New Products—January 2004 Page 2

Pinnacle Systems new products - 0104 - pinnacleGetting bored burning your PC media onto discs, then schlepping them over to your A/V system? Let a middleman do the work: Pinnacle Systems' ShowCenter. Operated via remote control, this slim, stackable component can stream your PC's digital files to your home theater or listening room. It even has its own graphical user interface so you can see what you're doing through your TV. Digital media from your PC streams to the ShowCenter through its Ethernet port, or wirelessly if you've installed an optional Wi-Fi card. Then it's just one more stop to your A/V rack, where you have a wide range of outputs to connect your gear to the ShowCenter: component-, composite-, and S-video, analog stereo, and optical and coaxial digital audio. The interface supports MP3, WMA, and JPEG files as well as MPEG-1, -2, and -4, among other formats. Price: $299. www.pinnaclesys.com, 650-526-1600

Samsung new products - 0104 - samsungNapster is back, and this time Samsung's along for the ride. The Yepp-910GS portable hard-disk player has 20 gigabytes (GB) of storage, which you can use to hold compressed music downloaded - legally - from the new Napster 2.0 Web site. You can also transfer other MP3 or WMA songs to the player via the USB 2.0 port, or just use it for data files. It has an FM tuner (which can record to the hard drive) as well as an FM transmitter for listening to your music on any FM radio. You can even record music on the fly using the Yepp's line-level inputs and encoding directly to MP3 format. The player weighs 6 ounces, measures 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches, and is only 3/4 of an inch deep. Price: $399. www.samsungusa.com, 800-726-7864

Pacific Digital new products - 0104 - pacific digitalYou won't have to fire up your PC just to look at your digital photos when you have Pacific Digital's MF-810S MemoryFrame. The photo viewer can connect to digital cameras via its USB port for quick viewing of pictures on the fly. The 10 3/8-inch (diagonal) LCD has a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, and brightness is adjustable. Though you don't need a computer to use the MemoryFrame, PC software is included for adding transition effects, captions, and stereo sound to slide shows (the frame has built-in speakers). The display comes mounted in a wood frame, but it's removable if you want to put it in one that matches your décor. Price: $499. www.pacificdigital.com, 949-252-1111

Audiovoxnew products - 0104 - audiovoxWith Audiovox's SIRPNP1 plug-and-play Sirius tuner, satellite radio crosses the gap between your car and your home stereo. That's assuming, of course, you have both the Mobile Dock ($100) and the Home Dock ($70) in addition to the tuner and a $12.95 monthly Sirius subscription. The tuner has 30 channel presets, and if you hear a favorite song, pushing the Memory button will save its title and artist information in memory. The Mobile Dock connects to your car stereo via a minijack-to-RCA cable or tunes into it through an FM modulator, while the Home Dock has RCA connectors. You can also get the Mobile Dock with no FM transmitter ($70). Price: $100. www.audiovox.com, 631-231-7750

ToshibaTake a TV, add Toshiba's SD-43HT system, and suddenly you have a fully functioning home theater complete with a DVD player/receiver, five satellite speakers, and a subwoofer. Each satellite has a single 3-inch driver and measures 4 3/4 x 7 3/8 x 5 1/4 inches. The player/receiver is rated to deliver 50 watts to each satellite, while the 8-inch sub has its own 70-watt amp. The DVD player's progressive-scan output is equipped with 2:3 pulldown processing, and an optical digital audio input can accept signals from an external source. There are three DSP modes to add ambience. The player can also read CD-Rs and CD-RWs with MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. Price: $300. www.tacp.toshiba.com, 800-631-3811 new products - 0104 - toshiba

Eclipsenew products - 0104 - eclipseKeeping your road trips entertaining will get easier when you have Eclipse's AV8533 DVD receiver thanks to its retractable 7-inch widescreen LCD, which acts as a touchscreen interface. Its graphical icons will come in handy when you're playing CD-Rs and CD-RWs with MP3 files, and the in-dash player also reads DVD-Audio discs. It can decode Dolby Digital and DTS sound from DVD-Videos, and Dolby Pro Logic II will process stereo sources for multichannel playback. The amplifier module (not shown) has two sets of inputs and outputs as well as preamp outputs for 5.1 channels. The receiver is rated to deliver 40 watts to each of four channels, plus another 30 watts to a center speaker. Speaker-distance settings let you tailor the sound to your car. Price: $2,700. www.eclipse-web.com, 800-233-2216 MartinLogan new products - 0104 - martinloganSure to give your listening room a distinctive look, the 40-inch-tall Mosaic speaker is built around MartinLogan's proprietary Advanced Thin Film (ATF) driver technology. Unlike a conventional speaker, an ATF transducer uses an extremely thin aluminum-coated sheet of plastic suspended between a pair of magnet arrays to produce sound. The result is a natural dipole (radiating equally front and back but out of phase), which tends to produce a more spacious sound than conventional designs. On the Mosaic, one ATF diaphragm serves as the tweeter and another, slightly larger one for the midrange. Bass is handled by an 8-inch aluminum-cone woofer mounted in the ported cabinet, which is finished in either cherry, dark mahogany, or black. The Mosaic is rated down to 46 Hz, with a sensitivity of 90 dB. Price: $1,995 a pair. martinlogan.com, 785-749-0133

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