LATEST ADDITIONS

My curiosity was naturally piqued a few years ago when I heard that Parasound was going upscale with their look. This was a company that had become virtually synonymous with performance plus value, facilitated somewhat by forgoing aesthetic flair, and I wondered where the decision to go uptown with the finish in the Halo line would lead. The first good sign was the Halos' higher price tags. It costs a lot more to make boxes look that good, and this told me that they weren't taking resources away from performance to do so. What ultimately satisfied my curiosity, though, was how good the Halo models sounded. Yet, there are still those who want Parasound performance, have less to spend, and don't mind—or maybe even appreciate—Parasound's rugged, utilitarian old style. The New Classic line is exactly what they're looking for.

Technology, like time, never stands still. Take DLP projectors, for example. Since their inception, Texas Instrument's DLP display chips have continued to evolve at a dizzying pace. For both reviewers and home theater enthusiasts, opinions based on one generation of DLP projectors are quickly overturned by the next generation.

DisplaySearch, a global video-display market-research and consulting firm, last week hosted their annual HDTV Conference, a two-day affair devoted to—you guessed it—HDTV. Held at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California, this year's conference began with a keynote address by Mark Cuban, founder of HDNet, which will be broadcasting their recording of the event in September and October.