LATEST ADDITIONS

The picture doesn't do it justice, but Logitech's $299 Squeezebox wins the prize here for the coolest looking display on a product. You can pick other display layouts, but the one with the digitally simulated analog VU meters dancing back and forth warms my cockles. (And let me tell you, they've been pretty cold lately...) The fact that it's a great device to use to propagate digital music throughout the house doesn't hurt, either. The $2,000 Transporter (the Squeezebox's audiophile big brother) was in the next room, but I was afraid to get too close for fear I'd like it too much and have to buy one.

Ever have a neighbor dog's that just keeps coming back over to your house, and acts like he lives there? And if you put him outside, he just stays on the porch until you give up and let him back in? Well, demo disc of yesteryear, <I>Vertical Limit</I> is back at our collective AV house. This time as a Blu-ray Disc spun by Outlaw Audio at HE 2007, which TJN wrote about below. Badder, and louder than ever, and still plain bad as a movie.

Le Sphère from Cabasse was warm and natural with the sweet midrange of choral music and most impressive with the deep pitches of pipe organ. Bel Canto electronics clearly helped. Still, I couldn't get over the feeling of being watched. Pricing not announced; expect something stratospheric.

Okay, we couldn't hear a real demo because the show sample wasn't treated as kindly as it should have been on the trip to New York, but the ZVOX 425 looked nice, anyway. It's a "single-cabinet home theater system" that's five inches deep, mounts on the wall, has a built-in amplifier, five speakers, two powered subwoofers (yeah, that's right, two powered subwoofers in a five-inch deep cabinet that hangs on the wall), and virtual surround circuitry. The subwoofers are side-firing to help eliminate wall vibrations. The box is filled with five 3.25-inch full-range speakers and two 4-inch subwoofers. There's no digital input - it's designed to accept the stereo audio (or headphone jack) output from a TV and use the source material's encoded Dolby Pro Logic signal. As a result, says ZVOX, it's less expensive and there's no "digital weirdness". ZVOX says the 425 is the perfect ticket for people who are painfully afraid of wires and want a simple system they can hang on the wall under their plasma/LCD panel TV and pretend they have true home theater. The total size is 37" W x 7" H x 5" D. Price is $599.99.