Style for audiophiles: KEF’s KHT 6000 ACE speakers
Speaker specialist KEF has announced a high-end audiophile
speaker set that puts the emphasis on style. 
The KHT 6000 ACE speakers are designed to fit right in with your skinny plasma or LCD and work as well on the wall, as on the ground. These ultra-slim speakers use KEF’s ACE technology to
allow them to generate the kind of bass associated with much bigger speakers. 
The Uni-Q
driver technology employed in the centre speaker and satellites is designed to
give a wider dispersion of sound beyond the 'sweet spot' and produce crisper dialogue. They look good
and come with price to match. A set of
five will set you back around £1,400-£1,500. See here for full details.
2-inch projector from Sony
Projectors are destined to get smaller and lighter as Sony
seems keen to point out with the new VPL-CX20 LCD projector. 
Aimed at the home
and mobile presentation market it will sport a £1,000 price tag. It measures an
anorexic 2ins high and weighs in at 1.9Kg. It has a brightness of 2000 Lumens
which is more than enough for home cinema use and a good XGA resolution of 1024x768, making it capable of throwing up
high-definition (HD) video images without any scaling. Full specs here.
Samsung's IT-friendly home cinema kit
Samsung is claiming a world’s first with the launch of two
all-in-one home cinema systems that will allow you to play DVDs, MPEG and DivX video, digital music and photo files directly from portable hard drives. 
A very handy
feature indeed considering the wide range of storage devices in use by people
today. Just hook up your device to the USB 2.0 port and off you go. It also saves you the cost and clutter of investing in really long
cables to connect your TV to your PC. 
The HT-UP30 boasts a progressive scan DVD
player, four 75W satellite speakers, an 80W centre speaker and 120W subwoofer.
The HT-TP33 is essentially the same but with floor-standing speakers. The
HT-UP30 costs £158 here while the HT-TP33 costs £215 here.
3-D movies back from the dead
3-D glasses and movies are largely rubbish. They always were
and mostly, still are – last year’s Spy Kids 3-D anyone? However, Disney and Dolby
think there’s life in the dead horse yet. 
Chicken Little will be the first
movie from Disney to boast it’s new computer-generated technology and in order
to make sure the movie (and the technology) doesn’t bomb, it has teamed up with
Dolby and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Disney will put Dolby’s Digital
Cinema sound system in 100 cinemas and ILM will render the movie in 3D so it
can be played on the Dolby servers. As expected, everyone is very excited about
the this new, generation of 3-D movie experience. 
Apparently, the glasses will
be more comfortable than the bits of cardboard with plastic film we have come
to love so well over the years. Great, but it would be nice if they actually
worked.
Record 24hrs of TV on a single disc
Throw away those video tapes. Pioneer has launched three new
hard disk drive DVD recorders, claiming they are the first to let you record up to 24hrs of TV on a Dual Layer (DL) DVD-R disc. 
Blank DL
DVD-R discs can hold up to 8.5Gb of content, compared to the more common,
single-sided 4.7Gb DVD-R discs. Pioneer’s own MPEG encoder technology promises
3hrs 30mins of full resolution video on single-sided DVD-R and 6hrs on a
dual-layer disc. The three slimline DVD recorders are the DVR-433H, DVR-530H
and DVR-630H with 80Gb, 160Gb, and
250Gb hard drives, respectively. In real terms, that’s up to 227, 445 and 711hrs of video recording – at the lowest resolution though. Prices not yet out
but expect them to range from £350 to £600.
Sagem's 56in DLP TV stunner
Sagem has taken the wraps off it’s biggest DLP TV yet. The
56in Axium HD-D56B uses DLP technology – more common in projectors – to display
images on the screen. DLP TVs are like lightweight (c. 45kgs) and slimmed down
(16ins deep) versions of older rear-projection TVs but with much better quality.
They also tend
to be significantly cheaper than plasma and LCDs. From a technical standpoint the advantages over plasma and LCD TVs include almost no blurring of moving images,
no screen burn from channel logos or gaming, or loss of brightness. It also boasts
a lamp lifetime of 100,000 hours – significantly more than plasma and LCD. Even then, you can replace the lamp, just like in projectors. Contrast
levels are 3000:1, it has a DVI connection and a resolution of 1280x720, which
makes it capable of reproducing high-definition DVD or TV signals. Available
now it costs £2,650 (without stand) here.
Forum or against em
Did you know that as well as the Interactive Home blog, there is also the Digital Home Forum hosted on VNU's Forum section at http://forums.vnunet.com/
You can also subscribe to our RSS feed to get this blog and also use our free RSS reader by subscribing to www.newsgator.co.uk
Logitech offers wireless music freedom
PC peripheral
specialist Logitech is targeting the lifestyle set with its Wireless Headphones
for iPod. Just plug the wireless adapter into your iPod and the headphones
promise you a range of around 10 metres.
At 3.5oz they are reasonably lightweight and sport integrated iPod
controls on the side for volume, play/pause and track jumping. The headphones
use Bluetooth 1.2 technology and Logitech claims its adaptive frequency hopping helps
eliminate radio interference. Wireless headsets are not known for their supreme
audio reproduction, though. Keep a lookout for first reviews or test them for quality –
if possible – before handing over a somewhat steep £80-£90. Full details here
and they are due in the UK next month.
Sneak peek at Denon's latest AV kit
There’s only one thing more desirable than home
entertainment technology just launched and that’s stuff just around the corner.
Audio-separates specialist Denon, is flashing previews of its next foray into
the AV market on its website. These follow on from the successful and highly rated DHT-M330DV entry-level all-in-one home cinema offering (pictured).
The S-101 is also an all-in-one home cinema
offering and from what we can see it looks very sleek indeed. As well as the new-look slim speakers, the
S-101 is a departure from the typical boxy/straight line approach. As usual with
Denon though the look is clean and clinical. It's also surprisingly uncluttered. Due this summer there are
no prices or actual availability dates but when we know, so will you.
Midget MP3 players target iPod Shuffle
How small does an Mp3 player need to be? Very, if you are
NHJ with it’s colourful v@mp c@ndi series. 
They measure in at a minuscule 4.2 x
2.7 x 1.5cm and weigh 17g. That makes them smaller and lighter than the iPod
Shuffle. Without a screen they also work in the same way, where you choose the
playback track order when downloading your songs or let it do it for you. This
rainbow selection of Flash-based
MP3 players, which unfortunately look like Bic
lighters, come in 128Mb, 256Mb, 512Mb and 1Gb sizes. The iPod Shuffle has
a claimed battery life of 12 hours. So, if the v@mp c@ndis have no screens and are
lighter and smaller than the iPod Shuffle, why is the battery life a miserable
5 hours? Prices from £30.
Radical TVs from Hannspree
When it comes to novelty TVs, few make them as odd as
Hannspree. 
The company that brought us the sheep TV and the baseball TV is now
set to release it’s ‘Lifestyle’ range. Echoing interior design and contemporary
styling the company promises TVs with personality. 
There are three ranges
entitled Style, Fantasy and Sports. This covers TVs built around everything from
cellos, teddy bears and Cinderella to the curved shape of sailing masts,
footballs and racing cars. Whether you find it quirky, or the TV-equivalent of personalised number plates, tune in here for more details. Available online from October with prices ranging from $499 to $1,399. See just how odd your TV can be.
Bruce Lee in your living room
Ever fancied combining your inner Shaolin monk with your
love for the latest in digital lifestyle technology? If so, then the
aptly-named Kickass Kung Fu is for you. 
Think of those electronic dance pads
your kids hop around on to music and then multiply that a thousand-fold. Using
a 5-metre padded base, cameras and electronics your moves are translated to
the character on screen and exaggerated to the point of Matrix-like
proportions. 
Little hops become gravity-defying leaps and even your amateur chop-socky
can demolish your digital foe in devastating style. For anyone that has ever pulled Bruce
Lee poses in front of a mirror and squealed like a mewling cat, your time has
come.
Pioneer’s bargain universal DVD player
We just got finished covering the launch of the world’s most
expensive universal DVD player from Teac and now we have one of the most affordable.
The DV-585A sits at the top of a trio of new slim DVD
players from Pioneer. It’s a
progressive scan DVD player that also supports DivX, and DVD Audio and SACD
playback for just £130. That’s a great price for a big brand and a great way to check out what these new high-definition audio formats can bring to your home entertainment paradise. The DVD-585A is
also joined by the DV-2850 and DV-380 progressive scan DVD players, coming in
at around £80.
Power up the Active Home
Although wireless connectivity may be very liberating, allowing the user to surf the web on the sofa, in bed or in the garden it does zap the power of your laptop.
Very soon that exhilarating feeling of having broadband next to the barbie is lost as you either have to: a) plug in your laptop or b) wear a bandoleer of spare batteries and look like a poor imitation of Vin Diesel.
Well help is at hand in the form of the Universal Notebook Battery launched today in the UK by vendor APC.
Weighing a paltry 2lb, the battery is ideal for travellers as it will last eight hours and allow you to comfortably watch your favourite DVDs on the plane. Similarly it will allow you to catch the rays as you catch up on your emails in the garden.
"Your laptop sees the battery as mains power," according to APC's director of consumer business Paul Tyrer. " As we see more and more technology in the home, we will increasingly need more and more mobility products to support the digital lifestyle," Tyrer added.
For early adopters, the price could be a bit steep for some at an estimated price of £200 notes but it will pay for itself every time you end up in economy on the plane and the only film on offer is The Pacifier with, you guessed it: Vin Diesel.
APC has also launched today a new line of surge protection for the home to protect your precious plasmas and PS2s from power surges, spikes and lightening.
Ranging from £8 to £30 notes its one of those purchases that reminds us of insurance. Don't buy one and you could be hurting later.
Teac’s £10,000 DVD player
We can safely say that the UX-1 universal DVD player from AV
specialist Teac sits at the luxury end of the home entertainment spectrum. 
This pricey addition
to the Esoteric series is capable of playing back DVD Video, DVD Audio and
SACD, and a lot more besides. As well as supporting all of the major sound formats,
it boasts a lip-syncing feature to correct dodgy audio transfers on DVD movies
and a speaker configuration tool that computes and adjusts your surround sound
set-up. There’s a lot more on offer, and for £10,000, you’d hope so. More
technical details here. Available in the UK from Symmetry Systems.
iRiver’s tiny U10 video player
iRiver has made a name for itself in the MP3 arena and with
the launch of the tiny, U10 it’s hoping to take a slice of the Flash-based
video market. 
In terms of design, the U10 is faultless, with the cradle
designed to hold it looking like a mini-TV. It sports a 2.2in screen and comes in
512Mb and 1GB versions. The drawback with Flash though is that it will limit the amount of video you can watch. 
It can deal with MPEG 4 and Macromedia Flash format
video, photos, text, mini-Flash games, MP3s and WMA files among others. It has
a voice recorder and FM tuner and comes with a slinky little white remote that more than
dips its hat towards Apple. No prices or UK availability yet but watch this space. More details and pics here.
Sky to offer movie downloads
Sky is feeling the pressure from its cable rivals by
announcing that it will soon let customers download movies directly to their
PCs, for replay on their TVs or displays. 
This is the first Sky service that
will not use it’s satellite service because big fat movies need big fat
broadband connections to receive them. You will need your own broadband and PC
to download them. Customers that have Sky’s Premier package
will get it for free. A Sports
version is also planned offering highlights, interviews, archive and news
footage. However, with just 200 movies on offer, made up of new and ‘classic’ (aka 'old') movies, Sky is hardly diving into the video-on-demand sector. Rival HomeChoice
already offers 1,000. More detail here.
The world’s coolest speakers?
Speakers come in many shapes in sizes but these ones are
quite special. 
Apart from their egg-shape the U-Speakers from Italian
vendor U-Vola, are designed to be suspended from special stands or from your
ceiling using steel wire. They literally float in your living room like some
leftover pods from a Diarmuid Gavin garden. 
U-Vola claims that the rigid material
used in the construction of the speakers, coupled with the curved design,
minimises problems common to many box-shaped speakers, such as internal resonance,
vibrations and wall-to-speaker interference. Suspending them from wires also cancels
out any contact vibration. They come in many colours and now there is even an Art
Edition series. They cost around £2,500 a pair – and that’s just for the plain ones. Find a UK dealer here.
AverMedia tunes into digital set-top box market
AverMedia is pushing into the digital set-top box arena with
its DVB-T STB7 product. It follows hot on the heels of it’s launch of the
world’s first hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner for PCs. 
The snappily-named
DVB-T STB7 hooks up to your TV or LCD display and lets you receive free-to-air
terrestrial TV channels and radio signals, via a UHF aerial. There is high
resolution support of 1280 x 1024 and it boasts a picture-in-picture mode
for when you need to work, but not miss the cricket. It features a seven-day programme guide and a nine-channel
preview function. Additional kit includes audio and VGA cables and a remote control. It costs £100.
Philips' stylish GoGear MP3 player
Philips is targeting the designer end of the Flash-based MP3
market with the GoGear SA178. 
It’s small and good looking, thanks to a very
sleek mirrored surface and two-colour OLED screen. The battery life is claimed
to be 12 hours for playback of MP3 and WMA files. It also comes with an FM
tuner and voice recorder. Download songs via USB 2.0. It’s expected to come in
at around £70, which is a little expensive for a 512Mb player, but it does look
significantly better than some of the no-name brands knocking about.
Revolver aims for AV market
UK speaker manufacturer Revolver Audio continues to expand into home
entertainment with the release of a new range of speakers and a 300 Watt subwoofer. 
The
AudioVue range is made up of the AVS subwoofer, AVC centre speaker, AVR
bookshelf and AVF floor-stander. All speakers are fully shielded and feature 26mm
metal dome tweeters and twin 75mm midrange drive units. The cost, per pair, is:
AVF £999 and AVR £499. The AVC centre speaker comes in at £249 while the 300W
subwoofer is £499. There is also a home cinema package comprising two AVFs, two
AVRs and one AVC for £1,600 – a saving of £250.
Futuristic headset with extreme close-up
How would you like to be just 1in from a 30in LCD TV? It doesn’t
sound like the best viewing position but then again we are talking about the
CNGTek MPEC portable video player with video headset.
The player can hook up to
your laptop, console or DVD player as well as access MP3s, video, or photos
stored on SD Cards. 
The player can record voice and 30 minutes of high quality video. The image, when the MPEC Glasses are on, is allegedly the
equivalent of viewing a 30in TV from 6ft away. The headset also comes with virtual surround
sound support. Video headsets have a chequered past in terms of performance so
the smart shopper would find one to test before spending $650.
KEF gets clever with iQ speakers
KEF is set to overhaul its midrange speaker offerings with
the launch of the iQ series. 
There are eight new models that will replace the
audio specialist’s Q series, ranging from the entry-level iQ1 bookshelf speaker
to the iQ9 floor-stander. Prices will start at £229 and run to £799. All models will
feature the latest upgrades to KEF’s Uni-Q driver technology. The result is a
Uni-Q driver array that KEF claims gives the speakers better bass response,
sweeter top-end sound and lower distortion. The speakers will be decked out in black
ash, dark apple, maple, silver and walnut finishes. In the design department,
expect them to look a little like the high-end, KEF Reference series. Read the full release here.
Mustek PL510: DVDs on the move
Portable DVD players are growing in popularity and quality.
Early products offered poor battery life and small screens with dodgy
image quality. Things have moved on somewhat in the past six months.
Mustek’s
PL510 comes in at the larger-end of this market with a 10in widescreen TFT
screen, progressive scan output and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound for hooking up to a surround speaker set-up. It
supports DVD, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW and can display
JPEG photos. There are two headphone jacks and a rechargeable battery –
although with a somewhat disappointing two and a half hours worth of juice. Just as well it comes
with a car adapter. It has an official price tag of £280 but you can find it cheaper
here. There is also a PL510T version with integrated TV tuner.
JVC promises Hollywood at home
The latest offering from JVC in the home cinema stakes is
it’s £5,500 DLA-HX2E projector, aimed squarely at the high-end of the market.
Most projectors today are based on either LCD or the increasingly popular DLP
technology. 
The DLA-HX2E is based on JVC’s own Direct Drive Image Light
Amplifier technology (D-ILA) which, like DLP, uses reflection. Unlike DLP
technology, JVC is the only one using it. That generally makes it more expensive than rival offerings. The DLA-HX2E is a three–chip
widescreen projector – one for each primary colour – and offers an image
resolution of 1400x788 pixels. It has a contrast of 1500:1, brightness of 500 lumens and a decent selection of
connectivity options. It also boasts an in-built HDCP decoder for displaying high definition content in the
form of digital broadcasts and high definition DVDs.
ntl expands On Demand TV rollout
If you like being in control of your TV viewing then take it
one step further and choose exactly what you want and when. TV and video on
demand is big in the US but is just starting to take off in the UK. Cable
operator ntl, has just rolled out its On Demand service to Nottingham and
Belfast.
Other areas covered include Glasgow, Mansfield, Newark, Melton,
Chesterfield and Lincoln. It’s now available to 250,000 ntl users, which ntl
claims makes it the biggest service outside the US. Obviously, it costs to view
each programme so telly addicts beware. Advertising-free
kids programmes cost 20-50p, movies range from 50p ‘classics’ to £2 for
recent releases, and music videos start at 30p. Telewest is set to launch a rival offering soon and HomeChoice is already up and running.
Xbox 360 sales to top 10 million units in first year
Console madness is almost upon us again and Microsoft is talking
up a storm at the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) summit in London today.
Microsoft, which is desperate to close the gap with Sony’s PlayStation, is
bragging that it will ship roughly 10 million of its upcoming Xbox 360 consoles
in just 12-16 months.
Despite taking over three and a half years to shift around 20 million Xbox consoles, Microsoft is
very bullish - or desperate – to
use it’s six-month lead over the arrival of the Sony PlayStation 3 to claw
back some ground. Shipments of the PS2 recently topped 90 million. The Xbox 360 is due before Christmas and will cost between £180-£200. For the best Xbox 360 gallery go here while those confused about which console will win what and when, can see what the experts think.
HP's iPaq phone due on July 1
Handheld devices might be old hat but handheld/phones - or smartphones - are very desirable for organising your digital lifestyle. You can
have handhelds with phone functionality or phones with handheld functionality. 
They
come in all shapes and sizes, prices and levels of functionality. HP’s iPaq 6515 Mobile Messenger is the latest high-end
challenger and will launch officially on July 1. The device,
which looks uncannily like its rival
the Treo 650 from palmOne and the Blackberry 7100v, offers
GSM/GPRS/EDGE technologies, built-in camera, keyboard and GPS. It runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 software and has pocket editions of Word, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer. It will
weigh in at 160g and, like it’s Treo rival, is expected to cost around
£400-£450. Click to see Dave's first impressions.
Turn your table into a speaker
How would you like to be able to transform any flat surface
into a speaker? The latest offering in this sector is called the Freedom
Speaker and is designed to project a virtual surround across any flat
surface, like your table. 
This small USB device hooks up to a laptop and when
placed in the centre of the table it’s meant to emit a clear sound to all
listeners. At the recent Computex 2005 Show, Sinbon Electronics showed off a similar
product called the Qvoix speaker system for playing phone-based MP3s.
What’s
more, this one comes with an in-built microphone. This lets you hook up to your mobile phone and turn any call into a hands-free conference call. See a quick preview here.
Optoma’s budget DLP projector keeps you healthy
Getting
the big picture at home need not break the bank. Optoma, makers of the
highly-acclaimed entry-level Themescene H30A DLP projector, are coming on
strong again with the H27. 
At around £700, if you hunt around on the Web, this
budget projector offers a lot for your money. It uses the DarkChip2 DLP
technology from Texas Instruments and has a brightness of 850 Lumens – which is
fine as long as you can control the ambient light in the room. It has a
six-segment colour wheel, 2,500:1 contrast ratio and a native 16:9 widescreen
image with a resolution of 854 x 480. While the resolution is not as high as
you would need for straight playback of high definition DVDs or broadcasts, it
is more than enough for reproducing DVD quality. Most unusually, it features an
air
purifier that reduces “odours, bacteria and harmful hydrocarbon compounds in
the air”. A projector that makes sitting down healthier? Sign us up.
Turn off the world with ER-6i earphones
If external noise really disrupts your listening pleasure,
then you might want to take a look at the ER-6i earphones from Etymotic
Research. 
They will set you back around £100 but these odd, in-ear earphones
have been designed with a flanged, foam head that creates a soundproof seal
once inserted. With external sounds eliminated, you won’t have to compete with
the engines of the Boeing 747 on your next trip abroad. Sound quality, by most
accounts, is very good but you better be sure you insert them properly. Here is a guide on how to do it correctly.
Innovative listening technology or world’s most expensive Q-Tip? For a user’s
review go here.
Cinemateq readies 50in plasma
Cinemateq, better known for its video-scaling products, is
set to launch a high-end 50in plasma screen which is high definition TV (HDTV)
ready. 
The HDTV market is the next big thing so every manufacturer is pushing
HDTV-ready products. The CT-50 HD though is paired with the company’s Picture
Optimizer Plus II SDI video scaler to boost images received from video and DVD
sources. This means that you connect all your video sources to the scaler, not the
plasma, so that whatever image is transferred to the screen is tweaked to
improve what you actually see. Read more about scaling here. It is shipping now
but there are no prices yet – it will not be cheap though as the scaler alone
costs around £900.
Control your digital home from abroad
Just as the plane leaves the ground for your hols in Barbados, you remember that you’ve forgotten to turn off the heat and the
lights. Isn’t it always the way? 
What you need is a little black box called the
Remote Life Home
Controller. This hooks up to your lighting, security cameras, heating and
electrical appliances, allowing you to control them from an Internet-enabled
mobile phone, PDA or PC. In fact, you can actually dial-up your security
cameras from the sun-lounger and have a look to see if your digital home is still safe and sound.
That said, it costs around £900 so only the truly absent-minded, or paranoid,
need apply. For other home automation goodies, go here.
Hauppauge joins 'hybrid' TV card race
Just like buses: nothing for an eternity and then suddenly
there’s a convoy. Just days after AverMedia launched it’s ‘hybrid’ AverTV
Hybrid+FM PCI card (scroll down) comes the WinTV HVR-1100 ‘hybrid’ from rival Hauppauge. 
It
supports Microsoft’s Windows Media Centre Edition (MCE) 2005 operating system,
and allows PCs to receive both analogue and digital TV broadcasts. This area of
the market is set to grow rapidly as the availability of digital broadcasts
like Freeview, becomes more widespread in the UK. Even if digital broadcasts
are not yet available in your area, the card will still receive regular
analogue TV and is ready for digital when it appears. Due in mid-July, it will
cost £79.99.
JVC's matchbox MP3 players
JVC is going the cute route when it comes to its latest MP3
players. These matchbox-shaped players measure 2in square and weigh just 1.5oz.
Capable of playing both MP3 and WMA files, the JVC XA-MP101 (1GB) and XA-MP51
(512MB) models connect directly – thankfully - to the USB port on your laptop or PC without the need for any annoying
software. There is a nice-sized LCD for navigation as well as a handy FM tuner
and voice recorder. Colours will be limited to black, white and blue but as you
can see from the photo, those lucky Japanese are getting the whole rainbow.
Shipping next month, prices are expected to be around £80 and £110.
B&O wants your kitchens too
Bang & Olufsen (B&O), the high-end home
entertainment company with breathtaking products and prices to match, is now out to
control your kitchen too. 
It has teamed up with leading, contemporary kitchen
designers Bulthaup to create a series of cutting edge multi-room environments
complete with audio and video.
We are a long way from B&Q here. It will not
come cheap as Bulthaup kitchens can set you back a cool £35,000. And that’s
before you add pricey B&O kit. Still, what’s £50,000 for the ability not to
miss a single shot of the Open while you make a cuppa?
Digital TV and radio on the cheap
Not everyone needs, wants, is allowed or can afford a Media Center PC.
If you already have a PC and want to receive and record regular analogue TV you
just get a TV card. But what about digital TV signals? AverMedia thinks it has the
answer with the AverTV Hybrid+FM PCI card. 
This is one of the first cards out
to offer support for analogue TV,
digital terrestrial TV, FM radio and digital Radio. You can capture and record what you watch in
MPEG1, 2 and 4 formats on your hard disk and then burn them to DVD. It also
boasts a ‘Silent Record’ mode which AverMedia cheekily promotes as a way of
recording TV at work without the boss finding out. Not something we would ever
recommend, obviously. It costs £75.
Marantz pushes virtual surround envelope
Home
audio specialist, Marantz, is in cahoots with some boffins at the Institute of Sound Vibration Research, University
of Southampton, to create surround sound from just front speakers. The idea of
virtual surround from front speakers, or even a single speaker, is not new but
it is seen as a growing market opportunity. 
Current examples include KEF’s Instant
Theatre – see review - and the ground-breaking Yamaha YSP1 single
speaker system.