Anyone stumbling into a Best Buy looking for some sort of wireless speaker solution has probably been ushered over to the Rocketfish section, but up until now, only a few devices have been available. Now, the Best Buy staple is introducing an all-encompassing system that aims to cut the (speaker) cable to all of your speakers. The wireless whole home audio system, which is obviously only available at the yellow-tagged retailer, is comprised of a Wireless Amplified Audio Receiver, a Wireless Sender / Receiver, a Wireless Outdoor Speaker and a Wireless HD Audio Starter Kit, which includes both a sender and receiver. The whole rig is designed to work with standard connections for speaker line and line level inputs, so most any speaker assortment should play nice. All told, the devices combined can send up to five sources to nine receivers throughout the home, but not surprisingly, there's no mention made of the presumably lofty price tag.

We know, life's tough. You want to buy the latest ultraslim HDTV, but find that your home theater speakers will look monstrously bulky sitting alongside it. JVC wouldn't want to cause you such headaches, which is why it's trotted out the above pair of 31mm thin speaker satelittes -- known as the SP-FT1 in black and SP-FT2 in their white garb -- and the AX-FT amplifier squeezed in between them. While you should probably not expect Telos 5000-like output, the amp will deliver 80W of total output over 4 independent channels, and has support for Dolby Digital, DTS and AAC formats. Prices are expected to be around ¥24,000 ($267) for the amp and ¥20,000 ($223) for the speakers when their black iterations hit Japan later this month, with the willowy white option showing up in November.
[Via Akihabara News]

If you've somehow managed to hold out from joining into the HTIB revolution, the time for caving is upon you. LG has just tapped Sir Mark Levinson to engineer the acoustics behind its latest bundle, the HB954SP. Packing a 5.1-channel sound system that includes 1,000 total watts of power, a quintet of oval drivers and a ported subwoofer, the system gets direction from a BD-Live-enabled Blu-ray player that's actually a fair bit more stylish than the tried-and-true black rectangle. You'll also find a pair of HDMI inputs, an iDock function for charging and controlling your iPod / iPhone right from the BD deck, 1080p upscaling of traditional DVDs, touch sensitive controls, a USB port for loading up external media and an optical audio input. There's nary a mention of price, but it should splash down this November for a hefty premium.

It's a bit hard to tell if Artcoustic's latest wall-mounted, ultrathin loudspeakers, the Crystal line, are incredibly horrid or insanely awesome. There's no denying that high-end loving audiophiles are enticed by the brand -- but the Crystal line? Well, let's just say that adding a bunch of Swarovskis to any product won't necessarily make it better. Regardless, these bad boys are customizable and if you're into ostentation, they probably belong in your apartment. There's also a matching iPod dock available, and it'll run you about $3700 to get one, speaker included.

We gave the sound quality Audioengine packed into its powered A2 speakers big thumbs up, but because there's different strokes for different folks, the company has added the more conventional P4 passive speaker to its virtual shelves. Whether you want to use a "spare" receiver, don't want to pay for an onboard amp, or think you can match up a system better than Audioengine's engineers, the P4 might be for you. No blow-molded plastic here, these $249/pair two-ways weigh in at 6-pounds each and have a 4-inch kevlar mid/woofer and a 0.75-inch silk tweeter. The price is right between Audioengine's powered A2 and A5 speakers, but we suspect the performance is closer to the bigger A5s. Available in black, white or bamboo, and with threaded inserts on the back and bottom, you could sprinkle these throughout the homestead. Full PR after the break.

Although Amazon has had pages up for the new Yamaha NS-700 speaker series for a while now, Yamaha Japan has come clean with some details on the various models due for shipment in early September. If you thought Yammie just did soundbars, HTIBs and lamps, take a look. Non-parallel cabinet sides are used throughout the range, as is the black finish to match -- of course -- your Yamaha grand piano. You can hit the read link for the full machine-translated PR, but the NS-F700 floorstander is catching our eye with a 6.5-inch A-PMD (advanced polymer injected mica diaphragm) woofer, 5-inch PMD mid and 1.125-inch aluminum tweet; all together promising a 45Hz - 50kHz response. Sounds good, and you should be able to round out your system with the NS-B750 or NS-B700 bookshelves, NS-C700 center channel, and the NS-SW700 that didn't make Japanese press release but managed to sneak into the family photo.

Wisdom Audio is going to use CEDIA to debut its new Sage Series SCS "suitcase" subwoofer. Despite the fact that the press release shreds any secrecy, it sounds like something right out of Connery-era Q's lab -- the little beast packs a 300-Watt amp and dual 5x7.5-inch woofers into a modest 37x22x6-inch package that can crank out 22Hz bass. How was it that Bond took his martinis again? Don't be fooled by the "suitcase" nickname, take the 300-Watt amp as a clue that this design isn't about portable audio. Rather, the svelte (by subwoofer standards) profile and selectable porting of the SCS will allow integrators to put the sub into creative places when it ships later this year for $4,000.

When a new flagship subwoofer gets reviewed, enduring a little machine translation is totally worthwhile. Actually, mister roboto did a pretty good job with Israeli site hometheater.co.il's review of Axiom Audio's EP800, but even if it hadn't you could have guessed that the dual 12-inch drivers, 800-Watt amp and sealed cabinet of the tower-sub goes way low, way loud. The brave reviewer went way beyond the well-appointed connection/adjustment panel of this sub and really dove into the guts -- we just hope that they securely tightened down the drivers upon reassembly! Other highlights of the review include the EP800 box overshadowing a small child and a video clip of Axiom's 90-foot measuring tower. Hit the link for the fun stuff -- trust us, the giddy joy of a big sub survives translation.

[Via Audioholics]

It's been a while since we heard about BG Radia's THX Ultra2-certified in-wall subwoofers, the BGX-4850, so we were pretty happy to see that AVGuide put them to a review. Word to the wise -- don't scoff at the small 4-inch drivers used in this subwoofer; by packing 48 of those little cones into each module in a kind of boxer style layout (Porsche and Subaru fans take note), the BGX-4850 (combined with a 2,200-Watt amp and a healthy dollop of DSP) turned loose sub-20Hz response that the reviewer ate up. No smudgy, slow, plodding bass here -- quite the opposite, actually. The reviewer said the transient response may outpace some of the primary speakers with which it's paired; something good is going on here. Good enough, in fact, to net perfect 10s for everything but the "value" portion of the competition; somehow you just knew that $7,000 tag would catch a snag somewhere along the way.

Especially these days, a witty sense of humor and a quarter won't even get you a cup of coffee, but Klipsch is giving funny-makers a shot at some its S4 headphones and a HD Theater 300 speaker setup. That's right -- those snarky remarks you normally give out for free can now score you some gear! Here's the bracket breakdown -- four caption contests will be run (each lasting two weeks) and the winning entry from each caption contest will win a pair of S4 in-ears; and a random entry from the final four will score a HD Theater 300 speaker system. Long odds and lots of competition, so now's the time to break open that war chest of audiophile taunts you've been building up. Full PR release after the break.

Details are scarce on these new speakers from Kenwood, but if you find yourself frequently faced with a lamp-or-noise dilemma, we might've just stumbled upon the solution. The prototype flat speakers, developed by Junji Kido of Yamagata University in Japan, are inexplicably surfaced with white Lumiblade-style OLED lights -- we're not sure what that does for the sound, but we probably won't be trading in our studio monitors in anticipation of this brightly lit conjectured future.

[Via OLED-Info]

For most people making their first foray into HT gear, springing for a full-blown audio rig to go along with a new TV is just too expensive, and while starting out with just a pair of speakers up front might fit the budget, it doesn't deliver the surround sound thrills that make on satisfied with the new purchase. That's exactly why HTIB systems like Samsung's new AS730 that get you going quickly but don't immediately "dead-end" your system make sense. For $500, you get a 7.1-channel receiver and a 5.1-channel speaker system with a powered subwoofer. With three HDMI inputs, three Toslink inputs, the requisite iPod dock (with analog video support), auto calibration and even 7.1 channel analog audio inputs, you can unbox this package and be set up before the popcorn is ready; better still, there's room to grow with this system. At this price point, some tradeoffs have to be made -- your Blu-ray deck will have to decode any Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA to LPCM, but that's just picking nits, isn't it? Full press release and a few photos after the break.

Klipsch stunned the boxed surround sound world back in late January with the announcement of three relatively affordable 5.1 sound systems. The middle guy (yeah, the HD Theater 500) just started shipping out to the earliest of adopters, and we just so happened to get our set in today. For $599.99 (MSRP), you get four surrounds, a center channel and a powered (100 watt) 8-inch subwoofer. Each satellite is a sealed enclosure finished in a high-gloss piano black, with a 2.5-inch IMG woofer (center channel has two) and a MicroTractrix horn-loaded aluminum dome tweeter (0.75-inches) packed within. We can say with certainty that these drivers are delightfully small, but if you're looking specifics, here goes: the satellites are 6- x 3.6- x 3.85-inches, while the center channel measures in at 3.6- x 9- x 3.85-inches. As for the subbie? 13.9- x 12.5- x 12.5-inches. We're setting this rig up as we speak to give it a listen and report back, but till then, feel free to peruse the unboxing gallery below.

Hope you won't be confused by two more HTIB systems from Onkyo, 'cause they're coming at you fast and furious. Starting things off is the 7.1-channel HT-S5200, which packs 1,200 total watts of power and includes a 10-inch, 290 watt subwoofer. Said setup is Sirius-ready and features an HDMI-equipped audio-video receiver, four DSP gaming modes, Audyssey 2EQ room correction technology and Audyssey Dynamic Volume to keep levels, um level. The lower-end HT-S3200 consists of a 5.1-channel, 660 watt system that bundles in the HT-R370 receiver and includes a trio of HDMI pass-through inputs, DTS and Dolby Digital surround processing and an 8-inch subwoofer. Both rigs are available now in black or silver for $599 and $379 in order of mention.

We've heard some pretty positive things about SVSound in our day, so it's definitely a pleasure to see the outfit introducing something new for home theater junkies with the STS-01. The so-called "slim tower" joins the growing S Series family, bringing along a 7-inch wide enclosure that packs a ClearSilk F2 ferrofluid-cooled tweeter and four newly enhanced soft-dome 6-inch poly-cone woofers. The company asserts that the masterfully refined crossover system and stellar imaging will satisfy even the most demanding ears, and you can find out yourself when these ship this summer for $849 per pair (make that $749 per pair if you get in early!).

[Thanks, Sean]