LATEST ADDITIONS

Freddie G. beat me to the punch on the new Krell speakers, but they're worth a few extra words. At $35,000/pair the Modulare Duos are hardly cheap, but Krell's charter has always been cutting edge design, not designing to a price point. Based on the sound I heard from their two-channel setup in a relatively large demo room (plenty big enough for a home theater demo—helpful hint for next year!?) they are definitely cutting edge. I'm sure the Krell electronics used to drive them weren't hurting the overall result, either. Their pricey Scandinavian drivers and solid aluminum enclosures might just have been making the best sound I will hear at the show, though it's still too early to go that far. A lot of rooms are yet to be visited.

One of the interesting new features of this year's show is a variety of workshops, many of them to be presented more than once throughout the show. There are workshops on amplifier measurements, amplifier listening, speaker auditioning, speaker measurements, the peak power demands of music, and active loudspeakers. The Stereophile Analog Clinic also continues, as in past shows.

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.