Introduction Power conditioning products have been getting a lot of attention over the last few years from audiophiles and video freaks alike. If you didn’t know better, you might think that AC power components were a bit more snake oil remedy than real-world solution to AV problems. Make no mistake, most places in the U.S. and Canada have lousy power that robs your high-performance gear of vast amounts of its potential. Although power conditioning and surge protection products have been around in the professional audio industry and scientific communities for quite some time, these solutions are fairly new to the AV enthusiast who in the last five years has been hearing all about “conditioning,” “regulation,” “regeneration” and much more. This education came with the home theater juggernaut and information about how adulterated power can affect the video signal. This was a ...

Introduction and Set-up For those of you who love the look and open sound of a pair of attractive, high-performance floor-standing speakers flanking your video display, the Energy Connoisseur line has several new options for you to choose from. This review system consists of a pair of $750 C-5 floor-standing speakers, a $400 C-C1 Center Channel, a pair of $400 C-R1 Rear Channels and the small but powerful $500 S8.2 Subwoofer. Only the Veritas series offers higher performance than the Connoisseurs in the Energy lineup of speakers. I don’t have a very large living room, so when the boxes arrived at the Audio Video Revolution offices, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could fit the entire system into my compact car. I love monster speakers that can rock an amphitheater as much as the next guy, but I could tell that these reasonably-sized Energy speakers were going to be a good fit to my ...

Introduction The Escient FireBall DVDM-100 retails for $1,995 and is a high-tech solution to the ever-growing problem of AV media management. The FireBall unit is best described as the brain or control center for up to 1200 CDs and/or DVDs. The Escient unit itself does not hold any discs, nor does it have an internal hard drive to store data (like the insanely overpriced Kalidescape products). Instead, these discs are housed in up to three of Sony or Kenwood’s 400-disc changers. The FireBall then acts as a switcher and controller for the external changers. The FireBall also thoughtfully has a built-in Internet radio receiver. For those of you with large MP3 libraries, the FireBall, when connected to a hard drive-based music storage system from Escient or another manufacturer, can access and manage playback of MP3 encoded music as well. The unit itself measures 17-3/8 inches wide by four-and-five-eighths inches high and 11-7/8 inches deep, about the size ...

Introduction Escient’s new Fireball is an early example of something that is going to become a lot more common in the future, believe me: it’s an audio component that links today’s broadband internet audio experience to your home audio system and with your existing CD collection. Essentially a dedicated audio server with a 40 GB hard drive, analog and digital I/O and network connections, the Fireball, list price $1,999, allows you to capture audio from the built-in CD drive or from external digital or analog sources, ripping the content to MP3 files and storing them on the internal hard drive. In addition, the Fireball interfaces with the Internet, either by phone line, Home Phone Networking (HPNA) or broadband. The Internet provides Internet radio, along with a transparent interface to the CDDB CD database, which provides track information and cover art. There is also an information and shopping interface that allows you to find out information about ...

Introduction The ExactPower EP15A is a power component designed to regulate and improve the quality of the AC power that is supplied to your audio/video electronics. Most people simply purchase electronic components and plug them into the wall, never even considering that the performance of their A/V systems could be severely limited by the quality of the power that their homes provide. The ExactPower EP15A is a product designed to address this issue directly. The EP15A physically measures 17 inches wide, 14 inches deep, has a 2U rack height of three-and-one-half inches, and weighs a solid 30 lbs. The EP15A provides 1,800 watts of regulated power and provides eight high-quality receptacles for connecting you’re audio/video gear. The front-display exhibits output voltage but can be toggled to display output current or output power if desired. The EP15A sells for $2,499. I give the ...