Introduction The Due is the latest creation from Gallo Acoustics, a company famous for making physically round AV speakers. The $599 Due’s name is derived from the fact that the speaker contains two spherical units, rather than the single sphere of past Gallo designs. The two spheres are joined in the middle by a cylindrical tweeter assembly that is unique to Gallo, resulting in a very stylish “un-speakerlike” speaker. Gallo paired the Due with their $750 MPS-150 woofer for low frequency reinforcement. This woofer is also very unconventional in design. The design features two short cylinders, one housing the 10-inch driver, the other containing a 240-watt amplifier and related electronics. The Dues are refreshingly small, measuring 11 inches tall, five inches wide and five inches deep. The Dues come with modernistic perforated steel grilles that can easily be removed. Removing the grilles leaves the speakers almost an inch thinner and reveals their unique dual spherical shape, ...

Introduction Many home theater enthusiasts, myself included, often find themselves daydreaming about flagship processors, gargantuan amplifiers (the types that are capable of arc welding), cost-no-object speaker systems, and subwoofers that can register on the Richter scale. Unfortunately, many of these products can have prices in the stratosphere, at times approaching five digits or more for each component. The same enthusiast may not see the appeal in the necessity of taking out a second home mortgage in order to acquire the components for assembling such a “state of the art” system. Fortunately, there are many manufacturers on the market today whose business philosophy is to provide a high degree of performance without the soaring prices that these mega-systems often command. In terms of speakers, several Canadian companies have made great use of the National Research Council (NRC) laboratories to design great-performing speakers at very reasonable cost. For those who are unaware of the NRC, it is the ...

Introduction Aragon has a long and well-respected reputation for producing high-value, high-end two-channel music preamplifiers and, more specifically, power amplifiers. Today, under the ownership of Klipsch, they are expanding into the highly competitive market of multi-channel music reproduction and home theater. Aragon is not attempting to compete with the inexpensive mass-market products but instead going head-to-head with the best in the mid- to high-performance class, such as Sunfire and Anthem. The Stage One is a full-featured theater/multi-channel music processor, AM/FM tuner, two-channel analog preamplifier and video switcher, built into a single chassis. The Stage One measures 17 inches wide, five-and-one-half inches tall and 15 inches deep and retails for $4,000. It has seven inputs for A/V sources, all of which accommodate composite video, s-video, analog audio, and digital audio. Component video inputs are available on three of the inputs. Three toslink digital inputs are available, as well as a toslink output for high-quality digital recording. The analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog ...

Click the links below to see all of our "Best of 2002" winner.. Ultimate Loudspeakers (Over $10,000) CD Players - Digital High End Loudspeakers ($2,000 to $10,000) DVD Players (DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, DVD-R) Loudspeakers Under $2,000 SACD Players Subwoofers Video Power Amps Other AV Sources Multi-Channel Amps Remotes AV Preamps AC Power Two Channel Preamps EQ (digital and analog) Receivers Accessories   AVRev.com's "Best Of 2002" List The Best High-Performance Audio/Video Equipment You Can Buy What an incredible year it has been for audio/video! Despite the prolonged U.S. recession, the A/V industry has been cranking out new and better technology at a breakneck rate. This is good news for the new additions to the AudioRevolution.com Best of 2002 list and bad news for the products that have lost their listings. Many items that have been dropped from the list are excellent products that are no longer current. Others are just not up to new standards set by new competitors. It is important to note that there are a few ...

Introduction The name Aragon has long been synonymous with performance and value. Eons ago, Aragon was put on the high-end audio map with the introduction of the critically acclaimed Aragon 4004MKII amplifier. Today, the Aragon brand name is owned by Klipsch, who have recently introduced an entirely new line of Aragon products with the same lofty goals in mind: to supply products that compete with the very best, at a price that doesn’t require a second mortgage. The Aragon 2007 fits that description as a seven-channel amplifier that measures nine-and-one-quarter inches tall, 15 inches deep, and 17-and-one-quarter inches wide. The 2007 weighs 49 pounds and sells for $3,000, a competitive price as compared with other high-performance multi-channel power amps. Each of the 2007’s amplifier channels is capable of supplying 200 watts of power into eight ohms, and 300 watts into four ohms. This is a whopping total of 1400 watts at eight ohms and 2100 watts into ...