An Audio Lover’s Video Player.

Over the past year, Denon has quietly assembled an interesting array of Blu-ray players designed to suit a host of budgets and systems—from the digital-only DVD-2500BTCI transport ($999) to the recently announced “entry-level” DVD-1800BD ($749).

Residing at the top of the chain is the reference DVD-3800BDCI ($1,999), a beefy unit whose build quality and high-end components befit that higher price tag.

Speakers have the toughest job in audio; reproduce the deepest bass to highest treble and unleash the widest possible dynamic range. In stereo, the best speakers should provide a full-blown holographic recreation of the original sound event. For home theater you should feel like you're there.

That's the goal, but all speakers fall short of perfection. They never truly disappear as sound sources, and to a greater or lesser degree they all wind up sounding like an assortment of tweeters, midranges and woofers mounted in a box.

Not this time. For this review we're looking at a very different type of speaker.

Flatness

The LT-46SL89 is a lot better looking in person than in pictures.

Surprisingly so.

In pictures it has a boxy look that can't hold a candle to the Hitachi 1.5-inch LCD. But while it doesn't have the Hitachi's swoopiness, it has an elegance all its own.

Digital Out

At first glace, this appears to be just another iPod dock. What makes it special is on the inside (awww, isn't that sweet)—so hidden, in fact, that if you didn't know about it beforehand, you may miss it.

You see, this is the first iPod dock that is able to extract a digital signal from the iPod, keeping the signal digital (depending on your system) all the way to the speaker terminals on your amp. Even if your setup isn't digital that far, wouldn't you rather rely on the digital converters in your receiver/pre-pro than the $300 iPod? Me too.

Flatter Than Flat

How much does a TV’s aesthetic affect your buying decision? Consumers have proclaimed their preference for flat-panel TVs over bulkier designs, but just how flat does the panel need to be?

Hitachi’s UltraThin 1.5 Series of LCDs measure just (surprise, surprise) 1.5 inches deep.

Does its performance earn its step up in price, or is the UT37X902’s beauty only skin deep?

Can't Afford a new Rolls? How about this instead?

Hyundai is trying to be Toyota. And Honda. And why not, they're both some of the most respected and successful car makers out there. With the Genesis, Hyundai aims right in the middle of the luxury sports sedan market.

To help them with that image, they enlisted Lexicon to design the audio system. The only other car with a Lexicon audio system is the Rolls-Royce Phantom. So it's in good company.

Speed Racers

The night before I started writing this review I was at a party at a chic gallery. You know the scene, painfully hip posers cruising the passing parade of beautiful people. The art didn't do that much for me, but the live music was tasty and incredibly enough the musicians weren't using amplifiers. They were playing really interesting beatnik jazz with a ukulele, vibes, trombone, bass and drums.

The BG Radia's Z-92 tower speakers' was then, as they say, like deja vu all over again.

Masters of Metal

Plastic is often unfairly derided in today’s world. Without plastic, we wouldn’t have Barbie dolls. Or Tupperware. Or Hyundais.

But sometimes plastic’s bad rep is warranted. Most in-wall speakers are made from plastic, and that’s one reason some of them don’t sound good. Unless the plastic is impregnated with a stiffening substance, it tends to vibrate in sympathy with the speaker drivers. The result is often smeared, unnatural sound.

Of course, you couldn’t make cheap in-walls without plastic. But Newport Audio isn’t interested in cheap in-walls.