All of us have excuses for why we cannot acoustically treat our rooms but a lot of the underlying reason is that many are not convinced that they should make the physical or financial effort. I’ve discovered what I think of as training wheels for room acoustics. Tom Gorzelski of mytheater acoustic panel showed me his simple and inexpensive kits; these are enough to get anyone started. The panels are only 1" thick and, with their polyester filling, light enough to hang with a single nail. Don't expect them to work into the bass, therefore, but Tom acknowledges that they are most effective at 1–2kHz. Also, they come in packages of four 24x40 panels ($120) or two 24x24 panels ($45) because you cannot expect just one to make a difference. Still, hanging a 4pack of the bigger panels should reduce reflections if placed at ear level and, especially, at the first reflection points on the side-walls. It's likely you'll like it enough, perhaps, to do even more.

Furman's Reference line of power conditioners are handsomely packaged and feature packed. The $1499 20A SPR-20i Stable Power Regulator has linear filtering technology, multi-stage power surge suppression, extreme voltage shutdown, a detachable module for telco surge suppression, as well as three pairs of HD ready cable/satellite TVSS isolated F-connectors.

Linn was showing its new reference standard digital player, the Klimax DS, which it is dubbing "the first authentic hi-fi product to stream digital music over a standard home network." Not impressed? How about this: it is capable of utilizing Linn's 24/96 downloads and, according to Rikke Ravnborg, director of marketing, is sonically superior to Linn's long-term digital reference, the CD-12.

MIT's Bruce Brisson was determined to shrink his Multipole technology so that his patented networks did not requite bulky boxes near their cables' termination. Naturally, he thought surface-mount components were the way to go. That was until he began measuring them and discovered that SM components were variable and many didn't measure well.

Similar to the MPC line level terminations are MIT's Multipole In-Wall termination systems, shown here by Kent Loughlin. The five-way binding posts fit into an ordinary on-wall quad box and come in three configurations: 11 pole, 15 pole, and 21 pole network. No soldering required.

Parasound's Richard Schram was delighted to show off the San Francisco company's Model 2100 preamplifier. This $600 preamp is designed for the guy who has a multichannel system—possibly even an expensive one—who feels let down when he listens to his two-channel music.

Canton's Frank Göbl is a busy little beaver. He wondered what it would be like to put the components of Canton's successful Ergo line into new specially designed cabinets that could bring the prices down by 30%. "Cost efficiencies have enabled us to do this without sacrificing sound quality or beauty," said Canto USA president Paul Madsen.

Canton's chief designer Frank G&#246;bl proclaimed the new, improved Vento line "better&mdash;not a <I>lot</I> better, but significantly." What's new and improved?

Naim's long time a-borning $4750 Supernait is finally here. The Supernait's 80Wpc amplifier section is based upon that of Naim's NAP200, giving it 400VA output transient capability.