Fred Manteghian

Speakercraft’s pod city, going green, with a vengeance.

Come October 1, 2008, Denon owners will be able to download firmware upgrades for their the AVR-3808CI, AVR-4308CI from Denon's website for a $100. What's that get you? Audyssey Dynamic Volume and Audyssey Dynamic EQ, for two, and Sirius radio ready capability and Rhapsody streaming capability for three and four. Meanwhile, the higher end AVR-5308CI AVR (picture) and AVP-A1HDC1 pre/pro can get a free firmware upgrade of Audyssey Dynamic Volume and Sirius Radio capability.

Focal, the French speaker and speaker component manufacturer formerly doing business as Focal-JMLabs, has always made a point of getting great sound at shows. While I didn't run into Focal at Primedia's Home Entertainment 2006 show in Los Angeles this June, I did hear some music in the MBL room that morphed into another sale for Amazon. As I work on the final edit of this review I'm listening to the just-delivered Jeff Buckley rendition of "Hallelujah" from his 1994 album <i>Grace</i> (CD, Columbia, CK 57528). The memory of what this song sounded like on the <a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/he2006/060206mbl/" target=new> $47,000/pair MBL 101E speakers</a> is still fresh. At just 1/10th the MBL's price, Focal's Profile 918 speakers get me very, very close to the fire-branded goose bumps I felt in LA last month.

No, it's not Mad Max Times Four. This is the business end of the Meridian amplifier designed for use with their in wall speakers. There are four input channels, each with both single-ended and balanced connections. Each input feeds two of the amps eight output channels and results in 100 watts per tweeter and 100 watts per woofer for biwiring each of Meridian's new in-wall speakers. With eight channels, you can power all your surround channels in a 7.1 setup.