Back on the limited home theater front, Meridian/Faroudja had a small room with both audio and video, the latter a modest flat panel display. The heart of the audio system was the new Meridian G95 ($8495), a complete processor/amp/DVD player all in one case; in other words, it's a high-end DVD AV receiver, offering five channels of 100Wpc amplification. But it does have limitations, which are rather surprising for such an expensive device. There is no DVD-Audio playback (Meridian has long been a champion of that format), and no way to get an external multichannel source into the receiver (there is no multichannel analog input and no HDMI switching to provide multichannel audio on HDMI). The only HDMI connection is the HDMI output for the internal DVD player.

HP was not only here, it brought more than laptops to the booth. On the left are two 1080p LCDs, the 42" LC4276N and the 47" LC4776N. Both have three HDMI inputs, and a bevy of other impressive features. but the prices are total mainstream: the LC4276N is $1,899 with the LC4776N tipping the scales at just $2,499. We've liked what we've seen from HP's plasmas, so you can bet we're going to get a look at one of these LCDs.

There were a lot of great sounding systems at the show, there always are, but some rooms just hit you right. For me, it was the Dynaudio / Simaudio room. In this small room, Simaudio Moon W7M monoblocks ($16,000/pr, 500 watt@8 ohm) drove the small Dynaudio Confidence C1 ($6,500/pr or $7,000/pr in black lacquer, stands were an extra $450/pair and bolted to the bottom of the C1). The system front end was from Sim Audio's Moon line as well, The Andromeda CD player ($12,000) and P-8 Controller and Preamp ($11,500) completed the front end. A seriously priced system, no doubt, but the sound was commensurate. From the overplayed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole that greeted me when I entered, to Sarah McLachlan's "Eyes of an Angel," to a Bruce Coburn / Lucinda Williams piece (this guy is seriously nihilistic – nobody sell him a rocket launcher, please!), the system sounded relaxed and totally involving. It had an uncanny ability to paint unique perspectives for each recording. I could have stayed even longer, but the show was calling. With a new found respect for Sim Audio electronics and an even stronger desire to get a Dynaudio Confidence system in for review, I begrudgingly walked away.

Optoma is not showing at the Home Entertainment show, but two days before the show they demonstrated two new 1080p DLP projectors for the press at DataVision, the company's dealer in midtown Manhattan.

Outlaw Audio has an impressive home theater demo at HE2007. The five 8200e THX Ultra 2 speakers are from Atlantic Technology, as are the two side-mounted dipole surrounds that fill out the 7.1-channel system. The projector is ProjectionDesign's premier single-chip DLP with an anamorphic lens filling a 2.35:1 Screen Research acoustically transparent screen. The source is a Sony Blu-ray player and the program material is a scene from Vertical Limit (yes, that scene).

Kuro is a Japanese word meaning deep, black, and penetrating. And on the tenth anniversary of its entry into the plasma display business, Pioneer announced the culmination of its Project Kuro to the assembled consumer electronics press in New York.