Introduction
Zvox
Audio may sound like a new brand name, but President Tom Hannaher is no
stranger to the high fidelity electronics industry. Tom has worked at
Advent, with such industry pioneers such as Henry Kloss, the inventor
of projection television and high fidelity cassette decks. Later,
Hannaher went on to run the marketing of Cambridge Soundworks before
eventually transferring his energy to Zvox. What this impressive resume
boils down to is that Hannaher knows both the audio and visual side of
the home theater business. Even better news is that Hannaher surrounds
himself with talent that can create an incredible-sounding miniature
amplifier/speaker system that can be easily set up and enjoyed. The
Zvox Mini can provide amply rich sound in virtually any room, with the
simplest of connections and fine-tuning, for a modest $199.

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Introduction
Back
in the day, which in the world of consumer electronics can mean
yesterday, televisions and flat panel displays could cost as much as a
car. Today, we have companies like Vizio that are feverishly working to
put an end to the notion that you have to pay a lot to get a lot.

A few months ago I wrote about another fine Vizio product, the P42HDe
plasma display. While P42 had its faults, it was one of the greatest
values in all of home theater. I say “was” because the P42, as reviewed
in January, has been discontinued to make way for a newer model coming
out in March. Shortly, after my unsolicited review of the P42, Vizio
contacted me and set me up with their 50-inch high-definition set, the
P50HDM. The P50HDM has already found its way onto several publications’
Top 10 lists and is riding a huge wave of popularity among
budget-conscious consumers. This didn’t surprise me. What did surprise
me was the P50’s asking price: $2,599.99. That couldn’t possibly be
right, even after my experience with the P42HDe. A quick gander at an
online electronics giant revealed 55 different types of plasma or LCD
TVs for sale. Out of the 55, there were 22 larger than 42 inches
diagonally (all of them plasma). Out of that 22, not a single one was
at or under the P50’s asking price. In fact, the only displays
approaching the P50’s price range were all sporting screen sizes less
than 37 inches diagonally.

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Proclaim Audioworks, a recently launched Connecticut-based audiophile
loudspeaker manufacturer, has introduced its first product, the DMT-100
loudspeaker system. The DMT-100 represents a departure from
conventional high-end loudspeaker design, providing a comprehensive and
fundamental set of performance adjustments ever offered in a retail
speaker system.

Each DMT-100 speaker consists of a trio
of individual spherical enclosures arranged on a unique milled aluminum
base that allows each driver's position to be independently adjusted
for optimum performance. The included external crossover network allows
further customization thanks to adjustable midrange/tweeter level
controls that can be used to balance the stereo image and adjust
tonality. This adjustment circuitry can also be removed from the
circuit and replaced with precision audiophile resistors for the
greatest possible signal purity.

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Accelerating its presence in the global custom home theater market and
its corporate initiative to capitalize on high-value specialty display
products and solutions, Planar Systems, Inc. has announced it has
acquired the assets of privately-held Runco International, Inc. for
$36.7 million in cash. Financing to fund the purchase price consisted
of $14.7 million in existing cash and $22.0 million of borrowing from
the Company’s amended credit facility.

Known worldwide
for producing the world’s finest home theater products, Runco has been
a leading brand in the high-end, custom home theater market for the
past two decades, and has developed some of the industry’s most
advanced home theater solutions, such as CineWide (patent pending)
technology and Video Xtreme projection equipment. Runco currently
delivers outstanding home theater solutions priced from $3,000 to
$250,000, which have consistently won awards for picture quality and
performance. In addition, the Vidikron brand, including the
award-winning Vision Series, has been part of Runco since 2002 after
being founded in 1980.

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Exceptional Innovation, makers of Life|ware, announces the launch of a
new line of Life|media servers, optimized for complete digital
entertainment experiences and comprehensive home automation.

Using benchmark internal components and the look and feel of a high-end
A/V receiver, Life|media provides from 500GB to 4.5 Terabytes of
storage for digital music, movies, pictures, and recorded TV as well as
instant access to Life|ware’s complete home control via the user’s home
network. The servers come in configurations that include Digital
CableCARD, NTSC or ATSC tuners, a DVD RW Drive (HDDVD & Blu-ray
forthcoming), and feature optical audio with Dolby Master Studio
decoding.

"Exceptional Innovation has been a terrific leader in creating
whole-home media and control solutions," said Joe Belifore, Microsoft's
Corporate Vice President, Entertainment and Devices for the eHome
division. "Life|ware has been instrumental in bringing MCE into the
CEDIA channel and we are now thrilled to have them as an OEM
introducing this line of professional media servers."

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Marantz America, a renowned manufacturer of advanced home entertainment
solutions introduced an upgraded version of its groundbreaking VP-11S1
High-Definition DLP front projector that features HDMI 1.3 inputs with
Deep Color capability. With its HDMI 1.3 Deep Color capability and
12-bit color depth, the upgraded VP-11S1 is capable of displaying an
astonishing 68 Billion colors! All VP-11S1 units now shipping to
retailers will incorporate the upgrade, with no increase in the
suggested retail price of $19,999. In addition, Marantz will be
offering a service solution for units currently in the field, which
will allow all existing VP-11S1 owners to have their projectors
upgraded to HDMI 1.3 with Deep Color (Pricing for the upgrade will be
announced shortly.).

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Outlaw Audio, a leading direct-to-consumer Internet electronics
manufacturer, has introduced its first full-range loudspeaker, the
Outlaw Bookshelf Loudspeaker. Designed and hand-built in the USA to
audiophile-grade performance standards, it is equally adept for use in
high-end two-channel or home theater applications.

"Since we launched Outlaw eight years ago, hardly a day has gone by
without someone asking us about speakers," commented an Outlaw
spokesman. "As many of us have a great amount of experience with
loudspeakers, it seemed like a fair question. However, the reality is
that we were hesitant to enter the highly crowded field of loudspeakers
unless we felt we could offer something truly special at a great price.
Well, now we can do just that – and it gives us great pleasure to
introduce our first loudspeaker."

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Disney/Buena Vista Entertainment threw a premiere party at the
Highlands Nightclub in Hollywood on Monday night to promote their
upcoming release of the first two Pirates movies on Blu-ray. Both
movies, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl and Dead
Man’s Chest will be released on the Blu-ray format on May 22, 2007.

The Blu-ray release of Dead Man’s Chest features new BD Java
technology. The Liar’s Dice game is a fully interactive,
high-definition special feature on the disc that should easily surpass
all existing features and set a new standard for the format’s special
features.

At
the event, it was also announced that Chronicles Of Narnia will be the
next film to be released on Blu-ray by Disney/Buena Vista.

Last night’s Blu-ray display of the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead
Man’s Chest on a 101-inch Panasonic Plasma screen yielded stunning
results. The release of these films should be a giant success for the
Blu-ray camp.

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Music downloads, specifically from Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store,
have gotten all of the press in terms of music sales in the past five
years. Apple has been able to harness the naughty consumer excitement
behind stealing music from the likes of Napster and Limewire, resulting
in not just the sale of zillions of their sexy and convenient iPods to
the masses, but also millions upon millions of legitimate DRM (digital
rights managed) music files. The impact on the surface has been so
powerful that users of both Mac and PCs use Apple’s system as an easy,
powerful and convenient way to buy music. Apple’s success as both a
hardware and software provider has been so impactful that music
retailers, ranging from independent yet prominent stores like Aaron’s
Records to content-minded chains like Tower Records, are now nothing
but a bankrupt memory.

As an avid collector of music
since I got my first-generation Sony Discman when I was 10 years old, I
must say I am amazed that people are as in love with buying songs by
the download as they are. Yes, the process is convenient but the value
simply stinks compared to buying used CDs. While your local music
retailer may have been recently converted to a Kinko’s or a Starbucks,
you still can buy CDs online and you can buy them used. My current MP3
collection of songs ripped from my CD collection both past and present
is about 88,000 songs. Amazingly, I find there are things missing and I
am easily able to add them in at prices that make downloads look silly.
I realized I was missing a copy of Van Halen’s very under-rated Diver
Down cover album. I was able to pick one up used from Amazon for $2.99,
plus a nominal fee for shipping. The disc arrived in good shape and I
ripped it for use on my iPod and then ripped it onto my ReQuest Audio
music server at home in a lossless format for use in my reference
theater, as well as in my distributed audio system. I added “Little
Guitars” to my Guitar Heroes playlist for hopeless play-along sessions
and then parked the CD in my media storage case for future use. I got
all of this value for about $3.50, when downloading all of the 12 songs
from iTunes would have cost me $0.99 each or $9.99 for the entire
record. This includes me owning the disc with no DRM on it, being able
to rip it lossless, as well as in lossy formats for my MP3 device, all
at one-third the price of a downloaded, copy-protected record from
Apple.

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