LATEST ADDITIONS

We can think of a few other manufacturers who have showed impressive-sounding new speakers behind an acoustically porous curtain and then whipped the curtain aside to reveal a compact satellite/subwoofer set. The latest is Cambridge Audio's Minx, with its three-inch cube available in single (Min-10) or dual (Min-20) versions with three tough little subs. The smallest 5.1 configuration would cost a reasonable $550/set with additional cubes at $80/each. If you are considering adding, say, DPLIIz height or DSX width speakers to your system with minimal fuss, this modular easy-mount approach may be just the thing. The full-range drivers had a pleasingly warm sound that did well with male vocals and had no nasty ringing. Bass was strong if a little tubby (but we were sitting against the rear wall). Minx got our attention and we hope to follow up with a review.

Coaxial driver arrays lay beneath the Granite-52 outdoor rock speakers from Earthquake Sound. They go for $450/pair plus another $799 for the Granite-10D subwoofer. A spokesperson said reliability in the tough outdoor environment is one reason to go with Earthquake. The company also showed the SWAT 2.4 wireless transmitter/receiver combo, $349/pair, which can be powered by USB or wall wart. Maybe just the thing to make the leap from your main rack to the sub or surrounds when conventional speaker cabling is inconvenient.

Speaker-maker Paradigm has several new offerings at CEDIA, but the stuff that caught my eye was its MilleniaOne satellite speaker ($249/each) and Millenia subwoofer ($1399). Standing just under 8 inches high, the sat has a die-cast aluminum...

Epson has become well known as a major producer of high quality, relatively affordable LCD projectors. Now, using its expertise as a premier imaging chip producer, it has produced an offshoot of LCOS, which differs in that it grows the active elements onto quartz rather than silicon. The result is a reflective LCD, or in Epson's words, RHTPS, for Reflective High Temperature Polysilicate.