LATEST ADDITIONS

I was so impressed by the 9" Feastrex drivers designed by Haruhiko "Hal" Teramoto of Japan that I was excited to hear how the 5" Feastrex DF Monster alnico driver sounds in MaxxHorn's new Lumination loudspeaker. The speaker, which also incorporates the Tractrix horn technology developed by Johan van Zyl, is so new—the pair at THE Show had been finished a mere 12 days before—that only the dealer price ($18,500/pair) has been set. All speakers are hand constructed, with 3–5 pairs produced a month.

Empirical Audio's Pace-Car Reclocker ($1100—2300, depending on number of clocks installed) is designed to reduce the jitter of any source to "inaudible levels." Empirical's Steve Nugent said the device is primarily intended for USB, WiFi, and network devices such as the Sonos and Squeezebox. "The pace-Car is inserted between source and DAC, it can either provide a master clock to the source or accept the source's data stream and 'bracket' the rate of the stream. No modifications to the source are required."

In what has become a tradition, Anton Dotson (<I>aka</I> Buddha on the <A HREF="http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/ubbthreads.php">Stereophile forum</A>) and Michael Alazard set up a room at T.H.E. Show as NFS Audio (Not For Sale), which they describe as "a chill out zone for people tired of the show's relentless grinding down of the human spirit."

Audiophile Rob Smith stopped by to absorb some green dots by the record stacks.

Michael Alazard and pal.

Erin Binal of Bicome finished his lecture on Thielnet by stripping off the front grillw on the small, two-way, IP-addressable, powered SCS4D loudspeaker. There are twin ports above and below the coaxial driver. With the grille on or off, the SCS4D is rated with a frequency response of 48Hz&ndash;20kHz, &#177;3dB. Pricing was not specified. And yes, those are WiFi antennae.

Thiel's press conference at the Sands Convention Center on Day One of the 2008 CES opened with a detailed critique of the complexities and challenge of installing a home theater system. Ekin Binal, Vice President, Product Development, of BICOM, an IT company partnering with THIEL to address these issues, spoke in detail about the complex, labor intensive, time-intensive, cost-intensive installation of multiple speakers and channels. Furthermore, updating such a home theater system is never simple nor convenient, nor is moving a system from an old house to a new house either simple or inexpensive. Because installation is custom work, there is no universal package a single manufacturer can create that can fit most domestic locations.