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Athena Technologies has been known for surprisingly high-value speakers tailored for home theater. At CEDIA, they unveiled a new LS Series, with the audiophile's taste in mind. The line features cabinets with curved sides so that the profile tapers at the rear, fiber-glass cones and aluminum-dome tweeters. The top-of-this-line, LS-500B is only $350 each! If the voicing is as stated and the finish quality is as remarkable as the floor samples, this line could have a huge market impact.

Here's designer Andrew Welker showing off his new baby floorstander in Mirage's OMD series. The OMD 15 is said to share many of the sonic splendors of the flagship OMD 28 and its general configuration, as well, in a slightly smaller size but at 1/3 the price! At $2500/pair, it offers a 1" titanium-dome HF, a 5.5" titanium-deposit hybrid midrange supplemented by a passive radiator and a 5.5" woofer operating with a down-firing port. In high gloss black, this was simply spiffy.

Late in the day at the Show, most glasses were filled or in the process of being emptied. This stack on the BG stand, however, was empty. It had been erected to show that Radia's new 210i Active Subwoofer is almost totally vibration-free in operation. At the time I took this picture, this sub, with its opposed 10" Kevlar drivers and 500w BASH amp was pumping out gobs of bass, cleanly and tightly. I could detect no vibrations at all with my hand. What's the point? Well, you can put something on top of them (vase, planter, cigar humidor!) without exciting spurious vibrations. Heck, you could even put this $1500 sub in a cabinet, if that suits your needs.

As they had done at CES, Andrew Lipinski (right) and Lukas Lipinski set up a full surround system using their L-707 two-way monitors that had so impressed Larry Greenhill when he reviewed them for <I>Stereophile</I> last December.

Marantz is showing the new $1699.99 TT-1581 turntable. Look familiar? It ought to&mdash;it's a proprietary Marantz model constructed by Clearaudio, with a Marantz specced platter and cartridge.

<I>Stereophile</I> is scheduled for an exclusive one-on-one demo tomorrow with the new Revel loudspeakers, but we couldn't resist tantalizing you with a glimpse of the $22,000/pair Ultima 2 flagship, the Salon2.

Jim Thiel stands between the <I>final</I> prototype of the CD3.7 and the new SCS4, a point source stand mounted two-way with a cast aluminum baffle. Projected price is "under $1000, which seems like a bargain