And Cinepro delivers on this promise. They used three pairs of their new Cinepro Evolution Mighty Powershelf speakers ($3,295 per pair, pictured above), each standing less than 14 inches tall. They teamed the Powershelf speakers with the Mighty Center Channel ($2,695), as well as two Evo subs ($4,995 each)—and all of their own Cinepro processing and amplification. To put it mildly, it was outrageous home theater. I don’t know what decibel levels they were hitting, but I can honestly say the entire sides of my trousers were moving as if in a strong breeze.

The kicker was that my ears didn’t feel like they were bleeding afterwards; this was what Gus had meant at the beginning of the demo. We featured the company’s Evo-2 system in Home Theater magazine in May of 2005. That system came in at around $70,000; the system I heard at HES comes in at around $50,000. While that’s not exactly cheap, it does represent the fact that you can have a stellar theatrical sound experience at a fraction of the cost of some systems.

It would be completely remiss of me to not mention the other components that played a major role at the Cinepro demo: The Vidabox Lux media center with Blu-ray and HD DVD playback, plus dual ARSC HDTV tuners ($7,000). This full-function server is capable of storing music, television programming, and movies on its hard drive. It has a Microsoft Media Center front end for easy access to all of your media (i.e., home movies, photos, music, etc.). With multizone capability and the ability to record HDTV, this could be the box of the future.

The projector the team chose for the show was the SIM2 Domino Series D80 1080p DLP projector ($8,500), which they paired with the Screen Innovations TMS-80 screen ($449). Again, this was a full-experience professional-grade demo. In fact, it was so good in the minuscule proportions of a hotel bedroom, I’d like to get all of these components together at our own testing lab for a full review for HT magazine. What do you say, guys?

This past weekend in NYC at the Home Entertainment Show, I watched Peter educate room after room of show attendees as to the power of the home theater experience.

For his main demo, Peter used five 8200e THX Ultra 2 speakers from Atlantic Technology, two dipole surrounds and new from Outlaw: The LFM-1EX Outlaw subs, for fully enveloping surround sound. He was also there to show off another new offering from Outlaw Audio, a 125-pound, seven-channel, 300-watt-per-channel beast of an amp: The Outlaw 7900 ($3,500).

Also part of the demo was a ProjectionDesign single-chip DLP, a Screen Research acoustically transparent screen, and the source was the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player—the crowds were riveted.

Peter also had on hand a new, still-in-development Outlaw LCR speaker that should be released by the end of summer. Log on to the HE Show report above to check out the Outlaw 7900 in closer detail and to see scores of other Home Entertainment Show gear…there will still be more to come from this exciting show!

This year’s show will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel adjacent to Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan. Four floors of the Hyatt will be dedicated to the show—that’s more than 100 demo rooms in all. In addition to all the latest and greatest gear and technology, there will be educational seminars with topics ranging from how to receive the full HDTV experience to testing, audio clinics, and more.

So make sure you grab your favorite demo material and head to midtown Manhattan on May 11,12, and 13 to experience some very hands-on superior entertainment. For more information, log on to Home Entertainment Show 2007 on this page. See you there!

This just makes sense as BRAVIA has already proven to be a well-respected moniker for Sony's HDTV LCD line.

In addition to projectors, micro-displays and LCDs, there will also be BRAVIA brand Home Theater-In-A-Box systems.

Three new BRAVIA HTIB systems will have a good/ better/best approach and pricing will of course reflect this. Each system will feature a 5-disc DVD changer, HDMI output and a digital media port for adding your portable media devices. This includes Bluetooth enabled-gear, WiFi PCs or select Network Walkman and iPod players.

Think of the great "Point of Sale" displays at Sony retailers where they'll be able to hang their good/better/best BRAVIA flat panel displays with the equivalent new BRAVIA HTIB systems. That should make the cash register ring.

LocationFree devices wirelessly stream TV programs, movies and your personal content to a variety of other devices.

While this is not completely new per se, what is new is the growing number of devices you can "place shift" your content to including: PlayStation portable units, Mac (with MAC OS X compatible software) and Windows based PCs, or remotely located TVs---wherever a broadband Internet connection is available.

The base stations will run around the $200 and stightly higher range---and along with a LocationFree TV box--- will be available in October. We'll try to get them in for review way before that!

Geoff has already blogged about some of the new Bravia TVs, the latest not yet released Blu-ray player, and the Bravia Internet Video Link.

I did a video clip from the Sony booth at CES in Jan. showing the Bravia Internet Video Link. This $300. add-on module seems like a great solution (when paired with a Bravia TV) to stream, not download, free content from specific content providers. To access my CES video clip from the Sony booth click here.

O.K. other new stuff: Sony launched their first Bluetooth audio systems. Three new micro audio systems will allow you to wirelessly stream tunes from MP3 devices so you can listen to music anywhere. All three will be available next month in the $150-$300 price range.

The systems support a variety of digital music devices and accessories including, Bluetooth-enabled headphones, headsets, PCs, digital music players and cell phones that also play music..as you can see in the picture above that I took at the line show.

Some of us are lucky enough to go backstage a couple of days before the live telecast to see the real workmanship and skill that goes into broadcasting such a beast. This year’s Grammys was the fifth in a row to have been broadcast with a Dolby Digital 5.1 HD surround track.

How has it improved and changed over the years, and what are the goals as we approach the February 2009 cutoff date for analog broadcasts?

Home Theater contributor Adrienne Maxwell, went to the Staples Center the day before the show and found out the improvements are real. Not only that, but the technical crew’s attention to detail and their excitement about the future of high-definition audio broadcasting is palatable.

Pictured above is Klaus Landsberg, the audience-reaction mixer. Klaus was responsible for 46 audio mikes and six camera mikes during the show. His overall job was to focus and capture the audience reactions throughout the show and then generate a full surround sound audio feed.

Click here to read Adrienne’s full story of her backstage findings and results. To see additional photos of key behind-the-scenes audio legends such as Phil Ramone and Hank Neuberger at work at the Grammys check our Galleries.

Just to give you an idea, Abt Electronics in Glenview, Illinois, claims they have sold 170 large-screen (no word on if these were all HD sets or not) a day, every day during the month of January. That made it the busiest month ever for TV sales.

Does it help that Abt is just north of Chicago and that this is the first Super Bowl the Bears have been in for 21 years. Maybe, just maybe.

I don’t care, we’re going to a friend’s house who has transformed his entire two-car garage into a home theater. In addition to a superb job on the theater, he also has a very impressive, professional grade bar at the back. This promises to be a memorable Super Bowl indeed.

Yes, this year’s Winter Consumer Electronics show was packed with new and changing tech, and even though the show is officially over, it’s just beginning for us. CES is our springboard to what we will cover both online and in HT magazine for the year to come. Most of the gear we saw won’t be ready until late this quarter and into Q2 and 3, but supposedly one of the biggest announcements should hit shelves in about two weeks. (Remember I said supposedly).

The LG “Super Multi Blue” Blu-ray disc and HD DVD HD content player is set to possibly bring about an end to the pre-recorded HD disc skirmish. I took the above image—sorry for the lousy quality ---at the LG press conference. It was bright and early in the morning, but as you can tell by the picture, it was a standing room only crowd.

Entering the market at around the $1,199 price point, the LG dual player includes both red and blue laser diodes---so it can play all three disc formats. Apparently though, while it can access all of the interactive features included on Blu-ray discs, the same level of interactivity is not available while you play HD DVD discs. Thought you should know...also at the show, Warner Bros. announced they will produce hybrid discs called “Total HD” that will play in both formats. More on this in the weeks ahead...

That's what LG did this morning by announcing that at CES, in a couple of days, the press will receive details about the launch of the world's first dual-format HD disc player.

This year's CES is looking more exciting by the minute---look for our blog postings live from the show all of next week!

Priced at $350 and $1,275, respectively, they are for those that have a Santa-sized wallet. However, the cool factor is undeniable as proved by my colleague, Shutterbug publisher Ron Leach. As he strolled by my office glancing at the photos of both on my desk, he remarked, “The design of the headset and phone are so amazing—I would love to own those.” For complete specs, check out www.bang-olufsen.com

It’s a 50-inch 1366 x 768 plasma, but what actually makes this a home integration piece is that it includes 7.1 channel decoding (that can be expanded to 10 channels), speaker switching and it is really easy to access a comprehensive array of sources: DVD, satellite and cable TV, Internet, digital camera, photos, it’s all accounted for via the BeoMedia built-in digital platform with advanced signal processing…and it also has a built-in dedicated center channel speaker.

For my demo, the BeoVision 9 was teamed up with four of the visually stunning BeoLab 5 speakers that graced the pages of Home Theater about a year ago.

It was a bright LA day and the show floor where the demo occurred had no curtains, yet the picture was clear and beautiful, the sound warm and engaging and I truly wished I did not have to leave to drive to the magazine’s next cover shoot in the San Fernando Valley. The entire cabinet swivels on a very cool motorized stand to face nearly anywhere in your room.

Bang & Olufsen gear has always been known for extremely superior industrial design and equally impressive pricing; the BeoVision 9 is $21,900 with the BeoMedia integrated and $19,900 without.

Both units have a host of similar features, including the ability to record to all major formats--the key difference is that with the DR700N you will need an external tuning source for TV recording.

Some of the features include a 5,000:1 contrast ratio and LG's 178 degree True-wide viewing angle. I walked as far off axis from the center of this display as I could, and was treated to a much wider viewing angle than I've enjoyed before on an LCD.

The display will feature 3 HDMI w/HDCP connections and LGs Proprietary "Simple Link" that allows for convenient control of other LG "Simple Link" products.

As with all of the gear at the show, pricing is still to be determined.

If you are going to be in the market for an LG 1080p display, you are going to have a wealth of sizes to choose from--in both LCD and plasma.

There will be 11 LCDs with full HD 1920 x 1080p resolution and three new plasmas at 50, 60 and 71 inches all with 1920 x 1080p resolution

LG's director of C.E. product development, Tim Alessi, walked us through the line, starting with the full array of '07 plasmas.