Denon's flagship AV receivers have long been rated among the best, if not <I>the</I> best that money can buy. They've also been loaded with features, sometimes to the point where using them for anything but normal operations is a real challenge for the average user. The company's latest top-of-the-heap effort, the $6000 AVR-5805, is both of these things, and much more.
Check out the latest news and hottest products, direct from the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show. CES is North America's biggest and brightest electronics trade exhibition - the place where audio and video manufacturers from around the world gather to demonstrate the exciting products they will be bringing to market in the new year.
This month, Denon's no-holds-barred DVD-5910 replaces the DVD-3910 as our pick for the ultimate DVD player (at least till introduction of an HD disc format). We've also listed a trio of XM2go portables from Pioneer, Tao, and Delphi as well as the new Xbox 360 game console. As for deletions: Pioneer and Denon have replaced their PDP-4350HD plasma and AVR-3805 receiver, respectively.
Pioneer says they'll begin shipping one of the industry's first Blu-ray disc computer drives during the first quarter of 2006. The new Pioneer BDR-101A will be able to store up to 25 GB of data on a single-layer Blu-ray disc.
<B>LG Electronics Introduces Two Big LCoS RPTVs For 2006</B>
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LG Electronics' 2006 lineup of RPTVs will feature two large screen microdisplays powered by LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) imaging panels from SpatiaLight that feature full 1920x1080 resolution. Counting pixel for pixel, a 1920x1080 display contains over two million pixels- twice as many pixels as the 900,000 and change a 720p display puts up on screen.
Venice: La Serenissima, and serene it is. Gondolas ply the blue-green waters of the canals while thundering water-buses hop round the exterior
of the islands in a blue-grey lagoon kissed by Adriatic sea air. Tourists cheerfully lose themselves in a maze of quiet pollution-free streets.
Unleashed dogs walk themselves, tails wagging. Workers patiently replace wooden piles under sinking buildings while old folks haul lightweight
shopping carts over pedestrian bridges. People are gentle and tolerant in this 1250-year-old former nation-state, and that's a good
thing—because there you are, in a supermarket, aiming your digital camera at home theater gear. I could have killed you.
Christmas is a special time when madness invades the homestead and the urge to give and give and give and, well, you get the picture. But what are these gifts with which we hold these truths to be self evident? One year, a very long time ago, it was a special little baby I found in a cabbage patch. At least, that’s what is said on the label. When the blue light went on – and yes, there really <i>was</i> a blue light - I, along with all the other shoppers in that alphabet-mart, went careening through the aisles like so many pinballs driven in reverse until we converged at the same single spot. A towering monument of pastel packaged Cabbage Patch dolls had just been unwrapped. We, one man and host of hostile woman, were the chosen ones. We each grabbed. I got one. Studying her, my little rainbow coalition brown Jolene, asleep with her eyes open, waiting for the moment when her child would hold her and bring her to life.
I must admit I, and I assume you, had never heard of this company before this review. The boss (Maureen Jenson) had been talking with them and had a review sample sent to our studio. I didn't find that part out until later. As far as I knew, this product quietly and unceremoniously just showed up. Its plain, unlabeled brown box was so nondescript that it lay unnoticed for several days. Had we not been clearing space to make room for the six RPTVs from the Face Off we had just finished (see our February 2005 issue), who knows how long it may have sat there. I opened the box to check out what it was, and my eye caught what your eye surely caught when you read the headline above: 1080p. As I investigated further, this DVD player only got cooler.
LCD manufactures have been hyping up their 1080p product for months now. Where is plasma in all this? Will plasma lovers (and/or LCD haters) be “stuck” at 720p? Not for much longer.
