Steven Stone

Boom. Thud. Crash. What would a movie be without low-frequency effects? Even non-macho films like <I>Sense and Sensibility</I> have their share of carriage-wheel rumblings and horse-hoof thuds. Without a serious subwoofer that extends down to a solid 30Hz, and preferably even lower, a home-theater system can hardly be called "high-end."

TEAC has been around since the early days of stereo, and my own history as a user of their products spans almost 35 years. My first TEAC was an A-1200 reel-to-reel tape recorder, purchased in 1968. It was big and heavy, and it worked perfectly for many years. I currently use a TEAC RW-H500 CD recorder to make all my live concert recordings, and a complete TEAC 500-series system&mdash;AV-H500D 5-channel integrated amplifier, T-H500 AM/FM stereo tuner, R-H500 cassette deck, PD-H570 CD changer&mdash;provides music in my master bedroom.

If you want to attract journalists, give them a free lunch.

When I reviewed the Genesis 6.1 speaker system I liked it so much I still use it as my reference in my upstairs home theater system. Now Genesis has a new, smaller speaker called the Genesis 7.1c that shares much of the G6.1's technology&mdash;and a level of performance that can equal its more expensive sibling in most conventional home theater situations, and in some environments even better it.