Tom Norton

I was going to give you the specs for Toshiba's new HD-XA2, but why don't I just show them to you? Notice that while the player supports Dolby TrueHD, it only supports the core track of DTS HD Master Audio. That is, the player will not decode DTS HD Master Audio to full resolution multichannel PCM for transmission to your audio system via HDMI as digital PCM (or convert it to analog for extraction from the player's analog outs in full resolution). Instead it will play back such a track as standard DTS. Presumably it will transmit DTS HD Master Audio in its native form through the HDMI 1.3 link, but we still will need AV receivers or pre-pros that will accept and decode that form of signal from an HDMI 1.3 connection. As yet, none will do so, but we expect to see them within the next year.

Samsung announced major improvements to its line of LCD TVs. For 2007, it's adding several technologies designed to increase contrast ratio, improve blacks, and reduce motion blur. Super Clear Panel adds a filter to cut down on stray light. Local Dimming adds LED backlighting which treats specific areas of the screen, where needed, to increase contrast ratio up to a claimed 100,000:1. And Double Frame Rate 120 Hz is said to reduce motion blur.

Yamaha's new Soavo speaker line currently has five models, the Soavo 1 floor stander and and Soavo 2 bookshelf, plus a center, surround, and subwoofer. the big Suovo 1 is priced at $1800 (each). They're classy-looking and appear to be very well built. A brief 2-channedl audition in a small demo room on the show floor (not the best listening conditions) revealed an extremely tight bass response, but a rather forward midrange and high frequency balance. Still, they are definitely worth a closer audition under better conditions.

Earthquake's premier subwoofer driver is said to have a peak-to-peak excursion capability of 4". Feel the Earth move.