“Fortunately there’s nothing non-descript about the sound of this player. Impressed at the very outset by its smoothness and musicality I listened casually to the 951 for a couple of weeks to ensure that it was completely broken in before making any notes or comparisons. Even during this stage it was abundantly clear that this was a lot more CD player than $600 was supposed to buy…”

“PSB has just introduced its Image series of speakers that promise “high-impact performance with a low impact on your lifestyle and on your budget”, according to their brochure. There are 10 models in the group, including a subwoofer and two centre channels. The 4T is pretty close to the middle of the group, a tower model that uses a pair of polypropylene coned 5″ woofer/mid drivers and a 1 1/2″ aluminum dome tweeter that is ferrofluid damped in a front-ported reflex enclosure…”

“PMC is primarily a professional speaker maker, who also distribute Bryston products in Britain to both pro and consumer markets. In turn, Bryston handles PMC products in North America in both markets. Quite a few post production studios have recently installed Bryston/PMC surround monitoring systems, and the list of films and TV programs monitored through these systems steadily grows…”

“The Waveform Mach Solo is a smaller version of the mighty Mach 17, with only one woofer, and a passive crossover. The 17 comes with an electronic crossover made for Waveform by Bryston, and costs $12,000. The egg midrange/tweeter module is the same in all models, though a different woofer/midrange driver is used in the MC. The Solo woofer is a 10″ treated paper cone driver with a rolled rubber surround. The crossover is a 4th order Linkwitz- Riley type (14-dB/Octave) at 575 and 1850 Hz. Low end response is said to extend to 35 Hz in a normal room…”

“According to Phil Bryant of Denon Canada, the AVR-3300 is Denon’s most successful receiver under $2,000 in recent years and has constantly oversold in Canada and the United States since October. It sits third from the top in Denon’s line; above it are the AVR-4800 which is similar but with THX(ex) certification at $3,400, and the mammoth AVR-5700 at $4,800…”

“A couple of years ago I reviewed the Technics SH-AC300 surround processor, and liked its value and ease of use. It’s been in and out of my home theatre system since, serving as a stopgap between the often-more-expensive components that come in for review…”

“The thing that sets the BC22 apart from the numerous amps at this price point is a product of its very nature. The BC22 is a broad appeal product built by a niche market company in a category where the inverse is generally the rule; a dressed down exotic rather than a gussied up generic. Whether this is better as a rule is impossible to say, but it certainly has some advantages in this case…”

“As a longtime Elvis fan (and I can now admit to being as a teenager one of the earliest imitators, or “tribute artists”, as they now say in Memphis), I’ve always been glad to see good sounding re-releases of his best work. A set of German-produced RCA CDs from 1984 was the first set of reissues that did the original recordings justice. Titled Elvis - The Collection, the first of these 3 CDs contained many of the early hits, while the second and third chronicled the string of hits into the 60s. For some reason I seem to have lost Volume 3..”

“After watching The Mask Of Zorro, it’s hard to believe Catherine Zeta-Jones isn’t actually Spanish, and harder to accept that she’s really Welsh, such a convincingly swashbuckling senorita is she. Zorro is another big budget Hollywood film, with numerous sumptuous sets, and the creation of a slave-worked gold mine, which is not quite a recreated Titanic, but a huge edifice none the less…”

“I know these are supposed to be DVD reviews, but this film, the all-time box-office biggie, has yet to appear in that format, but was recently released on LD. I guess that up until I bought this set, beautifully packaged for the 12″ format, I was the only North American to have not seen Titanic, not having experienced it in the movie theatre…”

“If Susan Anspach was a bit of a fish in Five Easy Pieces, Andie MacDowell was a frozen fillet in Sex, Lies, And Videotape. But in this film she is the perfect foil for Bill Murray as a his TV producer. He’s an egotistical, insensitive weatherman cursed to cover Ground Hog Day over and over again until he finds his humanity. The premise is silly, but a good and often very funny script by Harold Rubin makes it work as a perfect vehicle for Murray’s remarkable comedic talent…”

“Receivers with Dolby Digital decoding have come down in price below $1000 recently, and the new AG-D9320 almost gets to the $500 threshold. Rated at 130 watts per channel in stereo and 100 x 5, it claims “high instantaneous current capability.” The AG-D9320 contains massive capacitors within the all-discrete amplifier circuits…”

Highlights Include: Denon AVR-3300 Home Theater Receiver, Blue Circle BC 22 Power Amplifier, Pioneer DV-AX10 & C-AX10 DVD Audio Transport / Preamp, Fujitsu PDS-4211 42″ Plasma Display / Faroudja DVP-2200 Video Processor, Audio Control Diva HT Audio Processor, Toshiba SD-4109X 6 Disc HDCD DVD Player, Waveform Mach Solo & MC Centre Channel Loudspeakers, PMC FB1 Loudspeaker, PSB Image 4T, Klipsch Reference 3 Home Theatre System, Energy Encore Home Theatre System, and more…

“Written and directed by the same man who made The Coca Cola Kid, Montenegro chronicles the brief straying of a bored housewife (Susan Anspach into the company of a band of Yugoslavian immigrants. Like Wag The Dog, Montenegro was made long before that region or its people became daily news fodder. It’s a charming film, with many funny moments. I didn’t realize that Makavejev was behind both this film and the Coca Cola Kid, which I look forward to seeing out on DVD…”

“Fujitsu has over 300 patents relating to plasma display technology, so they have to be a leader in the field. The PDS4211 is a 16:9 42″ screen in a 3.3″ thick casing that can be mounted on a wall or stand. Resolution is rated at 852 x 480 pixels, not quite HD-capable, but close…”

“Over the past few years, the number of video sources has multiplied much more quickly than the number of A/V inputs on most televisions. It’s not uncommon for people to have three or more A/V sources: DVD player, VCR, satellite receiver or cable box, maybe a LaserDisc player and videogame console, and, from time to time, a camcorder…”