Other Tech

For a century we've been industriously broadcasting radio programs all across the globe, with the great majority of programs received free of charge. After light bulbs, radios are probably the most ubiquitous electrical devices on earth. Radio is cool. Life is good.

You wouldn't know it to look at the "mine's bigger than yours" installations featured in some home theater magazines, but having a decent amount of money to spend on a whole-house audio/video system doesn't necessarily translate into gaudy opulence. Or, to put it another way, modesty isn't always dictated by a limited budget.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. This is not your father's stereo. In fact, it's not his home theater either. Kenwood has come up with a networked home entertainment system that promises to provide easy access to movies from a DVD megachanger and music from a variety of sources, including CDs, MP3 music files stored on a hard-disk drive - even Internet radio stations.

First it was shark attacks and the Gary Condit debacle, and then came September 11. The year 2001 wasn't a great one overall, but it was pretty good for high-definition television (HDTV), which continues to make steady advances despite the drooping economy.

The concept of "plug and play" is a starry-eyed consumer-electronics fantasy. In my experience, almost all home entertainment devices - at least the kinds covered in this magazine - need some sort of setup to achieve optimum performance. Heck, even my first childhood record player had to have the volume adjusted.