Jon Iverson

"All products in the Heritage Series are built in the Klipsch factory in Hope Arkansas," the company's Kerry Geist begins. Klipsch has chosen to only demo the Heritage stuff here in the Venetian, with the bulk of their contemporary line back at the main convention center. And the room is quite crowded, so they clearly understand their demographic.

The sign up above said GoldenEar Technology, but when I walked in it looked like any normal hotel room. No big banners, black cloth draped along the walls or spotlights. And then at the far end I spotted company president Sandy Gross sitting on the couch and a single bookshelf speaker sitting on a stand. That was it.

Kanto has just emerged in the market this past year with a series of three powered bookshelf speakers, a pair of subwoofers and two styles of stands. The company is based in Coquitlam, BC, Canada, and marketing manager Brett Smalley ran through the line.

England-based Ruark has a complete line of powered small to medium size all-in-one music boxes as well as powered desktop speakers. But what caught my eye was the console-size R7 which managing director Alan O'Rourke called a "Radiogram." For US citizens, a radiogram is a piece of furniture from the UK that historically combined a radio and record player. In this case though, that would be a CD player and radio.

Three new bookshelf models were unveiled which Sound United's Mark Suskind explained are intended to replace the Studio Monitor Series. The models start with the D7 at $499/pair which feature a 4.5" woofer and 1" aluminum dome tweeter and is also ported. The D9 retails for $749/pair and has a 5.25" woofer and a 5"x9" passive radiator and 1" aluminum dome tweeter. And finally the new D11 has a 6.5" woofer and 6"x10" passive radiator and sells for $999/pair. All available since late last year.

Discerning college dorm rooms and recording studios rejoice! JBL's famed L100 speaker from the seventies has been rebooted as the L100 Classic (left, in the photo above), which, despite the familiar look, Harman's Todd Eichenbaum says is new from the ground up.

Slated for release in the next several months, the "Be" indicates beryllium tweeters. Harman's Todd Eichenbaum explained that all of the drivers in the new series are updated from the original performa series.