Introduction In the last year, I took on the costly and often frustrating process of adding on 850 square feet to my relatively small 1,500-square-foot 1959 “post and beam” home in Los Angeles. The process amazingly and unexpectedly included no less than $75,000 in cement to make sure a modest two-story addition wouldn’t come crumbling down if, or should I say when, the Earth starts a-rocking and rolling. The overall design of the addition features a master bedroom and master bath cantilevered over a light-controlled, purpose-built, stadium seating-based theater with a 16x9 screen from Stewart, fabric walls, acoustical treatments from RPG and beyond. While working on the design of my theater with Beverly Hills-based installation and design firm Simply Home Entertainment, I sold off my trusty JVC Professional DLA-HS2U projector, tore out my existing theater in what was always supposed to be my living room and headed toward what I would call the Dark Ages ...

The Fujistu P50XHA10US Plasmavision is the largest plasma monitor Fujitsu currently manufactures and the flagship product in their current line. The 16 x 9 widescreen, 50-inch diagonal, 99 pound plasma monitor measures only four inches deep and retails for $10,999. The P50XHA10US has a fixed pixel native resolution of 1366 x 768 and can display images in 1080i and 720p HDTV, as well as 480i and 480p STDV. While owning a 50-inch plasma monitor will no doubt make you feel like the coolest cat in the neighborhood, the P50XHA10US will take you one step further with its stunning good looks. In my view, the wide metallic silver front bezel of the P50XHA10US makes it the most attractive plasma currently on the market. It is certain to please even the most discriminating spouse as far as fitting into any décor. The P50XHA10US has ...

Introduction The name Faroudja is the first that comes to mind when I think about high-performance video, specifically on the subject of line doublers, tripplers , quadruplers and, more recently, scalers. Now that high-end video has pretty much moved to the digital domain, Faroudja has created a new line of video-enhancing products in their Native Rate Series (thus the "NRS" name), which address many of the problems with the picture on a modern digital video system from a completely different angle. Simplistically, standard video information is "interlaced," which means that each frame is split into two halves. Only half of the information is ever shown on the screen every 60th of a second (known as 480i). The line doubler "deinterlaces" the signal by putting the two halves back together again so you get the whole frame every 60th of a second (known as 480p). This reduces flicker, line stair stepping and other yucky motion artifacts. This ...

Introduction The Final 0.3 ($2,399) is Final A.I.P. of The Netherlands first speaker to be released in the United States. The Final 0.3 is an electrostatic hybrid design, utilizing a 48-inch electrostatic panel and a seven-inch metal alloy woofer. (For more on the pros and cons of metal woofers see the RBH review.) The review samples were finished in anodized aluminum, with the panels suspended at a seven degree reclined angle between two brushed aluminum posts. The cylindrical woofer cabinet sits behind the panel and fires upward and forward at thirty degrees. The Final 0.3's must be used either with bi-wire speaker cables or jumpers, both of which must be terminated with banana plugs. Comparisons between the Final electrostatics and those of Martin Logan are inevitable. There are significant notable differences between the two, even before listening begins. The Final 0.3's are shipped unassembled. The user must attach the panel to the woofer cabinet with a ...