I spent the afternoon demo'ing speakers. (No have have no intention of "upgrading" my M60's!) If you recall my brother is moving to LA from Boston. He's put me in charge of getting him an all new system from the ground up. So I took advantage and listened to a ton of stuff today.

B&W 704 ($2200) - Sweet speaker. Very nice clarity and warm sounding. Nice details. BEAUTIFUL wood cabinet. But for $2200 it should be nice, right? Oh...and their cabinets are shaped a bit like Axioms...wider at front than in the back. Not quite as extreme as Axioms. Wonder where they got that idea. ???

B&W 705 ($1500) - Another nice speaker. Attains surprising depth (and a nice clean bass) for a smallish bookshelf speaker. Compared to the 704's though, it sounded a bit closed in, and the soundstage wasn't as full.

Theil 1.6 - ($2200) Wow...I'd never heard a pair of Theil's before. These sounded very nice! Incredible separation. Depending on your tastes, they are a good looking speaker as well. Unlike most speakers, they slope backward from bottom to top, and are tapered from bottom to top...wider at the base.

NHT ST4 - ($1000) Not at the level of the B&W's but again, not a bad little speaker. They have 8" side firing woofers. This is the first speaker I've heard with built in "subs", that didn't sound like complete poo. Again, very nicely built, with a really nice looking high gloss black finish.

Vienna Acoustics Bach - ($1500) - These sounded nice as well. I listened to these paired with a $3000 Rel subwoofer, so I'm sure that helped. Playing "Dead Can Dance" they sounded quite amazing, though when I played Prince's "1+1+1=3" the bass got a bit muddy. Not sure if it was the sub or the speakers, but the bass lost a lot of clarity on that disc. Once again, BEAUTIFUL finish.

One thing I've consistantly noticed with all the speakers I've looked at...NICE finishes. REAL wood. Exactly how much more would it cost to have a pair of Axioms with a real wood finish? I LOVE the sound of my Axiom's, but I've always been disapointed that they're not real wood. Those new B&W 704's were MIGHTY impressive looking.

I listened to a new NAD receiver/DVD player unit today as well. The NAD L70. It's an "all-in-one" Receiver/DVD player. I was listening to the Prince track "1+1+1=3" again. I switched from listening to a Rotel 1055 reciver and 1070 cd player to the NAD. Bleck! The NAD sounded thin, and had MUCH more background hiss. Bleck, bleck, bleck...Even compared to the Denon AVR-1804 and the Denon 1600 DVD player, the NAD just didn't stand up. Sorry NAD, but this new L70 doesn't seem like a winner.

Finally I looked at some TV's. (and FP's). I'm still not sold on the plasma technology. From a distance they look pretty good, but if you're too close at all, you get some serious pixelation. Even with dvd's...I dunno. I watched some DLP tv's and thought they looked more natural.

I then saw an InFocus 5700. 93" screen...sweet. The blacks weren't as nice on the rear projection DLP or the plasma, but it's hard to deny that 93" is indeed impressive.