, which was a true statement at the time. But as soon as I posted that profile, Cornelia Davis of <A href="http://www.audiofederation.com">Audio Federation</A> informed me of another tube-based monoblock that, watt for watt, costs even more&#151;the ML3 Signature from Brooklyn-based <A href="http://www.lammindustries.com">Lamm Industries</A>.

Transducers&#151;devices that convert one form of energy into another&#151;are among the most mature technologies in the audio world. The most common musical transducers are microphones, which convert the mechanical energy of acoustic sound waves into electrical signals, and speakers, which do exactly the opposite. Both have been around for a century or so, and despite a few innovations and variations, they haven't changed much in all that time.