Other Tech

Photos by Tony Cordoza The Pioneer Elite ES-DV1000 will grab your eyes as much as the DVD movies it plays will. Its sophisticated electronics are hidden inside a beguilingly simple and elegant brushed-aluminum and gray cabinet.

Rumors that Pioneer would end production of plasma TV panels and begin buying them from other companies raised eyebrows in the electronics industry this week. But according to Russ Johnston, Pioneer's executive vice president of product planning and marketing, those who see Pioneer's move as a bellwether of plasma's demise will have to save their schadenfreude for another day.

Photo by Tony Cordoza In the future, people won't have to worry about speakers for their TVs. At least that's the message from most Hollywood filmmakers, who invariably depict future TVs as super-sharp wall-size screens with audio that comes out of thin air.

Way up on the list of reader questions we field on a regular basis is, "Which is better, plasma or LCD?" Compared with more affordable tube-type TVs, both technologies are relatively new. But their flat form factor, combined with an ultra-bright picture that looks good from any position on your couch, gives many folks a spasm of techno-lust.

Audio buffs have been known to lock horns over all kinds of things - CDs vs. vinyl, Dolby Digital vs. DTS, tubes vs. solid-state, DVD-Audio vs. Super Audio CD, and on and on. But one of the hottest debates of recent years has been over which kind of speakers work best for the rearward surround channels in a multichannel setup: monopole (a.k.a. direct-radiating) or dipole?

When's the last time you got really excited about listening to the radio? For me it was when I discovered an alternative station called 99X in Atlanta . Now I actually look forward to visiting so I can tune in. During my formative listening years near San Francisco , I enjoyed an abundance of great music on FM.