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Speaker Standouts
An old-school category sees surprising innovation

One could argue that this spring will see as much innovation in the speaker category as in headphones. But when you think about it, that's not really so surprising. After all, speakers can be almost any size, almost any shape, almost any weight, while headphones will always have to be small and light enough to fit on your head.

Speaker Standouts
An old-school category sees surprising innovation

One could argue that this spring will see as much innovation in the speaker category as in headphones. But when you think about it, that's not really so surprising. After all, speakers can be almost any size, almost any shape, almost any weight, while headphones will always have to be small and light enough to fit on your head.

No matter what your taste in music, movies, or sound, the goal of every speaker is always the same: to recreate the ambience and excitement of the original performance. However, recreating every type of musical performance-from a world-famous rock band performing in a sports arena to a folk artist playing in an intimate coffeehouse-is a task very few speakers can accomplish.

Almost all high-end audio products focus on stereo music, fovcing those who dig 5.1 music – and, of course, movies – to use audio products designed primarily for home theater.

Ever since Geoff Morrison got a preview of Panasonic's new top-of-the-line ZT60 plasma TV at the January CES