Featured Gear

Photos by Tony Cordoza

Riding the bus to school was always a drag, so it felt great to be able to slide behind the wheel of my new car and drive there on the morning of my 16th birthday. Each day after that I'd wake up late, then get halfway home before all the losers who didn't have wheels even got on the bus.

Photos by Tony Cordoza

At a glance, you'd probably think that Panasonic's $1,000 DMR-HS2 looks pretty much like every other DVD recorder out there-including the Panasonic DMR-E30 that I reviewed just last month. But the DMR-HS2's chassis carries clues that something more is going on here.

Photos by Tony Cordoza Check it out: In the Lab Features Checklist At the height of the stock-market bubble a few years back, I'd occasionally field a call from a rich guy - or his assistant - seeking advice on the cool, new flat-panel plasma TVs he'd been hearing about.

Yes, an R2D2-sized subwoofer with an 18-inch driver and a thousand-plus watts of amplification can look and sound awfully impressive - and can cause some pretty serious seismic damage to boot. But let's get real: how many of us can afford something like that?

Photos by Tony Cordoza

There are high-priced major-league baseball players (is that redundant?), and then there are the Mark McGuires and Sammy Sosas - players whose abilities and accomplishments leave even their overpaid teammates in awe. The same holds true as you approach the stratospheric reaches of high-end A/V receivers.