LATEST ADDITIONS

Wolf Cinema is a new company with a lineup of high-end, 3-chip DLP projectors. The three models (DCX-500, DCX-1000, and DCX-1500—the numbers indicate the lamp wattage) all use Xenon lamps, and the projectors are available either in a black-box, custom form designed to be hidden away, or in a finished case. But you won't find Wolf products (marketed by Sumiko) in your local AV shop; they deal in custom system packages only.

I hate on-wall speakers because most of them sound awful. But James Loudspeaker defeated my expectations with the 64CSTOW ($4000/each). Their vertical slit enclosures are made of high-grade aircraft aluminum. There's no center speaker. Instead, the dual two-way design includes two drivers at top, which create a phantom center by summing to mono. The bottom two drivers handle the front left and right channels. Designer Mike Park said he decided to do on-walls because of demand in Europe, where it's inadvisable to poke holes in the walls of historic buildings. The demo featuring Chris Isaak was one of the sonic high points of the show. High-end consumers will want to demo these on-walls. Oh, and that thing in the picture? It's an in-ground sub -- imagine the terror.

Everyone's favorite Finnish loudspeaker company showed the 5041a in-wall sub. It's got two 6.5-inch drivers mated with the external RAM3 amp and will sell in the $3000-4000 range. In other Genelec models -- including the 12-inch monitor, 15-inch monitor, center, and on-wall models -- the amps formerly located on the back of the enclosures have been changed to in-rack amplification. Installers and customers spoke and Genelec listened.

JVC debuted the new RS20/HD750 at the show. The RS line refers to JVC’s professional line while the HD moniker is for the consumer line. These new projectors feature a slimmer case than the previous generation and some new processing from HQV. These are the first projectors we’ve seen to feature THX certification. They seem to build on the previous RS2 with their 30,000:1 contrast ratio but feature an adjustable aperature allowing you to dial in the overall brightness to your taste.