News

Stick it in your wall: Polk Audio has introduced three new subwoofers aimed at the custom installation market. The $600 CSW88 is a sealed in-wall model featuring dual 8" long-throw, shallow-basket woofers mounted behind a metal pressure plate. Its enclosure is constructed from MDF with 1/8" aluminum panels. It is designed to fit within standard stud-wall construction, measuring 60" (H) by 13.5" (W) by 3.5" (D). Rather than a grille, the CSW utilizes a vent, which, not at all coincidentally, measures the same as a standard 10" by 4" heating vent. Inputs on the top and bottom of the enclosure simplify wiring.

McIntosh">http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/">McIntosh Laboratory unveiled for the press three new products that they will be showing at CEDIA next month. They are the MX135 A/V Control Center (already shipping), the MVP861 Universal Player, and the MC207 7-channel Power Amplifier, all with McIntosh's signature design and cosmetics.

John Gourlay, Stereophile's publisher since 1998, left the company at the beginning of November. John had been a valued collaborator and the moving force behind the launch of the 2004 Stereophile Buyer's Guide (see related story). We all wish him well in his future career.

"Rarely, if ever, can this densely written sonata have been presented so lucidly with each note precisely in place...the dramatic and lyrical aspects were never slighted or taken for granted."
—Peter G. Davis, writing in the New York Times about Robert Silverman's New York debut in 1978, when he performed the Liszt B-Minor Piano Sonata in Alice Tully Hall.

The first hybrid SACDs produced and recorded in Russia have made their way to North America. The new Russian company responsible for the recordings, Essential Music, issues them on the Caro Mitis label, whose name is Latin for "succulent fruit." All are recorded in multichannel DSD and released as hybrid SACD/CDs. Caro Mitis releases are imported by Todd Garfinkle of M•A">http://www.marecordings.com">M•A Recordings. Garfinkle himself has been responsible for some of the most enjoyable audiophile recordings of unusual performers and repertoire in the catalog.

The enduring audiophile dilemma about whether to optimize a home-entertainment system for music or movies may no longer be relevant, thanks to new disc players from Sony">http://www.sony.com/sel/">Sony Corporation and Philips">http://www.philips.com/">Philips Electronics NV. The machines were introduced at CEDIA">http://www.cedia.org/expo/">CEDIA Expo 2000, the annual home-theater and custom-installation trade show held in Indianapolis.

How would you like to make a full 650Mb compilation CD of your favorite music in less than 10 minutes? That's what TDKhttp://www.tdk.com/">TDK; is promising with its new veloCD ReWriter drive, to be shipped to dealers later this fall.