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<I>The Home Entertainment Show 2006, running June 1&ndash;4 at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles, is only weeks away. Here is a sampling of some of the giveaways and special events that will take place at the Show. Several of these should be of particular interest to home theater enthusiasts.</I>

Sometimes it's better to be indirect.

Mirage has been, ahem, reflecting on the influence of room acoustics for nearly two decades. In the process, this distinguished Canadian speaker maker has birthed some unorthodox designs. The common thread running through all of them is a determination to make room reflections work for loudspeakers rather than against them. That determination bears fruit in the second-generation Omnisat series.

Listeners who claim to detect audible differences in digital interconnects may be equally fascinated by this report from a British CD-R distributor. Among other things, it includes useful descriptions of how CD-Rs and CD-RWs (and recordable DVDs) actually work. A brief quote hardly does justice to the more subjective details presented but here's a dose: "Whilst colorations in sound may be evident between differing brands, it's fair to say that only very poor 'B grade' un-named CD-R media are likely to cause offence to the ears.... So yes, there may be slight differences in the sound of one brand or specification over another; but it should be remembered that the real issue, the most likely problem area, is going to be playback compatibility rather than sound." Speed kills: "Reported effects of high-speed (say, 6x or higher), recordings in apparent sound are loss of fullness in the bottom-end and a meddling of the stereo image," though the BBC "found no appreciable sound difference when recording between 1x and 4x (but no faster)." Note that the source is STRL, U.K. distributor of TDK, Philips, and Neato products, and exercise your own judgment accordingly.