Taking a break from speakers, I stopped in on Swedish manufacturer Bladelius. Designer Michael Bladelius worked on Threshold and Forte amps back in the early 1990s, and now has a complete line of amps, preamps, and home theater electronics bearing his name. They're beautifully done, all named after Norse legends, and all will induce sticker shock. The Grendel 5-channel power amp is priced at $9200. For that you get 350Wpc into 8 ohms and a switching power supply (a conventional supply will make the amp too heavy with that power output!). It's a modular design that may be configured many different ways (prices will vary with other configurations). The Enris pre-pro offers a front-panel widescreen display, HDMI switching, on-board video processing, balanced operation, and a price ranging from $15-$18K. It will ship in the spring.—TJN

HSU Research is now shipping its new VTF-3HO flagship subwoofer. It may also be enhanced by the Turbo package, an outboard enclosure linked directly to the main sub to extend the port length. It is said to produce the output of two non-turbo VTF-3HOs. Po Ser Hsu had top of these puppies in the corners of a room about the size of two walk-in closets, and to say that the bass was powerful would be an understatement. It also sounded very deep; don't let anyone tell you that you can't do bass in a small room.—TJN

Finally, the Pioneer EX series speakers mentioned in my Day 1 report (below) were producing some of the best sounds at the show—at the Alexis or anywhere else. Thew demo here was 2-channel only, using the big S-7EX floor-stander. I found very little to criticize in what I heard, but hope to get the chance to review these speakers very soon in a full mulichannel array. I'm not convinced that Pioneer's decision to market these speakers under their own name is a wise one. US audiophiles have never made a beeline for Japanese speakers (though many of them are now listening to Chinese ones!!). But the speakers are actually a hybrid of Japanese manufacturing, British design (from speaker designer Andrew Jones, who also designed the up market TAD speakers that use similar but not identical drivers) and French (cabinet) styling. If you're in the market for a $9000 pair of speakers, or a surround package built around them, they definitely deserve a listen. I'll have more to say in an upcoming review. .—TJN

Pioneer set up a side-by-side comparison of HD Blu-ray vs standard definition DVD, with identical material displayed on identical Pioneer plasma displays. The Blu-ray used the company's prototype Blu-ray player. Some observers noticed artifacts on the DVD side. I thought that both looked good on the program material I saw, though the HD Blu-ray image was noticeably sharper. —TJN

Panasonic showed six new plasma models, including the flagship 65-inch, 1920x1080 TH-65PX600U (shipping mid year). There are also smaller models in 50-, 42-, and 37-inch sizes (available in June 06), including the 50-inch TH50PX60U at $3700. All include HD and NTSC tuners, CableCard connectivity, and HDMI inputs. Wasn't it just last year at this time we were marveling at the drop in price of Panasonic 50-inch plasmas to below $6000? —TJN

Samsung launched a bewildering range of new plasmas, DLPs, and LCDs. Meanwhile, its on-line press kit provided no useful information (promising instead a 10-minute download, at 1:30AM, for an image only, with no clarifying text). So I'll just leave you with a few juicy tidbits. Their 83-inch LCD looked remarkably good, but is available to order only, at $150,000. The more real-world 40-inch model shown also had a strikingly good image, but no price was available. Samsung has developed several new technologies for its sets, including SmoothMotion The SmoothMotion image really did look better to the degree visible in the photograph. —TJN

We haven't looked at any speakers from Klipsch in some time. They announced a fourth generation of their Reference Series, including five floorstanders, three bookshelf models, three center channel designs, three surrounds, and six powered subwoofers. Someone has been busy. Prices range from $199 each to $2498/pair.