HT Staff

Do you want your home theater system to have that "sucker punches in your gut" feel you got at your local cinema when T-Rex stomped his way through San Diego? Do you need your pant legs to flap with each bass line, just as they did at the recent Metallica concert? Want to be as emotionally attached to the recorded version of Beethoven's Fifth as when you heard the cellos and timpani pound out that familiar triplet live at the concert hall? Would you like James Earl Jones' voice-over for CNN to sound less like Mickey Mouse and more like, well, Darth Vader? If so, it's time for you to invest in a subwoofer.

Lawrence, Kansas—based MartinLogan, one of the world’s premier manufacturers of electrostatic loudspeakers, has announced its new “Theater” center channel speaker for home theater use. The Theater is intended to accompany any of the company’s CLS[TM] (curvilinear line source) electrostatic panels, which range in price from $1,695 to $70,000 per pair. The “Theater” is claimed to offer a “new reference level” for center channel speakers.

British loudspeaker maker B&W is moving into the home theater market in a big way with its new affordable CDM NT series. Four high-performance models include a center channel, freshly designed surround speakers, and two new full-range stereo pairs.