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High end audiophiles will squak. Meridian's G98 costs $6k (review), the Lexicon RT20 is $5k, an Ayre costs $6k, and the Arcam FMJ 29 (highly rated starting end of high end) will set you back $3k. The top reference player, Meridan 808, will set you back $20k.

The Denon 2910 (about $600) (review) is the beginning of better quality players. The article being discussed does exactly what a lot of the higher end players do -- swap out cheap parts for better ones. For those who don't think it makes a difference, you've never had the pleasure of good quality sound. A wide, three dimensional sound stage with clear separation of instruments and fine detail puts a smile on your face. Being able to get that for much less than above (and have the second pleasure of do it yourself) is well worth it.

From my blog entry this morning... saves me retyping it all in.

So the CBC has this story, about a recent poll of Americans which found that 73 per cent of them prefer watching movies at home, whether through DVD, VHS or pay-per-view, rather than in the theatre.

I'm sure Hollywood will get in a panic about this, and the MPAA will claim that piracy is to blame, even though only 5 per cent of those polled said they had downloaded a film.

My response to Hollywood is: can you blame people?

You're paying about $10 to go to the movies these days, just for admission (and even that's likely to get worse in Canada, when you read this about Cineplex Odeon buying Famous Players) to watch the latest crapstravaganza featuring the current flavour of the month actor who can't act their way out of a paper bag. The main character has some token development, and is surrounded by wooden characters brought to dubious life by bit actors. When will Hollywood realise the importance of casting for the small roles? Most of the Hollywood movies I've really enjoyed are the ones that people all of the roles, large or small, with quality character actors. Look at Shawshank Redemption, or even Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, which didn't win any actors any awards, but were riddled with people who know how to act. And that makes it so much more convincing versus say, garbage like The Fast and the Furious.

So people end up staying home--why get the car out, haul the family down to the theatre, spend $40 on admission and $30 on popcorn and drinks for a feature you're pretty sure, based on track record, is going to be disappointing? Much easier to stay at home and spend a few bucks renting the DVD or watching the pay-per-view.

But appallingly bad films are not the only reason people are staying at home. Look at the difference in the viewing experience.

At the theatre, I'm stuck in a seat that allows limited shifting of body position, the floor is sticky, people beside me talk to each other about other things throughout the movie, the guy behind me is busy explaining the film to his girlfriend (or worse yet, summarising the plot of Episodes I, II, IV, V and VI of Star Wars at the same time as watching and trying to explain RotS), I'm nowhere near the center of the screen because I no longer have the inclination or energy to line up first or barge past everyone else when they open the doors to get a good seat, the picture is grainy, often out of focus, and the sound is turned up so high and the sound system so poor that high-frequency noises like R2D2's beeps, are actively painful...

Contrast that with, say, watching a DVD at home. I get the seat I want (though I can move during the film if I want, as well). I can put my feet up. My seat is right in the center of the screen. I can have the amount of ambient light I want. I can get up and go to the bathroom without missing the only meaningful line of dialogue in the film, the popcorn is cheaper and tastes better, the picture looks great. And as for the sound system (audiophile geekout coming up, you have been warned)...

I have extreme control over the volume. I can boost the center channel volume so as to hear dialogue perfectly, while keeping the rest of the speakers lower. I've got an Arcam AVR100 amp driving the rear speakers, center channel and subwoofer, and a Musical Fidelity A300 dual mono amplifier driving some Monitor Audio Silver 8 speakers on the front, and the whole experience is way better than what you get

There are other UK manufacturers who almost certainly assemble their own DVD players. These include Arcam and Roksan.

As to whether or not this is a good thing, here's a test, actually find some US workers who havelost their non-buggywhip jobs to having them shipped overseas or replaced by 'guest workers". Stare them in the eyes, tell them you don'tcare, tell them they didn'twork hard enough or smart enough and it'sall their fault. Tell them you don'tcare if they lose their equity, or if they lose their cars, because 'oh well, it'll all sort itself out eventuallylike in the olden days". Honest, just try it, take it beyond academic posting on a forum.

Yeah, on a personal level it sucks. I've been laid off (altho' not because the job was shipped overseas) and I know plenty of people that have been laid off too. With one exception, they all found jobs again easily, within days or weeks usually, those that wanted to that is (some went back to school, traveling etc). There will always be a place for the talented.

So I guess we at least "try". I'd love to buy an all USA made computer, wouldn't bother me a bit my money went to US workers even if it cost more, deal is, can't buy one, they don't exist.

I know what you mean. There are some things I always buy British like Hi fi, pork sausages and suits. But I wouldn't buy a product purely because it was British, if its quality couldn't compete with imports. Too many Western firms grew complacent and let the price creep up and the quality down. The US auto manufacturers are a perfect example of this.

other names are less recognizable like Arcam , Marantz, Rega , Rotel , NAD, and Nakamichi . But all make superlative gear for less than you'd think.

my habit has recently been Krell and Vandersteen

above all, any audiophile will tell you to listen, make adjustments, and buy and enjoy what sounds the best. all it takes is love of music

Information on the players is available here and the unit can be made multi region with a few keypresses on the remote.

It retails a around 800 Pounds Sterling and should be available in the US later - it's specs definately support US standards for power and component outputs.

Most of my friends have stopped buying CDs and while I still buy them [...] I do it more from a guilty conscience (and because I can afford to) than due to any real need.

It saddens me when I read comments like these. Yes, MP3's are nice, quick, easy and cheap, but do they deliver good quality music? If your answer is 'Yes', then I suspect you have never really heard the difference between a good CD recording and an MP3 made from the same CD.

Allow me to suggest that the one and only reason why MP3's have caught on is due to the crappy plastic stereos most people use in their 'home theaters' and elsewhere. The sound you get if you combine a decent pair of headphones, an at least halfway decent CD player and perhaps a homemade headphone amplifier is absolutely out of this world compared to the digital line noise called MP3. The fabled SB64AWE Gold and directly ripped WAV files (ie. no compression) is not even close to natively played CD's on decent playback equipment. If you are stupid enough to connect your high quality headphone amplifier directly to any sound card, then you will quickly discover that computers generates noise and distortion in more ways than by the spinning of fans and HD's. That people dont notice can only be attributed to the crappy japanese department store plastic they hook up to the PC.

Do I have a large HD shock full of MP3's? Sure I do, but they are mostly used as background noise when programming etc. When I really want to listen to music, then the PC's are shut down and the tubes are heated up. These days I mostly download MP3's to seek out new musical waters before diving in with my wallet. You just might get a feel of the real thing by listening to MP3's, but to get the totally enveloping experience you just got to have a CD (or LP). If you think differently, then you have a problem, pal...