New Products

SIZE MATTERS If you went straight to the extra-large aisle when you were at the plasma-TV store, your next stop should be wherever they sell the Totem Tribe II. Made specifically to match flat-panel sets with 50- to 55-inch screens, the Tribe II is 29 inches long and less than 4 inches deep. Your wall's about to become the place to be.

SamsungHere we go folks - both your video playback and recording needs are handled by Samsung's DVD-VR300 combo DVD/VHS recorder. Each side can record from an external source or from a disc or tape loaded in the other side (though neither will let you dub copy-protected movies).

PIXEL FACTORY DVD isn't as exciting as it used to be, but Oppo's DV-981HD player still manages to impress. After all, you don't find a Faroudja video processor for upconverting video to 1080p format in any old bargain-basement machine. And with the HDMI output, hookup to your cutting-edge flat-panel TV is seamless.

KEEP IT TOGETHER Imagine having an iPod and a satellite radio in every room. The IntelliControl ICS system makes it happen with just one iPod and one radio tuner by distributing their feeds via the GXR2 receiver, which takes audio from up to six sources and streams it to six zones. Touchscreens in each zone display artist, title, and track information.

Speaker Standouts
An old-school category sees surprising innovation

One could argue that this spring will see as much innovation in the speaker category as in headphones. But when you think about it, that's not really so surprising. After all, speakers can be almost any size, almost any shape, almost any weight, while headphones will always have to be small and light enough to fit on your head.

Denon's AVR-4810CI A/V receiver is the first product that exploits the full 11.1-channel capability of Audyssey DSX processing. Here are our initial impressions: