LATEST ADDITIONS

The soothing sounds of Frank Sinatra singing "What's New" (CD, originally a Capitol Records recording) were a welcome treat in the BAT / Wilson room. A pair of Watt Puppy 8 speakers sounded as smooth and inviting as the pair I heard in Denver last September, telling me the new, kindler, gentler Wilson wasn't a figment of my imagination. The BAT Rex preamp uses 18 tubes and fed dual 150SE tube monoblocks. Jeff Pour of Balanced Audio Technology turned off the house lights so we couldn't leave.

Murphy's got this law, see? When you only have one working prototype of your new product, but you go ahead and set yourself to be the first press event for a room full of just fed journalists who are eager to hear or see something exciting, well then, you can rest assured knowing your prototype will crap out. That's what happened at 10 AM when the ZVOX 450 ZBIT the ZDUST just before the press arrived. Someone said it was a Bill Gates moment.

Outlaw Audio took the wraps off the company's latest and most powerful amplifier, the 7900, which is rated at 7 x 300 watts continuous into 8 ohms and 7 x 450 watts into 4 ohms. At 125 pounds (56.6990463 kilograms), the amp weighs just a couple of pounds more than former talk-show host Ricki Lake's new bod (US Magazine says she went from size 24 to 4 without surgery). Unlike Ms. Lake, the 7900 eats so much electricity, it uses two separate power cords. Outlaw Audio suggests you plug it in to two different outlets, so make sure you have an extra-long extension cord. In addition to the price of the extension cord, figure on spending $3,500 for the 7900.

Outlaw has also jumped into the full-range speaker business with its recently introduced Outlaw Bookshelf Speaker ($1000/pair (in black, $1100/pair in cherry, available now). It employs a 5.25" woofer-midrange and 1" silk-dome tweeter, both of them sourced from an unnamed but well-known Scandinavian driver manufacturer. The Bookshelf is shown here with the new Outlaw LCR Speaker. More on the LCR in the following report.

While the new Outlaw speakers use imported parts, they are assembled and tested in the U.S. (If you're wondering, the model designations are simply the Outlaw Bookshelf Speaker and the Outlaw LCR Speaker. Like all Outlaw products, they are available only on-line.)