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By: Richard Del Cazzo
Web site: http://www.hdtv-hdtv.com
Your favorite electronics store has plenty of options for
installing a home-theater system. Some require you to mix
and match components, others promise a simple solution with
a "home theater in a box."
But even the most simplified systems come with five or six
speakers and a few miles of cable. You still have to mount
the speakers on a wall or the floor and figure out how to
hide all those wires.
The NIRO 1.1 PRO offers an alternative that's hard to resist:
a home-theater system that uses just one speaker cabinet and
a subwoofer.
A typical home-theater setup has two front speakers, two
rear speakers and a center speaker that carries most of the
on-screen dialogue.
The NIRO packs those five speakers into one cabinet. The
silver-colored box is 19 inches wide by about 4 inches tall
- small enough to sit on a shelf or on top of a TV set. The
subwoofer is about 1 foot square. It can sit on the floor
near the TV set, against a wall or in a corner.
The speakers are powered by a slim silver receiver that contains
a DVD player and an AM/FM tuner.
Connecting the speakers to the receiver is an idiot-proof
process. Each speaker box has a single ribbon cable and a
single plastic clip that snaps into the back of the NIRO receiver.
You can't mess up by crossing lead and ground wires or connecting
the cable for the right rear speaker to the terminal that
feeds the left rear speaker.
It took me about 10 minutes to unpack the components and
another 10 to connect them. In less than half an hour, I was
watching movies and playing music.
Setting up a conventional home-theater system is an exercise
in audio alchemy. For the best sound, you have to place all
the speakers in the right locations, then run tests to be
sure they are correctly balanced.
The NIRO eliminates all those fine-tuning chores. It uses
an on-board computer to adjust the signal that's delivered
to each speaker. The computer tunes the speakers to take into
account how your ears would hear sound arriving from different
parts of the room.
In other words, it's magic.
The result is a multichannel soundtrack that makes you think
you're hearing a car engine coming from somewhere past your
left shoulder.
I tested the system with a few high-intensity movies, including
"Saving Private Ryan" and "The Matrix."
While the NIRO couldn't produce sound coming from directly
behind me, it did create a broad soundstage that easily met
the demands of the film soundtracks.
The NIRO will recognize Dolby Digital and DTS signals, and
the unit's remote control will let you adjust the subwoofer
sound or switch between two-channel and multichannel delivery.
The NIRO's 200-watt amplifier had more than enough power
to fill my media room, and it performed admirably playing
standard audio CDs. It will also play VCD and SVCD video discs,
CDs containing MP3 files and CDs with JPEG pictures.
The receiver has a minimal array of connections: two audio
auxiliary inputs, one audio output, a standard video output
jack plus component and S-Video outputs. The tuner supports
30 station presets.
The NIRO probably won't offer enough connections to please
a high-end audiophile. But it's a big step up in quality from
one-box home-theater systems found in most discount stores.
And you won't have to tear up your house to enjoy it.
The NIRO 1.1 PRO costs $799 from the Nirotek Web site.
Every home-theater sound system needs a subwoofer, and subwoofers
need space to do their thing. The laws of physics require
large speaker cabinets and plenty of power to generate loud
and deep bass tones.
WAVES Ltd. doesn't claim to have repealed those laws, but
the Israel-based company has figured out how to get a rich
bass sound out of a much smaller package.
The company's Home MiniWoofer is a 7-inch cube that weighs
less than 6 pounds and consumes about half as much power as
a conventional woofer. The WAVES woofer uses audio signal
processing technology that the company has licensed to Sony,
Samsung and other consumer electronics companies.
The Home MiniWoofer is expected to be available this summer
for $149
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