The Mordaunt-Short Mezzo line already included a tower, and the Mezzo 6 continues in the line, but now it has a big brother in the form of the Mezzo 8 ($2495/pair). The latter's a three-way with two 6.25-inch woofers, 5.25-inch mid, and one-inch aluminum tweeter mounted at the top of the enclosure. The excellent Alumni sat/sub line has another upsized model, shown -- the Alumni 8 ($1095/pair), a tall, slender speaker with four passive woofers, two active ones, and a tweeter. It complements the similar though not identical Alumni 3 center. Stand or wall mount, high gloss black or white with black grilles.

And here's what it does, according to the carton. Note that the iPod streaming includes component and composite video, the former using a proprietary jack and dongle that physically resembles S-video with more pins.

As you can see.

Which some might construe as weightist. The composite fiberglas, carbon fiber, and resin enclosure makes damping material unnecessary. Two 9-inch woofers share the enclosure with a 6.5-inch mid and 1.1-inch tweeter. The $32,000 pricetag (per pair) may seem stiff but the composite enclosure trickles down to the monitor-size Super Octave. Morel also offers three Sound Spot satellites, all of which have coaxial drivers in a metal pedestal enclosure, but the drivers differ, so pricing ranges from $1500 to $2000 to $2500. The best version has a resin-covered silk tweeter.