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I've always liked Epson projectors—they generally produce an excellent picture for a reasonable price, which makes them a great value. The PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 is no exception, though it's not quite the home run that Epson's UB (ultra-black) models are. In fact, my primary complaint with the 8350 is its not-so-great blacks, which isn't helped much by the dynamic iris on real-world material. Granted, its blacks are better than those of the Optoma HD20, but they're still too bright to achieve a really great picture, especially in dark scenes. Also, colors are not spot-on accurate with this Epson, though I didn't find that bothersome when watching Blu-rays, DVDs, and TV programming. Another surprise—despite color fringing and softness I saw in certain test patterns, the detail in real-world content was quite good, if just a tad softer than the DLP-based HD20.

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An Anthem A/V receiver? AVRs were Anathema to anthem, I mean anathema to Anthem, until recently. This company’s heart has always been in surround separates—bleeding-edge surround processors, muscle amps that live on steak and steroids. The quintessential Anthem product—to digress from the main subject for a moment—would be the P5 five-channel amplifier, basically five 325-watt monoblocks in a single gut-busting enclosure.

Brad McQuade