“Like most of the first wave of MP3 players to hit the market, the RCA Lyra is a very compact portable device, smaller than most cell phones, aimed at dethroning the discman style CD player from portable supremacy. Whereas some portables, like Creative Labs’ Nomad, use computer style hard drives for file storage, the Lyra falls into the smaller, less expensive category of players using small, removable chip based memory cards…”

“While a myriad of MP3 players have been unleashed on the market in the past year, the Audio ReQuest ARQ-1 distinguishes itself as the only one designed exclusively as a home audio component. This could mark the genesis of a significant new product category, and an important test of whether consumers are ready to embrace MP3s in a domestic environment…”

Highlights Include: 95 Pages of detailed product listings covering over 5000 products sold in Canada! Energy Veritas v2.2, PSB Alpha Intro (LR, CLR & Subzero Subwoofer), dCS Delius Multi-Samping-Rate DAC, dCS Purcell 96-192 Khz Digital Sample Rate Converter, MSB Link III Nelson/Upsampling Option, Sunfire Theater Grand Processor II, Pioneer PDV LC20 Portable DVD Player, Kimber Select KS-1030 Interconnects, and much more…

“…a re-recording mixer hopefully gets involved in a film project at an early stage, say, just before they start shooting, just so that everyone knows what has to be delivered in the end…whether its a Dolby Digital print, or DTS, or maybe just straight to video, whatever. So, from that initial point of contact you talk about all these final format things, and if it’s a really well organized production, you would interface with the production sound mixer, and make sure they’re working in a format that would suit the dialogue editorial process later on…”

“In the deep budget speaker category it has become a common practice to design them here (Canada, eh!), including drivers, but have all manufacturing done in the Orient in order to meet price points. These new Intro models from PSB are made in China, with drivers personally designed by Paul Barton. It’s still not often that you find an aluminum dome tweeter at this price, and here it’s mated with either one (LR) or two (CLR) 3 1/2″ poly-coned woofer/midrange(s)….”

“It’s been some years since the first Energy Veritas models appeared, the v1.8 and the larger v2.8. At the time these represented what designer John Tchilinguirian knew about loudspeakers, and were widely hailed for their accuracy and musicality. The former have been my reference since then, so it was of considerable interest to have the first of a new Veritas series come into my listening room…”

“The baby of the Klipsch Reference series, the RB-5 is a quite compact bookshelf model that uses an 8″ aluminum-coned woofer with Tractrix-horn-loaded titanium tweeter crossed over at 1950 Hz in a rear-ported enclosure. The cabinet is made of MDF, and comes in various wood veneers: mahogany, medium oak, and black oak. The review pair was in the mahogany, and a very nice finish it was, with a subtle sheen that can be seen in the photo opposite….”

“The Delius and Purcell do a few numbers together, too, specifically 192 kHz and 24 bits: the latter is a sampling rate converter (see our last issue’s look at the Assemblage SRC and DAC and MSB 96K DAC)), which takes any digital signal and either up- or down-converts it, while also altering the bit rate up or down. Most commonly, these processes will be of the up variety to take a 44.1-kHz/16-bit signal up to 96/24, or even 192/24, in the process able to introduce noise shaping and dither to further refine…”

“Visually identical to its predecessor and very handsome indeed, is the Sunfire Theater Grand Processor II. However, it’s not identical inside, with a streamlined circuit architecture that shortens signal paths and reduces the number of circuit boards. It’s also easier to use, with most operations performed in one setting of the remote control, that for Amp…”

“Intended to beat obsolescence by being both versatile and modular, the Myryad home theatre system offers whatever combination of 2- and 3-channel amplifiers you need, with a processor that can accommodate up to 7 channels plus subwoofer. The MDP500 provides 9 stereo analog inputs with an additional 7.1 (8, in fact) set for DVD audio or any other format that might come along…”