Saturday is always the crunch day at the Home Entertainment Show. There are more people in the halls, more bodies in the rooms, and more noise everywhere—and it's wonderful. People here really speak our language: audiogeek spoken here.

<I>The screen door slams<BR>Mary's dress waves</I>&mdash;Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road" (footnote 1)

<I>The screen door slams<BR>Mary's dress waves</I>&mdash;Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road" (footnote 1)

<I>The screen door slams<BR>Mary's dress waves</I>&mdash;Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road" (footnote 1)

As noted in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/304round">March installment</A> of "Music in the Round," there are so many new multichannel hardware goodies to talk about that we need this bonus appearance of the column just to keep up. Nor do I expect the rush of gear to stop&mdash;I've just returned from CES in Las Vegas, where there was lots of new multichannel hardware and software that I will report on in June, including a luscious all-tube analog multichannel preamp. This month I report on a universal disc player, a comparison of Sony's top-of-the-line <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/1203sony">SCD-XA9000ES<…; multichannel SACD player with its respected predecessor, and a multichannel preamp that's almost too good a deal.

As noted in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/304round">March installment</A> of "Music in the Round," there are so many new multichannel hardware goodies to talk about that we need this bonus appearance of the column just to keep up. Nor do I expect the rush of gear to stop&mdash;I've just returned from CES in Las Vegas, where there was lots of new multichannel hardware and software that I will report on in June, including a luscious all-tube analog multichannel preamp. This month I report on a universal disc player, a comparison of Sony's top-of-the-line <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/1203sony">SCD-XA9000ES<…; multichannel SACD player with its respected predecessor, and a multichannel preamp that's almost too good a deal.

<I>"As I was saying before I was interrupted..."</I>&mdash;Jack Paar, 1918-2004

<I>"As I was saying before I was interrupted..."</I>&mdash;Jack Paar, 1918-2004

<I>"As I was saying before I was interrupted..."</I>&mdash;Jack Paar, 1918-2004

"Ah, I see what the problem is. Your ear canals are larger in diameter than normal."