Another ask-the-editors session, this one about improving your home theater, was full of sage advice and even a few pretty good one-liners. We made it through almost 40 minutes of give and take until someone asked us which high definition disc format was better, Blu-ray or HD-DVD. Bottom line, we're not sure. The only thing about which we all agree, however, is that this format war stinks for everybody.

Thiel's eagerly anticipated CS3.7 was on display and playing music, with the help of Audio Research tube gear and power by Richard Gray's Power Company.

Although everything was blue at the Blu-ray introduction, including the martinis,no one was feeling blue when we were invited into a large theater and shown comparisons of standard definition video vs. high-definition on one of Sony's 4K SXRD digital cinema projectors.

With a rack of their familiar gear driving top-of-the-line Atlantic Technologies speakers plus four Outlaw subwoofers, those scoundrels were stealing another show with the best home theater demo at HE 2006. And even if there had been more than three serious home theater demos at the show, they probably still be laughing all the way away from the bank.

Vandersteen does build center channel speakers, subwoofers, and hang-on-the-wall speakers suitable for surrounds, and began as a company that specialized in high performance but surprisingly affordable speakers. They still do build less expensive models that compete strongly in that market segment,, but their flagship Model 5As, at around $15,000 and driven by Audio Research's $40,000/pair Reference 610T, 610W (!!) tube amp (sporting 36 viswible tubes in its two channels and warming up the room quite nicely) weren't designed for the beer-budget crowd. And surrounds, subs, and center channels weren't on the wine-list at the show, either.

Aperion Audio showed this new, larger center channel speaker. Added to its current line of value-priced, Internet-marketed speakers, and designed for a better match to the company's other 600-series speakers, the $495 634-VAC uses larger drivers for both bass and midrange than the Aperion's smaller, 500-series center speaker. It's a 3-way design for off-axis performance that should be superior to most comparably-priced, 2-way center channel designs, and its adjustablle crossover can compensates for use on a stand, in a cabinet, or on top of a big-screen TV.

Jacob George has built the Rethm horn loaded speaker for the purist. A single driver system with no crossovers whatsoever. The speaker itself has a sort of wheezer device that almost looks like the tail of a badminton, but the fact that he was getting full range sound out of a single speaker was impressive enough. The speaker is available in two models, with ($9,500/pr) or without ($7,500) the extension (shown) that drops the speaker's low end from about 50 Hz to 38 Hz. It does make you rethink where you're going to put the TV though. With extension careening off the back end, this isn't designed for those living the i-Life.