LATEST ADDITIONS

Surround from standard stereo headphones? You bet, and virtually indistinguishable from your speakers. Smyth Research has been conducting stunning demos at shows for a few years now and finally the technology has been licensed by Yamaha. This system tracks head movement so the virtual soundstage remains stationary even when you move your head, and the personalization feature allows you to measure your speakers using microphones placed in your ears then perfectly duplicate them with the headphones. I can’t begin to tell you how convincing all this is. I’m just glad that it’s now commercially available. The little silver boxes you see are the Yamaha implementation.

Polk Audio blew my mind (and my pant legs) with a stealth audio system of five in-ceiling speakers and two in-floor subs. The system had impact and articulation, and I kid you not, if you stand over the slot that load's the subs' sound into the room you'll feel a cool breeze!

I couldn't help myself with this one. As mentioned previously, Samsung amazed us by parking these "No Photos" signs all over its booth at CES. For all appearances, someone didn't want us taking pictures and talking up Samsung's new gear. Why show the stuff then?

Meridian has noticed something that many companies haven't- the current iPod is a video playback device. Meridian's MV-D1 dock not only allows your AV system to control the iPod and hear the music, it features component and HDMI outputs with built-in scaling up to 1080p!