LATEST ADDITIONS

KEF has a solution for people who don't want a lot of speakers in their room, their new FiveTwo Series. The two models in the series, the floor standing model 11 and stand mounted model 7, split the center channel signal between a driver in each of the speakers (that 3rd one from the top in the picture.) The sides of both models feature flat side mounted driver arrays that shoot the sound out to the sides and, presumably, around the room enough to fill in for what isn't in the back. A special connector is provided with the appropriate leads for your receiver or amp so a consumer doesn't have to worry about dragging three speaker cables to each speaker to make this all work.

Oh, I could tell you about the Yamaha's RX-V2700 7.1 channel receiver's Ethernet connection lets you access Internet radio stations and music stored on computer drives, or how the RX-V2700 has 140 watts for each of its seven channels, or about how they extended the room optimization (equalization) module to go down to 31 Hz instead of 63Hz. Or I could mention that the receiver will supersize your 480i video to 480p, or even 720p or 1080i using the Anchor Bay Technology's ABT1010 video chip. Or I could say that if you use Yamaha's $100 iPod docking station, you can control the iPod with the receiver's remote. Or I could say that the can get all this for only $1,699.

REL introduced three new and highly affordable subs. The smallest, the T3, has an 8" down firing woofer and 8" front firing passive woofer and a built in 150 watt amp. The largest, the T1 (also quite petite by subwoofer standards) doubles the power and brings both drivers up to 10". While I didn't get to hear them, they looked really attractive, especially in cherry wood with black metal (they are available in pure white on white and black ash on black as well). One key feature real "stereophiles" are going to like is that there is both a speaker level input and a line level LFE input and they can both be hooked up simultaneously. REL claims the bass characteristics of your amplifier are better served up in this fashion when listening to stereo than when using an LFE feed, as you would for home theater. Prices range from $500 up to $1000.

Everyone likes the idea of wholehouse audio. Who doesn't want the ability to access their music library in any room of their home? It's in the implementation that things get tricky. Do you invest a couple of grand in a dedicated audio server for your gear rack, plus amplification and speakers for each room and all that wire you'll have to run through the walls to connect everything? Or do you opt instead for the $150 digital media player that taps into your PC's music library? Of course, you'd need one for each room. . .and several audio systems, too. Oh, and knowledge of home networking is kind of important. For many, neither path is a realistic or desirable option.