All prices are in US dollars.

Because of the company's four distinct product brands, Audio Products International's booth had one of the largest arrays of speakers on display at CEDIA 2000, including the Mirage OM-R2 (top shelf, $600 per pair) surround and OM-C2 ($750 each) center-channel speakers, which match sonically and visually with the larger Mirage Omnipolar models.

RBH Sound's booth was positively packed with in-wall, bookshelf and floorstanding speakers -- for two-channel and multichannel sound. Shown here from left to right are: 661SE ($1450 per pair), 166SE ($3300 per pair in finish shown), the new 66SE surround speaker ($1400 per pair), 61SE ($1100 per pair) and new 12SE powered subwoofer ($1260). All woofer cones are aluminum.

Home-theater receivers were everywhere at CEDIA, but Harman Kardon's new AVR 7000 ($1799) is unique because it offers Dolby Digital, DTS and HDCD decoding. Printed materials also proclaim "audiophile-grade 24/96 conversion."

Yamaha displayed three new A/V receivers based on the company's popular RX-V1. From top to bottom, the RX-V3000 ($1999), RX-V1000 ($999), and RX-V800 ($799) output 100 watts into five or six channels and have 24-bit/96kHz DACs. The trio won't begin shipping until the end of September, however.

DVD players that pass 24-bit/96kHz data from their digital outputs are rare, but we discovered these two from Marantz, the DV-18MkII (top, $1349) and DV7010 ($799), both of which also play CD-R/CD-RW discs. The DV7010 in particular seemed to be hefty and well made with its thick brushed-aluminum face plate.

Also from Marantz is the top-of-the-line SR-14EX receiver ($4700), which features high-storage power-supply capacitors, Marantz's HDAM (High Definition Amplifier Module) output stage, and custom-wound toroidal power transformers to help it deliver 140W over five channels. It also has 24-bit/192kHz DACs.

NAD's new Silver Series S150 surround-sound preamp/processor (top, $2499) and S250 multichannel power amplifier (also $2499) are an alternative to high-power home-theater receivers in terms of features (Dolby Digital, DTS, and THX Surround EX decoding) and power (125W over five channels). Both are THX Ultra certified.

A trio of Krell Full Power Balanced stereo amps: the 200c (top, $7500), 300c ($10,000), and 600c ($13,500). The model numbers indicate the per-channel power output of the amps. The amps' casework is gorgeous.

Theta's new Intrepid amplifier ($3500) is the little brother to the company's Dreadnaught.

The floorstanding JBL Ti10K speakers ($7000 per pair in oak finish) were head-turners because of their "Scandinavian Bending-Trapezoid Enclosure" and silver finish. Quoted efficiency is 91dB/W/m, but their frequency response is unusual for such a large speaker: -2dB at 80Hz.

Linn's Kivor hard-disk archival and retrieval system ($20,000 plus installation for an eight-channel, eight-room system) was shown at other shows in prototype form, but it was a consumer version at CEDIA 2000. The Kivor is meant to be a whole-house product -- it supports up to 128 separate zones.

Another music-archiving system, Lansonic's DAS-750 Pro Series ($2000) offers 1000 hours of internal storage. It connects to a PC via an Ethernet cable and emulates a PC, so it requires no special drivers. A second use zone can be added for $100.