Yet another entry in the LED-illuminated, single-chip DLP projector sweepstakes is the Mico 50 from SIM2. Said to deliver 800 lumens, the PhlatLight LEDs have an expected lifespan of over 30,000 hours. It's name means "sparkle" in Italian, but I saw no sparkles in the demo on a Da-Lite Affinity screen, which is a good thing. Not so good was the demo material—a clip from a concert video featuring singer Seal. The colored stage lighting was not conducive to evaluating color accuracy, though Seal's dark skin looked about right when he was in white light. The Mico 50 should be available in November for $25,000.

I've seen demos of Dolby's HDR (High Dynamic Range) LED local-dimming technology for LCD TVs for over a year, but it's finally about to be released in a real product from SIM2. The Solar 47 is a 47-inch, 1080p LCD TV with 2206 white LEDs arrayed behind the imaging panel, and unlike other local-dimming sets, each LED is individually addressable. It should be available by the end of the year for—get this—$25,000. Sure, it looks great, but 25 grand for a 47-inch LCD? Yikes!

Classe's Delta series of components incorporate beautiful industrial design, but their curved enclosures prevent them from being rack mounted. To address this problem, the company is introducing the CT series, which includes several new power amps and a rack-mountable version of the SSP-800 pre/pro. The amps boast a new thermal-management system and other refinements that led one rep I spoke with to exclaim, "They're the best-sounding amps we've ever made." Prices range from $5000 for the 300W monoblock to $9000 for the 5x300W CT-5300.

The newest addition to Samsung's stable of LCD TVs is the LN65B650, a 65-inch monster with conventional backlighting that will list for $6000. Of particular note is a picture mode called BD-Wise, which is found on select 2009 TVs and all of the company's '09 Blu-ray players. BD-Wise lets the TV and Blu-ray player communicate and automatically set their parameters depending on the content. A satellite feed looked quite bad with lots of artifacts, but Blu-ray looked much better.

I already blogged about the Lexicon BD-30 universal Blu-ray player, but no one outside the company knew before the show that it has received THX certification. At the Lexicon booth, I also learned that it can decode DVD-Audio and SACD and send multichannel PCM via HDMI, a great feature in this $3500 player. The BD-30 is pictured here with the MC-12HD pre/pro, which just received a firmware update that lets it accept a 7.1-channel PCM bitstream from Blu-rays that offer it—the previous version was limited to 5.1 PCM.

If money really is no object and you want a true digital-cinema projector in your home theater, this is the only game in town. The CAT MBX 4 is a 3-chip DLP with a resolution of 2048x1080, the same as you see in digital cinemas. It also provides D-Link decryption in order to display DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) files. Other standard features include 3-kilowatt xenon lamp, dual power supply, custom lenses, anamorphic lens with sled, custom irises, and a plenum enclosure with a cooling system that keeps the internal temperature within 3 degrees of the target at all times. The projector is fed by an outboard processor via two dual-link DVI connections, each of which provides a higher bit rate than standard DVI. If you have to ask how much, you can't afford it, but I'll tell you anyway—$208,000 with the standard processor (10-bit processing, 12-bit output) and an extra $32,000 for the 12-bit processor. Heck, why not buy two for 3D?