Yesterday's photo opportunity missed a big piece of Snell news: Legendary designer Joe D'Appolito is now on staff fulltime. It's already paying dividends with three new lines, all of which repurpose the same driver array for different applications. The Signature Elegant Series comes in good-looking veneered enclosures. The Signature Hidden Series comes in plain-vanilla MDF for use in cabinetry. And the Signature Invisible is, as you'd guess, for in-wall use and supplement other non-Signature in-wall and in-ceiling models. Some of the in-ceilings got an actual 5.1-channel movie demo to demonstrate that surround can live in your ceiling. Finally, who could resist another beauty shot, this time of the $50k Illusion floorstander, a seventh-generation reiteration of the history-making Snell A Reference. It's dual 10-inch, offers bass down to 27Hz, and threatens output of 112dB. The pretty amps are from fellow D&M stablemate Marantz.

Steven Soderbergh's Bubble will soon become the first major movie to be simultaneously premiered in theaters and on satellite television. On January 27 the movie will be shown on HDNet while rolling out in theaters nationwide. The DVD release will follow on January 31. However the actual opening night was January 12, in Parkersville, West Virginia, where the tale of murder in a doll factory was shot with real-life people on high-definition video. Theater chains are crying foul, so it's uncertain if or when the movie will make it to your local cineplex.

PRICE $1,795/pr

AT A GLANCE
Plus
I-PAShd cabinet design
Planar magnetic folded tweeter
Minus
Bass extended but not slammin’
No matching center speaker
Low rated sensitivity

THE VERDICT
The Solus Audio Entré II is a well-rounded performer whose special attribute is an elaborate bass-enhancing enclosure.

Life has a way of setting us up for disappointment. So we develop a hard shell of skepticism and rote responses: There is no free lunch. You can’t get blood from a stone. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There’s no such thing as an honest politician. Don’t order the fish on a Monday. And to that list, add: You can’t get big bass out of a small speaker. Little speakers that try to sound big just end up with a bloated bass hump and a turbulent, chuffing port.

Phil Clements of Solus/Clements has been teaming up with Atlantic Technology to develop and market H-PAS, which uses four subenclosures to produce huge bass from small to midsized speakers, including Atlantic's new soundbar. At the Solus/Clements booth we got to hear the on-wall SX-40W ($799/each), also available in an in-wall version (SW-40IW, $599/each). It could and did do justice to the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. It was not as forceful as the spine-rattling live performance we heard at the Munich Gasteig but the low notes of the organ were deep and true, an especially great feat considering they were driven by a Sherwood stereo receiver retailing for $300. The stand-mount 5.25B ($749/each) was slightly more of a good thing. Solus/Clements also offers H-PAS in tower, center, and LCR configurations.