CEDIA 2006

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 Stereophile last December.

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

MartinLogan subwoofers? Yup—although the Kansas company is known as an electrostatic specialist, they've been making subs for a long while. The new $2995 Descent1 seems pretty spiffy, though: Top-mounted control interface (hidden under the logo plate), three rigid-chassis, aluminum-cone drivers, triple-servo monitoring, a sealed cabinet enclosure, and three 250W Vojtko amplifiers.

Jim Thiel stands between the final 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

Polk Audio introduced the $1200/ea. RTS100, "the first in-ceiling speaker to meet THX Ultra2 performance standards." The RTS100 has a 14" diameter enclosure containing dual 5¼" midrange drivers and a 1" Ring Radiator tweeter mounted between them. Polk’s exclusive Sound Shape baffle floats the sound waves toward the listening position for "imaging that seems to hover in front of the listener rather than being localized in the ceiling."

Lionel Goodfield gave me a look under the hood of Simaudio's new $1400 LP5.3 Phono universal phono preamp. That huge power supply in the front? Well, Simaudio already has plans for an outboard, higher current model—and the umbilical connector is already resident on the rear panel.

This bad boy is the crossover from a Dynaudio Evidence Temptation. Who says size doesn't matter?