Who doesn't love The Wizard of Oz? No one I know. Rated as one of the best films ever made, this timeless classic has been released on various home-video formats no less than 16 times since 1980. Now, 70 years after its theatrical debut, Oz is getting its first high-def treatment on Blu-ray for the 17th iteration. I was fortunate to be invited to a press event celebrating this milestone at Warner Brothers' Burbank studio, and I learned a lot about what went into making this ultimate version.

And now for something completely outrageous—a $135,000 Blu-ray player! Leave it to hyper-high-end Goldmund to charge that much for the Eidos Reference Blue, which will be limited to a production run of 50 units. But how can it possibly justify such an astronomical price tag?

Living with a pair of La Sphère speakers from French maker Cabasse might be a bit creepy—they look like giant eyeballs staring at you—but if you can get past that, you're in for a sonic treat. As Michael Fremer concluded in his Stereophile review, "...La Sphère sets new standards, both measurable and audible, for accuracy in the reproduction of music."

Norway somehow seems an odd place to find a high-end projector manufacturer. Yet there in the town of Fredrikstad—founded in 1567 at the mouth of the Glomma River an hour's train ride south of Oslo—Projectiondesign not only designs and manufactures high-end DLP projectors under its own name, but also for companies like Christie, one of several providers of DLP projectors for the commercial digital-cinema market. Last year, the company introduced its Avielo line, including the flagship Helios, which puts out enough light to compete with the midnight sun.

Ne plus ultra—Latin meaning "no more beyond," often used to describe anything that is truly ultimate. I can think of no better way to describe the Ultimate speaker system from Swedish boutique manufacturer Transmission Audio. This massive, hand-made system is exactly what its name implies, at least in terms of cost—a million bucks per channel, making it the most expensive speaker system in the world as far as I know.

When I first saw a photo of this speaker, it reminded me of a Mexican chiminea, a free-standing clay fireplace with a bulbous lower body and tall, thin smokestack. But the only heat generated by this bad boy is of the sonic variety. Born of a collaboration between Serbian ribbon-speaker specialist RAAL and American pro-audio designer Requisite Audio, the RAAL Requisite Eternity is the world's only speaker with a cast-bronze woofer enclosure.