Sennheiser is one of the oldest manufacturers of headphones and has a clear commitment to the high end side of the market, which many others do not.

The HD650 headphones from Sennheiser manages to reveal new elements of tracks we would listened hundreds of times, especially when the audio source is of very high quality such as CDDA. With the HD650, audiophiles will experience truly unique natural sound for about $500.

Epson EMP-TW1000 Home Theater Projector incorporates the latest HDMI 1.3 port, 3 LCD technology to achieve 1200 lumens. That’s a contrast king with a ratio of 12000:1. This compact projector has a native resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080), full HD.

The device has 2.1X optical zoom and OptiFocus technology for huge & sharp images and it produces less sound than its competitors at 26dB.

LG Electronics is shipping the first and only player capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD DVD format discs on the market. LG BH100 ”The Super Multi Blue Player” is about $1200 and that’s the price of one Blu-ray player and one HD DVD player. Besides that, the unit is slower than a Blu-Ray-only unit and HD-DVD-only unit to start discs.

So? It looks like it’s still better to choose a winner for yourself and set your home theatre system up with the format you like the most.

Wallet MP3 by Walletex is the world’s thinnest MP3 player. Made of double laminated unbreakable plastic and easily connects to your PC for uploading and exchanging MP3 files while the battery is recharged.

Water proof, dust proof, and temperature resistant. Double sided USB connector has three functions: Audio jack, USB communication and charging.

Lithium-ion battery allows up to 5 hours of playback.

Memory capacity ranges from 128MB to 2GB. 4GB model is planned for the next summer season.

JBL Spyro looks like it’s designed with the ladies in mind. Two four-leafed clovers and a huge mushroom for your desktop. What you get is this cute design and the sound quality you would expect from JBL / Harman Kardon.

Power:

• Satellites: 6 Watts
• SubWoofer: 24 Watts

SurroundBar from Polk Audio is a cleverly designed speaker system that employs SDA surround (Stereo Dimensional Array) technology to create the illusion of rear channel speakers without any actual rear speakers. A seperate power Sub-Woofer is still essential.

SurroundBar is not to be considered better than a real 5.1 theatre system but it offers satisfactory performance without having to mount rear speakers or run wires when they can’t be hidden. SurroundBar is for those who don’t have perfectly symmetrical rooms with no obstacles around for a nice 5.1 setup or those who don’t want to share their rooms with many loudspeakers. Suitable for small rooms and apartment suits.

How can a single front located speaker produce surround sound?
The technology used in the SurroundBar® for producing surround sound is called “SDA Surround”. Based on a fundamental understanding of how our ears perceive and process sound, SDA Surround uses a combination of signal processing and acoustic wave front reconstruction (AWFR) to create a soundfield comparable to having dozens of speakers located around the room. The SurroundBar® actually contains 7 active drive units, 3 tweeters and inputs for all 5 channels including surround channels. Multiple drive units positioned the same distance apart as your ears allow the SurroundBar® to eliminate the sound information that tells your ears where the speakers are located and replace it with the correct surround sound information from the original recording. As a result you no longer “hear” the location of the speakers in front of you. Instead, the sounds you hear are essentially the same as if there actually were sounds coming from all around and behind you.

Are you interested in the best of the best speaker ever designed? We really mean the extreme, the supreme speaker there is on the planet earth as of this date. Here it is! 101 e Radialstrahler by MBL of Germany.

It looks like a blender and actually what it does is to blend the sound into your room. The position of the omnidirectional speakers could hardly be found out. Speakers release waves so naturally and perfectly that you can explore new sounds in your favorite songs you’ve listened hundreds of times before.

Due to its revolutionary construction the Radialstrahler is able to produce three-dimensional sound in the living room at home that corresponds to that of a concert hall. In theory, this concept is simple, but brilliant: Like a musical instrument, the Radialstrahler radiates the sound waves in all directions – and not only in one direction like other speakers.

Radialstrahler isn’t a tiny thing. This also makes it a statue, a piece of art in your living room-?

WxDxH= 450 x 500 x 1700 mm (16 x 18 x 67 inch)
Weight= 80 kg (176 lbs)

Price? You better don’t ask! or - expect to hear “only $48,000.00, Sir. Shipping is free!”

The InFocus IN76 is a very fine design with a nice aesthetic. Glossy black is always good.

IN 76 is a DLP video projector with 1280×720 wide-screen resolution that is capable of providing bright(1000 ANSI lumens), sharp(3000:1 contrast ratio) and bigger images than any current flat screen technology.

IN76 is the highest resolution model of InFocus’ Play Big series. Other models include IN74 @ 1024×576 and IN72 @ 854×480 resolutions with the same black & silver casework.

B&W’s CM1 The speaker box is finished in natural veneers (Maple, Rosenut and Wenge) and polished aluminum rings to complement its drive units.

• Despite the size, unbelievable bass output
• Nice sound tone color and detail
• Excellent build quality and finish

• Kevlar has properties that benefit the cones of wide bandwidth drivers.
• Flowport uses golf ball aerodynamics theory to achieve lower turbulence distortion in reflex ports.
• Tapered tubes filled with fibrous material effectively absorb the unwanted sound from the back of the drive unit.

With a price tag of about $900 a pair, CM1 is actually a good value for money in its audiophile class of mini-monitor loudspeakers. Suitable to complement your HiFi amplifier.

Muse Research Receptor is a hardware that is capable of running VST Plug-ins and VST instruments without the need of a computer. It can be connected to a computer via ethernet or can be used through its own interface with a standard monitor. MIDI instruments can be directly connected to Receptor. You aren’t limited with the pre-installed plugins. New VST plugins can be installed by a simple drag & drop action into the plugins folder of the unit.

With its own harddrive, CPU, RAM and soundcard, Receptor provides a more stabil environment for music production compared to a computer. However, besides the stability, the selling point of this equipment is actually its ease of use so that you don’t have to go through many menus and setup screens and start playing right after you switch the power button.

Is it essential? Well, no. But it’s about comfort and charisma! In a concert for example, a computer would look quite weird on the stage. You got the idea.

When it comes to performance, VST is based on sound recordings called samples and the performance is mainly dependent on how quickly you reach the data. It’s possible to get similar results from a high-end PC with a superb fast harddisk like Western Digital Raptor and a CPU such as a dual core AMD X2. But again, comfort and charisma must be there with you on the stage!