uavGary Altunian

It's only the second week in January and I've already found one of my top picks for 2009 – the Wisdom Audio Sage Series L150i Architectural Loudspeakers. The Wisdom L150i is a line source in-wall speaker system that stands at 76-inches tall and is large enough to be the wall. Each channel consists of 12 six-inch woofers and planar magnetic line source drivers. The woofers and planar drivers are housed in separate aluminum back box enclosures and Wisdom recommends that the drywall be replaced with plywood or MDF for greater rigidity. The system requires a Wisdom electronic crossover and must be bi-amplified.

The Digital Experience is an annual press event held at the Mirage that showcases the latest in mobile digital devices, computer peripherals and anything that is, well...digital. AV components are typically not part of the event, but this year Samsung showed two unique home theater products, the HT-BD8200, a 2.1 channel sound bar with a built-in network BD player (shown in the background) and a wall-mountable network BD player. The HT-BD8200 includes a wireless subwoofer and an iPod dock and can stream digital content from Netflix. Prices were not announced and the sound bar is expected to be available mid-year. Note: The wall-mountable BD player in the foreground is black, not red.

Toshiba announced that it will add Dolby Volume as a feature in its 2009 Regza line of LCD televisions. Dolby Volume delivers a consistent volume level by automatically bringing down the volume of louder stations or commercials or
raising the volume of lower channels or commercials to maintain the desired listening
level. It's a welcome feature since loud commercials can be very annoying.

Which would you rather have, more content options streamed from the Internet or wireless speaker connectivity? LG Electronics thinks you should have both and has introduced three Network Blu-ray Disc Home Theater Systems featuring content-on-demand options through alliances with CinemaNow, YouTube and HD titles from Netflix as well as wireless speaker connectivity. The speakers are designed by Mark Levinson, well known in the arena of high-end audio. This introduction follows on the heels of the LG BD300 Network Blu-ray player shown at CEDIA 2008. The LHB979 system is shown in the photo above and is scheduled to be available in the second quarter of 2009. A price was not available at the time of the announcement.