California's proposed energy efficiency standards for television sets will cost consumers money, says the Consumer Electronics Association in a study to be released this week.
Price: $4,494 At A Glance: Distinctive angular form makes for an un-boxy look • All drivers utilize Ceramic Metal Matrix Diaphragms • Subwoofer has bloat-killing EQ and wireless option
Curves Ahead
Where ideas are concerned,” the late George Carlin said, “America can be counted on to do one of two things: take a good idea and run it completely into the ground or take a bad idea and run it completely into the ground.” Many loudspeaker manufacturers tend to follow one of these two trains of thought, with results that range from staid to disheartening. But there is a third path, the one that Infinity Systems follows, and it will take more than a sentence to summarize, period, enter, tab.
Price: $500 At A Glance: Fits under flat panels that weigh 90 pounds or less • Five 2-inch drivers, one 5.25-inch woofer • Balanced sound with minimal surround
What’s in That Black Box?
What if you opened up your home-theater-in-a-box system only to find—another box? Would you suspect you had suddenly plunged into an unpublished chapter of Through the Looking Glass, a strange alternate universe where boxes contain boxes? Would you be afraid that inside the second box, there might be a third box? And inside the third, a fourth? Was dropping acid and going to the Museum of Modern Art in 1978 really such a good idea?
As the LCD and plasma categories have matured, some manufacturers have been developing next-generation displays that would supposedly take performance to the next level. One of those display technologies was the Field Emission Display (FED). Alas, Sony has pulled the plug.
The bad news, at least for some, is that AT&T will begin sending warning notices to its internet service customers who engage in illegal file sharing. The good news is that this is the Recording Industry Association of America's new alternative to filing mass lawsuits.
Price: $1,099 At A Glance: THX Loudness Plus enhances sonic impact at low volumes • Audyssey 2EQ offers better than average auto setup and EQ • Faroudja DCDi video processing
Say Hello to THX I/S Plus
Why are home theater products littered with logos? Because manufacturers don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Rather than design its own loudness enhancement, auto-setup program, or video-processing chip, a company like Onkyo will license one of these goodies from THX, Audyssey, or Faroudja. Or in the case of the HT-S9100THX integrated system, it will use all three.