New Products

On-Q Network capabilities are steadily proliferating on home-entertainment products, but it's no fun stringing cables to connect all your gear to a home network. Wi-Fi to the rescue! On-Q's Wireless Access Point (WAP) is much easier to install than furlongs of cable, or it can serve as a complement to wiring in new construction. Available through custom installers, the WAP is designed to blend in perfectly when ceiling-mounted. Once installed, you'll be streaming digital audio and video between components up to 300 feet away! It gets power through an Ethernet connection, so the only hookup needed is a single standard Cat-5 cable. Operating on the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which is compatible with the slower 802.11b, the WAP supports a data rate up to 54 megabits per second (Mbps). Price: $400 to $500, depending on installer. www.onqhome.com, 800-321-2343 WireHide Whatever your décor - whether it's sleek modern lines, classic Victorian, or something in between - absolutely nothing goes with the twisted and knotted cables that inevitably appear where audio/video gear congregates. Out to tackle this unsightly problem is WireHide, which proposes a low-tech solution in its Cable Veil. The Veil is simply a thin piece of aluminum alloy that you can easily bend into a rectangular shape to cloak the cables sprouting out of the rear panel of a receiver or any other component. Veils come in widths of 3, 5 1/2, and 8 inches, and each one is 35 inches long. To ensure they blend with as many components as possible, they're black on one side and silver on the other. Price: $50 for a six-pack. www.wirehide.com, 214-893-9143 Outlaw Audio Kudos to you for getting that cool speaker system, but don't you think it could use a little more, I don't know, oomph? Outlaw Audio's LFM-1 subwoofer can help your system descend to a new level of bass. The ported sub has a 12-inch driver and is rated to play as low as 25 Hz (±2 dB). Its built-in 325-watt amplifier is a BASH design that's said to have high efficiency and low distortion. Standing at about 22 inches, the sub isn't so tall that you won't see the smoked Plexiglas top. Price: $579, or two for $999. www.outlawaudio.com, 866-688-5297 Panasonic Thanks mainly to a dearth of hardware, you may have missed the recent digital upgrade of AM and FM to HD Radio. But count Panasonic's CQ-CB9900U in-dash CD receiver in the "compatible" column for the new format. Thanks to HD Radio's digital nature, the sound won't have static, pops, or any other noise. And as long as the HD station is broadcasting them, things like song titles and traffic reports will scroll across the receiver's LCD readout. The head unit also has a seven-band graphic equalizer so you can tailor the sound to your liking, and it plays CDs with MP3 or WMA files. Rated to deliver 50 watts each to four channels, it has two preamp outputs and an auxiliary input. Price: $1,000. www.panasonic.com, 800-211-7262