Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

My, how times have changed. Back when vinyl records were king and a 25-inch-diagonal TV screen was considered big, here's how you had a good time in the backyard: a keg of beer, burgers on a charcoal grill, and your roommate's big, ugly speakers (carted out from the living room) blasting Rush (Geddy Lee, et al) until the conservative neighbors call the cops. A decade or so goes by, and the fun gets more sophisticated: a cooler of imported beer (maybe a margarita machine), steaks on a gas grill, and a big, ugly boombox belting out Rush (Limbaugh) until the liberal neighbors call the cops. Today, it's likely to be takeout from a local BBQ joint, a mini-fridge full of hard lemonade, and steam from the hot tub mingling with big-band music from outdoor speakers hidden somewhere in the (twice-monthly manicured) foliage.

Power is considered to be very important in our society. Tony Montana's immortal words in Scarface said it all: "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman." Of course, Tony was talking about a different kind of power than what you or I would be interested in (drug-kingpin power is very different from a nine-to-fiver's kind of power), but possessing even a minute amount of power can electrify one's self-esteem. Granted, Tony's zeal for power led to his coked-out paranoia and ultimate demise, but other types of power can, in fact, be quite healthy.

It's not uncommon for a company to come along and make the claim that they've reinvented the wheel in audio or video. In fact, every year at the Consumer Electronics Show, I chuckle when some yahoo representing one of these companies comes up to me and begins to peddle their wares. Sure, there have been several advancements in audio engineering over the last few decades, but let's face it—no one has truly reinvented the wheel.

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.

Artison is a new speaker company with more going for it than just a clever name. It also boasts an impeccable pedigree (creator Cary Christie was a founder of industry pillar Infinity), some classy, smart industrial design, and a well-considered answer to the puzzle of how to mate plasma TVs with serious home theater speakers.

Most people would agree that the real goal of any audio system is an illusion of transport - the musicians to the listening room, the listener to the recording space, or both to another place entirely. I'll tell you right now that NHT's long-awaited Xd speaker system, though not without its flaws, is one of those rare products that lives up to this promise.