LATEST ADDITIONS

PRICE $4,000 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Built-in triamplification
Wireless link to sources
Musically versatile sound
Minus
16-bit transmission ceiling

THE VERDICT
The Dynaudio Xeo 6 active wireless speakers are a great-sounding way to unclutter a two-channel music system.

In the history of civil unrest, there has never been anything quite like the audio rebellion. People are using half-inch-thick A/V receiver manuals as tinder and then throwing their receivers onto the flames. Doghouse-sized stereo amps and preamps are being spray-painted in the dead of night with slogans like “Where’s the wireless?” Wrist-thick speaker cables lay coiled on curbs, next to garbage cans, where passing dogs do what comes naturally. Just the other day, I turned on the TV and saw a guy in a Dynaudio T-shirt giving a speech to an angry mob. “Burn your cables!” he shouted. “Sell your amp! Ditch everything that currently clogs up your system!”

During a routine spacewalk from the Space Shuttle, disaster strikes, leaving the Shuttle destroyed and two astronauts stranded in the darkness with death lurking just over the horizon. With their oxygen running low, the two decide to make a desperate play to reach the International Space Station and secure a ride back to Earth, but the journey won’t be easy or uneventful.

Emotiva, the popular Web-only supplier of “affordable high-end” audio gear, will be Web-only no more.

Company founder Dan Laufman has announced that, after 11 years online, the brand will move into select brick-and-mortar specialty retailers, with somewhere between 30 and 50 dealers signed before the end of this year.

Last time around I wrote about my experience in viewing Dolby Vision projection, part of Dolby’s Digital Cinema initiative. It features a laser projector from Christie Digital designed specifically to offer higher dynamic range in a theatrical venue. The result was spectacular, but there was an additional reason for my trip back to California. The annual Orange county Hi-Fi show was held on the last weekend in May, and I spent three days there.

The OC show is more properly known as T.H.E. Show (The Home Entertainment Show) Newport Beach (though it was actually in Irvine). “Home Entertainment” is really too broad a term to describe its emphasis. It was, with only one or two exceptions, an exclusively two-channel audio show. There are a number of similar shows in the U.S. and Canada each year—far more than as little as three years ago. The reason for the growth of these shows is the shrinking number of dedicated audio dealers. Yes, the Best Buys, Targets, Costcos, and Walmarts of the world sell their share of audio-only gear. But with rare exceptions (most prominently the Magnolia shops located in or near a select number of Best Buys), the type of audio gear you’ll find in such stores rarely interests audiophiles.

In wide swaths of the country serious audio products simply cannot be auditioned anywhere...