Denon
The first universal player from Denon, the DVD-2900 will play both DVD-Audio discs and Super Audio CDs, and it has Dolby Digital and DTS decoders, too. It's said to provide digital bass management for both high-res audio formats, and there's a progressive-scan component-video output with 2:3 pulldown to compensate for differences in the frame rate between film and video material. If you have a disc full of JPEG photos, just plop it in the tray to see them onscreen, plus the player can read Kodak Picture CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, CDs with MP3 files, and DVD-R/RWs. A 16-megabyte (MB) buffer prevents image freeze-ups when changing layers on a dual-layer DVD. There are two composite/S-video outputs and both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs. Price: $999. www.usa.denon.com, 973-396-0810

Definitive Technology
From its 14-inch subwoofer to its 52 1/2-inch height, there really isn't anything small about Definitive Technology's BP7000SC flagship speaker. A Class D amplifier—rated at 1,800 watts—powers the subwoofer, which is combined with a pair of 14-inch passive radiators. The bipolar tower has front- and rear-mounted driver arrays, each with a pair of 6 1/2-inch woofers and a 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter in between. Rated bandwidth is 11 Hz to 30 kHz, and the footprint is 9 x 16 5/8 inches. The BP7000SC's "little" brother, the BP7001SC (right in photo), with a 10-inch subwoofer and passive radiators, is rated down to 13 Hz. It stands 4 feet tall, and its built-in amp is rated to deliver 1,500 watts. Both come in a gloss black or cherry finish. Prices: BP7000SC, $2,499 each; BP7001SC, $1,749 each. www.definitivetech.com, 410-363-7148

Kenwood
If you think the LCD readout on your car stereo is too small, Kenwood's KDC-MP922 CD receiver will help you see clearer. Its motorized faceplate slides down to make room for an extra-large color display, and when it closes, the faceplate flips inward to show only a blank, black panel—nothing any thief would be interested in. The head uses SRS WOW audio processing to create surround sound from stereo sources. It's also said to elevate sound vertically if your speakers are near the floor. Dual-zone operation lets you feed sound from different sources to the front and rear seats. Dedicated jacks let you hook the receiver directly to separate tuners for HD Radio (see page 66) and Sirius satellite radio, and the CD player can read MP3 files on CD-R or CD-RW discs. The amplifier section is rated to deliver 50 watts to each of four channels. Price: $480. www.kenwoodusa.com, 310-638-9000

Outlaw Audio
The Outlaw Audio Model 200 M-Block power amp can feed a back surround channel in your home theater with watts to spare. It's rated to deliver 200 watts continuous into an 8-ohm load, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, with less than 0.05% total harmonic distortion. Its proprietary hybrid Class AB/G design is said to operate as Class AB up to 80 watts and transition to Class G within 2 microseconds whenever it needs to put out more power. The efficient design makes a noisy cooling fan unnecessary, and the amp measures a slim 17 x 1 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches; weight is 18 pounds. In standby mode, either a standard trigger or an audio signal at its RCA jack will bring the amp to life. The output connectors are gold-plated multiway binding posts. Price: $299. www.outlawaudio.com, 866-688-5297

Belkin
As your home theater grows, so does its demand for power—and the outlets that supply it. When they start to become scarce, it's time to cast your eyes on a surge protector like Belkin's PureAV Isolator, designed with A/V systems in mind. It has a 12-foot power cord and ten outlets, widely spaced to accommodate the girth of AC adapters, and it's rated to protect against sudden, powerful surges (up to 4,720 joules). There are also phone-line jacks with a built-in splitter and two pairs of gold-plated RF connectors for cable, antenna, or satellite signals. Three colored LEDs indicate whether protection circuitry is operating and can warn you if there is an outlet wiring fault. Grooves along both sides let you tuck away the cables. Price: $100. www.belkin.com, 310-898-1100

ATC
Want your home theater speakers to have a personal touch? The hand-built designs of the Concept 1 system from ATC of England may fit your order. The 5.1-channel system comprises four 11 3/4-inch-tall SCM7 speakers for the front L/R and surround positions, a C1C center speaker, and the C1 subwoofer. Rated for a frequency response of 60 Hz to 20 kHz –6 dB, the SCM7 has a 5-inch midrange/woofer and a 1-inch tweeter. The C1C center speaker measures 23 5/8 x 6 3/8 x 8 1/8 inches and has a pair of 5-inch woofers. The C1 sub, with a 9-inch driver powered by a 250-watt amp, is rated from 20 Hz to 250 Hz –6 dB. The system comes in cherry or rosewood real-veneer finishes. Prices: cherry, $4,300; rosewood, $4,800. www.atc.gb.net, 888-653-5454

CinePanel
When you consider the effect of standing waves and unwanted room reflections, sometimes sound itself can be the worst enemy of good audio. But with one of PMI's CinePanel acoustic-treatment kits in your viewing room, you may conquer the enemy yet. The kit consists of 10 to 20 wall panels (depending on room size), arranged in pairs with an absorber and a diffuser, each about 2 x 4 feet and sloped from 2 1/2 to 4 inches thick. The absorbers are made of wool covered in fiberglass, while the diffusers are made of polyethylene with a low acoustic resonance. Various colors and fabric styles are available to match your décor. Can you hear me now? Good! Prices: $2,318 to $4,637. www.cinepanel.com, 415-454-2087

Sima
Are you at the point where you need a separate coffee table for your remote controls? Time for a universal model like Sima's SUR-25, which combines "soft" touchscreen controls with "hard" buttons. It can operate up to ten components and has both a built-in database of codes and can learn them from your existing remotes. You can store 100 macro command sequences, each with up to 60 commands set in motion with one button press. The 256 kilobytes of flash memory will retain all of your programming even when the four AA batteries die. A Quick Channel feature can group your favorite TV channels into categories like Sports or Movies. The SUR-25 measures 3 1/4 x 7 3/8 x 1 1/4 inches and weighs 12 ounces. Both the hard buttons and the screen are backlit. Price: $120. www.simacorp.com, 800-345-7462

Sampo
Plasma TV prices are on their way south, and the latest trailblazer is Sampo's PME-50X6 HDTV monitor. For the tidy sum of $6,999 you get 50 inches of plasma capable of displaying high-definition images. The widescreen panel's native resolution is 1,366 x 768 pixels, and you can feed high-def signals to the set's DVI, VGA, or two component-video inputs. The built-in line doubler has 2:3 pulldown processing to compensate for the different frame rates of film and video, and watching two programs at once is easy with either the picture-in-picture or side-by-side picture functions. The set also has built-in speakers with a virtual surround sound feature. An optional NTSC tuner module costs $300. www.sampoamericas.com, 866-726-7622

MusicTote
Okay, you're the President of Cool at the beach with your high-tech portable MP3 player, but how can you share the music with the pretty young thing the next towel over? Answer: the MusicTote portable speaker system, whose cable plugs into the headphone minijack of your portable player to feed sound to its detachable speakers. The compact system measures 12 x 8 1/4 x 3 1/2 inches and weighs only 2 3/4 pounds without any cargo, but there's room for plenty of CDs. And be sure to bring along an extra 9-volt battery if you plan to use it longer than about 5 hours. The onboard amp is rated to deliver 1 watt continuous (25 watts peak) to each speaker, whose oval-shaped drivers measure 3 x 1 3/4 inches. Price: $30. www.musictote.com, 800-255-6702

AudioControl
With its library of more than 100 command protocols and an RS-232 control interface, AudioControl's Maestro processor is well suited for custom-installed home theaters. The THX Ultra2-certified processor can decode 6.1-channel Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES soundtracks and has Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6 processing for multichannel playback from stereo sources. The processor has an eight-channel analog audio input for hookup of a Super Audio CD or DVD-Audio player. The three wideband component-video inputs allow easy switching of HDTV or progressive-scan DVD signals, and you get five composite/S-video inputs, too. There are A/V outputs for a second zone. Price: $5,995. www.audiocontrol.com, 425-775-8461

Proficient
Creating a stereo image with outdoor speakers is a challenge, but Proficient's AW500TT speaker rises to the occasion by combining the two channels into one cabinet. Its 5 1/4-inch dual-voice-coil woofer is said to provide smooth, deep bass response by combining the left- and right-channel midrange and low-frequency signals. Both 1-inch soft-dome tweeters can pivot, and there are two pairs of gold-plated binding posts. Rated frequency response is 38 Hz to 20 kHz –6 dB. The speaker comes with a powder-coated aluminum grille and a zinc-coated mounting bracket. Price: $225 each. www.proficientaudio.com, 909-787-9940

Zenith
Forget the digital set-top TV tuner—why not get everything you need for digital TV in one package? Zenith's C34W37 TV is a 34-inch widescreen direct-view set with a built-in HDTV tuner. You can also feed it external high-def signals by plugging them into its DVI or component-video inputs. It has a built-in line doubler with 2:3 pulldown processing, and its screen surface is virtually flat. For analog TV, dual NTSC tuners let you watch programs side by side or with an inset picture. Weight is 188 pounds. A backlit universal remote control is supplied. Price: $1,999. www.zenith.com, 847-391-7000

irock
Word on the street is that you could use a portable CD player. The irock BLiNG not only plays CDs but also CD-Rs and CD-RWs with MP3 files. Two-minute skip protection ensures you won't miss a beat even when you're on the run, and a three-line backlit LCD displays song titles and elapsed time for tracks with ID3 tags. No disc handy? You can always listen to the radio through the BLiNG's FM tuner, and control is easy even when you're jogging thanks to the wired remote. Six equalizer presets—such as Rock, Jazz, and Classical—adjust the sound to your taste. The BLiNG measures 5 1/8 x 5 7/8 x 1 1/8 inches and weighs 8 ounces. A battery charger is built in, and a single charging is said to last up to 15 hours. Price: $100. www.myirock.com, 847-202-1900

Peerless
Remember your old rolling TV table? Great for tube TVs, but plasma sets need something like the Solid-Point Articulating Swivel Mount from Peerless to move around. The swivel mount extends 30 1/2 inches but folds neatly behind the set when up against the wall, adding only 4 inches to the depth. Three pivot points on the arm allow you to swivel the mounted set up to 180° and tilt it 10° forward or 5° back. A side-to-side adjustment feature is said to keep the screen level however you twist it. The adapter plate is sold separately, and plates are available for sets with screens from 32 to 50 inches. Price: $475; adapter plate, $109. www.peerlessindustries.com, 800-865-2112

Boston Acoustics
If you need to fill a big home theater space with sound, check out Boston Acoustics' BT Series speakers, which are designed for high-output, custom home theaters. Each model in the series—the BT1 and BT2 speakers and the BT1200 subwoofer—has die-cast "finger pulls" and scratch-preventing pads to ease installation into custom-built cabinetry. The BT2 (shown) has a 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter, a 4 1/2-inch midrange, and two 8-inch woofers for a rated bandwidth of 60 Hz to 20 kHz. Dimensions are 17 1/2 x 10 x 13 inches. The BT1 has the same drivers but only one woofer, while the 500-watt BT1200 sub has an 8-inch driver rated down to 20 Hz. The mid/tweeter array on the BT1 and BT2 rotates 90° for more flexible placement. Prices: BT1, $1,000 each; BT2, $1,800 each; BT1200, $1,400. www.bostonacoustics.com, 978-538-5000

Acoustic Specialties
Flat-screen computer monitors are all the rage—why not pair yours with speakers to match? Acoustic Specialties' 5.1MS multimedia system uses NXT flat-panel technology in its five satellite speakers. Each speaker is 1 1/2 inches thick and has a rated bandwidth of 200 Hz to 20 kHz. With the 8-inch driver in the bass module, system bandwidth extends down to 35 Hz. The satellites connect to the 8 x 15 x 16-inch bass module, which has a full set of controls on its front panel and inputs for optical and coaxial digital audio and multichannel analog audio around back. Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel soundtracks are decoded onboard, and the built-in amplifier pumps out 320 watts of total power. Each satellite comes with a tabletop stand and wall-mounting hardware, and a remote control is supplied. Price: $400. www.acousticspecialties.net, 952-545-6122

Tributaries
In a custom-installed system, anything that lets you string less cable can help. Tributaries' DataSound Combo Wire combines Cat-5 data cable with four-conductor speaker wire, letting installers string a single cable for both applications. The speaker wire has a 65-strand count in each conductor, and the data cable is said to handle frequencies up to 350 MHz and bit rates up to 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps). The side-by-side two-jacket design keeps the cable flexible while allowing the two sides to be separated at either end. The wire is available in 500-foot spools with either white or pink—yes, pink—insulation. Price: $500. www.tributariescable.com, 800-521-1596

Creative
Like everyone else, you've had a hankering for some tunes when you're typing away at the computer, but what if you don't have a CD handy? When you've got Creative's Prodikeys keyboard, music is just a keystroke away. Combining a standard PC keyboard with 37 touch-sensitive music keys, the Prodikeys can simulate 128 different instruments. The supplied software has a learning mode for rookies as well as programs for creating customized performances for you P. Diddys out there. You can save music in WAV, MIDI, or MP3 format, and a Sound Blaster audio card is included. Price: $100. www.creative.com, 408-428-6600

Fosgate
Going retro doesn't mean you have to miss out on today's technology, at least not when you have Fosgate Audionics' FAP V1 vacuum-tube surround sound processor. Said to be the only tube processor equipped with Dolby Pro Logic II processing (which was invented by Jim Fosgate), the FAP V1 takes an analog stereo input signal and provides a multichannel output for surround sound playback. There are eight stereo inputs, a record loop, plus a multichannel analog input. The multichannel output includes two additional channels so you can accommodate 6.1 or 7.1-channel sound. In keeping with the retro theme, the front-panel controls are simple knobs and switches, including a control for center-channel width and a bass blend. The Bubinga wood paneling and polished anodized-aluminum faceplate are sure to turn heads in your listening room. The processor measures 19 7/8 x 10 1/4 x 15 1/8 inches. Price: $12,995. www.fosgateaudionics.com, 866-777-7282

Panasonic
DVD recorders inch ever closer to the mainstream with Panasonic's DMR-E50. The fourth-generation recorder can burn video programs to both DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs. DVD-Rs play in most DVD players, while DVD-RAM discs give you editing features and an instant-replay function, plus the ability to simultaneously play from and record to the same disc. No need to worry about recording over something accidentally—the deck will automatically find blank space on the disc. Also helping you time-shift are VCR Plus+ and a full-function remote control. A progressive-scan video output shows the DMR-E50 has got game as a player, too. Price: $600. www.panasonic.com, 800-211-7262

Toshiba
Get to know the name LCoS, for liquid crystal on silicon, because you may be hearing a lot more about this latest TV display technology (see page 94). Toshiba's first rear-projection LCoS set, the 57-inch 57HLX82, displays images at a native resolution of 1080p (progressive)—a higher spec than any other high-definition set. All input signals are upconverted to 1080p, and the set has component-video and DVI (Digital Visual Interface) inputs for high-def signals. There are no front-panel buttons. Instead, you can either use the remote control or activate a small onscreen touchpad by tapping the bottom corner of the display. The built-in 40-watt audio system has bottom-mounted woofers and screen-height tweeters for more realistic reproduction of dialogue, though it also has space below the screen for the center speaker of a home theater system. The cabinet is a relatively shallow 18 inches deep. Price: $9,000. www.toshiba.com/tacp, 800-631-3811