Editor's note: When Sound & Vision needed a family to test HomePlug - the new technology that sends A/V signals through your house's electrical wiring (see Power Play) - reader Kevin Post, a home theater enthusiast and a regular on the S&V Online Forums, filled the bill nicely.
I don't fire up the big rig anymore. Oh, I lived for the day when I could afford a first-class stereo. I started off with a pink record player my father got at a bankruptcy sale. And graduated to Columbia all-in-ones we got through a family friend when CBS still owned the record label and made hardware.
That's what a lot of people want to know when they buy a Sony DualDisc and notice that the DVD side offers Enhanced Stereo. As Clark Novak writes on QuadraphonicQuad.com, "What the hell does that mean anyway? 'Enhanced Stereo.' That's kind of like 'connoisseur's popcorn.' Means nothing. Grr."
Wish your satellite or digital cable-TV provider offered more high-definition channels, or maybe just a better picture? Take heart: now rolling out, VERIZON FiOS TV delivers more than 350 standard-def channels as well as 20-plus high-def ones. FiOS TV - that's Fiber Optic Service - is already available in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Texas.
On The Ricky Gervais Show (audible.com and itunes.com), Gervais (right, center) and Stephen Merchant (in glasses) - cocreators of the brilliant BBC series The Office and Extras - are joined by offbeat comedian Karl Pilkington for one of the most irreverent half hours you'll ever spend.
COOL FACTOR With music controls on the outside of its clamshell exterior, Sony Ericsson's W300 Walkman phone knows your tunes are important to you. The included 256-MB Memory Stick Micro card will hold around 75 MP3 or AAC songs, depending on the bit rate; 1-GB cards are available.
With a big 65-inch HD screen, the Brillian 6580iFB HDTV ($7,999) already has a lot going on, but there's more in the box to justify its hefty price tag. First of all, it's one of the new high-rez 1080p TVs. LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology keeps the pixels small and the space between them smaller, so images always look sharp and clear.
COOL FACTOR While other music portables can claim greater capacity, compactness, or coolness, this digital demon boasts the longest battery life of any MP3 player ever - 150 hours per charge, folks. Next time you decide to skip town for a week, don't even bother bringing the charger with you.
From a $200 bookshelf model to a 3.5-foot-tall tower ($1,800 a pair), NHT's new Classic speakers have gloss-black finishes that stand out and curves in all the right places. But in redesigning its Super Audio speaker line, the company went for more than just good looks by tailoring the speakers' sound for home theaters.
