Sony also announced new Bravia LCD flat panel televisions. The new Bravia V-series LCD panels come in 40" and 46" sizes, with full 1920 x 1080p resolution. The more upscale Bravia XBR3 series, featuring the same screen sizes and resolutions as the V-Series, incorporates Sony's new Digital Reality Engine version 2.5 with increased computational power. The XBR3 Bravia line also feature an ATSC tuner for over the air high definition reception. Both the standard and XBR3 Bravias feature a new BRAVIA Engine Pro video processing system especially designed for high-definition signals. Approximate pricing for the upscale KDL-46XBR3 and KDL-40XBR3 models which ship in September will be $5,300 and $4,300, respectively. A nearly identical XBR2 line is available for $300 less in each respective model. It offers the same features but with replacable color bezels, seeming designed for the custom installation market.

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.

I get asked for speaker suggestions all the time. I make them. They get ignored. It all comes down to money.

The McIntosh XRT2K speakers sounded as big as they look, driven by a pair of the company's MC2KW, 3-module, 2000W (into 8 ohms), modular monoblock amps. Each speaker has six 12" aluminum cone woofers, sixty-four titanium-cone midranges, and forty " titanium-cone tweeters. The speakers are $45,000 each (and a quarter ton of weight, or 590 lbs.). The amps will cost you $30,000 each (they're nearly as heavy as the speakers at 495 lbs.!).

Not only does the sign say so, I'm holding a full production copy of Hitch on Blu-ray Disc right now! OK, it's actually sitting next to my laptop since I can't type and hold it at the same time.

I love vinyl. I love Classic Records and a few other companies that keep making it. Call me old school, but when I sit down to relax with music, it's the LP I reach for most times. So Classic's announcement that they're celebrating Impulse's 45th anniversary with a long list of 200g vinyl was well received by me at least. Some folks are jaded. I'm not. Thanks Classic, thanks Michael.

OK, it's probably more fair to say I was "Disturbed" at the Ayre and Vandersteen room. Ayre's Steven Silberman was on a mission this weekend to prove to any doubters out there that zero feedback amplifiers and first-order loudspeakers can ROCK!