Mark Fleischmann

What struck me about my DTS briefing is that the formidable licensor of surround standards has dual strategies in two areas. One is sound enhancement for portable devices. For high-end surround headphone use, there's Head Tracker, which causes the soundfield to follow your head movements -- just like in this pic of a dude turning his head. Head Tracker will be built into an Onkyo receiver. For lower-end portable uses, DTS offers Envelo, which deals with the problems of highly compressed audio formats. DTS's other dual strategy arrives with the acquisition of Neural Surround, a matrixed adaptation format, which overlaps a little on existing Neo:6 territory. But the DTS people say the two circuits will find different applications, with Neo:6 (again) as the high-end player and Neural focusing on low-bit-rate applications like broadcast and MP3 (it's already used in XM, or now Sirius XM, satellite radio). DTS will be among the surround licensors to offer height channels with Advanced Neo. It will adapt 7.1 sources to 10.2, 11.2, or 12.2 channels, and is now being discussed with a/v receiver makers.

The Focal XS is one cool-looking 2.1-channel iThing-docking multimedia system. It has a 24-bit USB DAC, 30 watts times two, and 70-watt sub for $599. The price includes a card remote.

This is the system that decouples the Totem Wind from the floor. It consists of a back piece plus a front "claw" filled with different sizes of ball bearings. That enables a form of tuning that helps the speaker mate with the room and the amp, we were told. The claw somehow escaped our camera -- see full-size photo in the first item above. Still, two pretty blue pictures in a row. That's class.

Naming a series of iThing docking systems for the sainted songwriter of early Pink Floyd may seem an excellent idea but the Kanto people insisted this was the furthest thing from their minds. The Syd 5 ($349) is nice and chunky with an AC jack that would make it convenient to connect a wireless bridge. The smaller Syd 4 ($159) has dual slot ports in front to increase bass response from the sub driver deep in the back of the enclosure. See Syd Play. Astronomy Kantonome. Gigolo Kanto. You can never have too many Syd Barrett references.