The two hottest trends in video displays are DLP projection and LCD television. Sharp Electronics Corporation is on top of both of them. On April 3, Sharp announced the retail availability of it first 30" widescreen liquid crystal television, the Aquos LC-30HV2U. The new LCD set is the first in a line of such products to debut this year.
Speaker wiring is one of the most problematic aspects of any home theater installation. Many of the best grades of speaker cables are big and bulky, making them impossible to hide. It's a problem custom installers and system designers have to work around every day, and it's one that adds enormously to the cost of any system installation. The advent of multichannel audio has only made the problem worse.
Liquid crystal displays have been around a long time, but only in the past year or so have they gotten the engineering attention they deserve---as potentially movie-quality displays.
Although front projectors usually get the nod from home theater elitists, rear projection sets are one of the most popular display solutions. Integrating the light source and the screen in a single unit seems to make the most sense for most home theater fans.
Looking for a great home theater preamp that won't break the bank? Atlantic Technology's new A/V preamplifier/processor will perform flawlessly with "every consumer surround-sound processing format currently known to man," according to a recent announcement. It will also do so a price far below some of its big-ticket competitors. The P-2000 carries a suggested retail price of only $1699.
Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing is high-resolution video's hottest technology. Integra is the latest name to join the DLP fraternity with its DLV-1000 video projector, a product that---when combined with its companion processor, the Faroudja FPV-1---should make even the most demanding movie fan ecstatic.
After you've spent your life savings on electronics and furnishings, are you still unhappy with the sound of your home theater? Perhaps you should have budgeted a little something for room treatment.