Daniel Kumin

The Walls Are Alive

On-wall speakers from KEF, M&K, and Theil promise superb home theater sound without taking over your room

By Daniel Kumin
Posted August 18, 2004

Flat-panel TV is the 900-pound gorilla currently ruling the home theater roost. More and more people are deciding that, yeah, a steep price, grayish blacks, and the occasional digital video glitch really are worth it for a hang-on-the-wall TV that's big, bright, and bodacious - décor-wise.

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Home Theater on a Budget

Speaker systems from Energy, Hsu Research, and JBL show that surround sound doesn’t have to be expensive to be good

By Daniel Kumin
Posted October 16, 2004

No, these aren't HTiB systems - home theaters in a box. You'll need to add more than just a TV to them before you can kick back and enjoy a movie theaterlike experience at home.

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Denon AVR-2805 Digital Surround Receiver

By Daniel Kumin
Posted December 28, 2004

Sure, it's great to be an "early adopter" of new technology. You get to play with the latest, coolest gear before any of your oh-so-20th-century friends, and you can learn about new trends as they emerge, transforming yourself into a thundering bore . . . er, valued cocktail-party guest.

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Pioneer DVR-320 and DVR-520H Video Recorders

By Daniel Kumin
Posted December 4, 2004

Unlike almost everything else, the price of new home-entertainment gear moves only one way - down. While $99 DVD recorders bulk-stacked at the Quik-Mart are still a few years away, DVD recorders have already come down to match what a high-end VCR used to cost. Witness Pioneer's new DVR-320 and DVR-520H, with list prices of just $399 and $599, respectively.

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Boston Acoustics Plasma Series Home Theater Speakers

By Daniel Kumin
Posted February 24, 2005

Until some enterprising soul invents a software-defined virtual speaker, designers of real speakers will keep trying to make them less obtrusive. That's certainly the idea behind Boston Acoustics' P400, star of the company's Plasma Series.

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Denon AVR-5805 Digital Surround Receiver

By Daniel Kumin
Posted May 1, 2005

Don't buy this receiver if you have a bad back, a rickety rack, or a bulging credit limit. Because Denon's latest flagship, the AVR-5805, is as tall as many receivers are deep, as deep as many are wide, as heavy as a pair of many other flagship models - and as expensive as a two-year-old Kia.

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Right On!

Plasma-friendly on-wall speaker systems from Atlantic Technology, Klipsch, and Magnepan

By Daniel Kumin
Posted April 6, 2005

Santa squeezed an awful lot of flat-panel TVs down an awful lot of chimneys last year. (He bends the space-time continuum, that's how.) And as those lucky households recover from holiday bills, thoughts are turning to sleek on-wall speaker systems to finish the job.

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Tiny Killer Subs

Can you get big bad bass from little bitty boxes?

By Daniel Kumin
Posted June 20, 2005

What's big and black, rumbles a lot, and can go really, really deep? If you said "a submarine," you're right. If you said "a subwoofer," you're half right.

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Pioneer VSX-74TXVi Digital Surround Receiver

By Daniel Kumin
Posted October 4, 2005

Pioneer sure packed an awful lot of stuff into its new A/V receiver, the Elite VSX-74TXVi, beginning with the mouthful of letters in its model name. Far more engaging is its iPod connectivity: this is the first receiver we've seen to offer fully integrated control for Apple's ubiquitous iPod music player.

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Cinema Grand

Three great systems for a thousand and change

By Daniel Kumin
Posted November 4, 2005

For decades, you could walk into most electronics stores and find speakers that were small and good, or small and cheap - but rarely all three. Times have changed. With advances in acoustics and the advent of computer-aided design for speaker drivers and enclosures, today you can get great sound from plenty of small, inexpensive speakers.

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