Mark Fleischmann

Remember, the Sherwood R-972 receiver with Trinnov room correction? It's now scheduled to arrive in December for $1800, and is probably worth the wait, judging from the demo. Despite deliberately misplaced speakers -- center too low and to the right, others too high -- it generated a warm and rich soundfield that was surprisingly vivid and involving. And it did so in two locations, the first with an orthodox seven-speaker array, and the second using only the right side-surround and right rear-surround. The idea is that you may want to listen in different locations, a good idea for rooms with more than one piece of furniture, right? The setup mic is an unusual four-part object. Of the three parts of the room-EQ process (measurement, analysis, correction) it's the analysis that's special, as Trinnov founder Arnaud Laborie explained while showing the professional version of the product. It's pictured. Notice the two color-coded speaker sets: one showing the front speakers where they ought to be, and the other one showing where they actually are.

Cool your rack with one of these dedicated fans from Active Thermal Management and, the company promises, you'll never need to use a fire extinguisher on your system.

Custom Theater System is the name Classé is giving a new series of rack-mount amps coming in spring. They include a 10-channel pre-pro, 300-watt Class AB monoblock, 600-watt Class AB monoblock, 300-watt Class AB stereo amp, and surround amp with 200 watts times five.

Two of three new Marantz receivers have onboard decoding of Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, and both flavors of DTS-HD. They include the SR6003, 100 watts times seven, $1200; the SR 5003, 90 watts, $800; and the SR4003, 80 watts, $549; all available September. That third one has high-res PCM input, so it'll have no trouble getting the good stuff from a Blu-ray player's built-in decoder. Marantz has one of those too – the BD7003, due in November for $799, is Profile 1.1/Bonus View, not Profile 2.0/BD Live. Marantz also made an odd decision affecting two new SACD players, the SA1552 ($1999) and SA8003 ($999). They have neither HDMI 1.2 outputs nor analog multichannel-outs. Presumably Marantz is aiming them at a two-channel audience. Pictured: BD7003 Blu atop SR6003 receiver.