High-priced DVD players are an almost anachronistic concept in today's cheaper-by-the-minute world. In fact, if I set up a card table at the local warehouse price club and offered sips of unsweetened cranberry juice to shoppers while clandestinely questioning them about the going rate for an expensive DVD player, their predictable guesses of around $500 would only confirm how out of sync audiophiles and videophiles are with the average Joe.

Because we're about to become a socialist-driven economy where the majority of the population pay no taxes themselves yet demand the minority do so in their stead, I thought it would be a good time for one last economics lesson about capitalism. In particular, the law of supply and demand and in super-particular, the case of the Pioneer Kuro plasma supply chain either drying up or giving the appearance of drying up which, as every good oil executive knows, is practically the same thing!

THX is working a new connect-the-world project, code named Blackbird. Having seen how easy it is for the general public to mangle their picture and sound with all the new toys they've been acquiring recently, Blackbird presents a solution for the three cardinal sins of home theater, by sending metadata in the form of control signals through HDMI to all Blackbird enabled devices in the chain.

Definitive Technology had some really intelligently designed and great sounding in-ceiling speakers in their room. Most in ceiling speakers we've seen are appropriate for the shoe department Muzak at Macy's, but I wouldn't let them near the home theater. Sandy Gross of Definitive puts a whole can and a half of whump-ass in these babies. I blew up a picture of the speaker and put it in the bottom right of the photo for you to get an idea. The baffles are angled, looking like what the roof looks like in the attic. Two woofers and a tweeter are angled down and towards the back of the room, while on the other other side of the "roof" you'll find two passive radiators. I was tremendously impressed by the timbre and solidness of the midrange and upper frequencies. Sandy also used some in wall subwoofers to round up the bass. I actually thought the bass was a little on the high side, but I guess that shuts up anyone who is worried that a 4" deep subwoofer can't keep up with the action.