I'm a bit reluctant to say this, but my experience with Boston Acoustics goes back a long way – to the days when the Boston Acoustics A40 and A70 speakers were the giants of the bookshelf speaker world. In fact, most of the Boston A-series speakers back then were highly regarded when it came to sound quality. Build quality was so-so but decent for late-1980s vinyl-wrap box cabinets. Just about any store that carried them sold tons of Boston Acoustics' bookshelf and floorstanding speakers, and they were proud to do it, too.
For as long as I can remember (although the time scale is questionable nowadays), Yamaha has been a strong player in the AV receiver game. While Yamaha is not really a "high-end" company mentioned in the same breath with the likes of, say, Krell, Classe, or Lexicon, it certainly pioneered the behemoth, all-in-one-piece- hernia-inducing monster AV receiver starting with the $4,499 RX-Z9 several years ago (Yamaha's latest, biggest, and baddest, the 11.2-channel RX-Z11, will appear in November for $5,499).
As far as I'm concerned, this is the standard that all other receiver makers should aspire to.
Sony recently announced a trio of new AV receivers in the ES line. The ES stands for "Elevated Standard", a designation that is supposed to indicate performance and features that are a cut above the standard Sony line. Although the marketing and the reality haven't always jibed, Sony appears to be giving renewed attention and vigor to the gear that wears the ES badge.
High-end speaker maker Burmester, US introduced a trio of slim speakers at CEDIA. All three speakers – the B30, B25, and B20 – are three-way, full-range, floorstanding models. Each uses a new air motion transformer (with a frequency range of 2,700 – 45,000 Hz) that's mounted in a small horn. This high-frequency driver design is said to be highly efficient and highly dynamic. The speakers also share a similarly engineered side-firing oval woofer with a powerful Ferrite magnet system. The oval shape helps maximize the cone's surface area while making it possible to construct a narrow speaker cabinet.
CEDIA saw the introduction by PSB of an all-new flagship line of speakers plus a pair of new subwoofers. The top-of-the-line Synchrony series speakers include two floorstanding towers, two bookshelf models, two center channels, and a tri-mode surround speaker. PSB says it's the company's "most significant introduction in a decade."
Every five years or so it always looks like 3D TV is ready to take the big leap from cheese to prime time. This time, though, it really does look like truly watchable, enjoyable 3D TV is just around the corner. Not more than 100 yards from one another, TI and Mitsubishi showed demonstrations of 3D TV technology using shutter-style glasses synched by infrared emitters. Both demos including original 3D material as well as 2D video that had been "upconverted" to 3D. The calibre of the 3D images varied depending on the subject material and the company doing the conversion. Mitsubishi and Samsung are going to be offering 3D-upgradeable DLP rear-pro sets now or in the very near future.
The Klipsch folk have decided they want to horn in on the earphone business with models starting at around $99, one of which is supposed to be the smallest in-ear model on the market. Oh, and to the dude who stole the iPhone that was part of this display, you are definitely not cool.