There’s something fishy about Yamaha. All I see is sound bars from the Japanese as of lately. Are they trying to hint at a reorientation towards home theatre stuff? I don’t really believe that’s the case, but their latest sound bar dubbed YSP-3050 still leaves me wondering.

According to the press release, the YPS-3050 fits neatly underneath a flat-panel television and gives consumers a space-efficient option to installing multiple speakers throughout a room for immersive audio for watching movies, television and sports programming.

The new YSP-3050 still relies on surround sound emulation, integrating 21 beam drivers and two woofers plus the 23 corresponding digital amplifiers. In addition, it features three Cinema DSP settings (movie, music and sports), and some other things you wouldn’t normally get with a simple sound bar, like an analog to HDMI video upconversion, high definition video upscaling to 1080i/720p and a 1080p (24Hz and 60Hz) compatible HDMI interface with two inputs and one output to facilitate pure digital connections with the latest home theater components.

The YSP-3050 efficiently simulates a wide soundstage designed to fill the whole room with convincing surround sound regardless of where listeners are seated. The new sound bar includes settings such as 5-Beam, 3-Beam, 3-Beam + Stereo, 2- channel Stereo, My Beam, 5-Channel Stereo and My Surround modes. My Surround setting is present in order to provide surround sound to even the most difficult installation environments where walls are missing or are covered with unsuitable materials. My Beam mode is specifically designed to focus the sound at a specific listening position, so the listener can hear all program audio clearly, including dialog, without disturbing others in the room.

The YSP-3050 is already available for a suggested retail price of $1,399.95

Time to check out the latest exotic loudspeakers. Just as the automotive industry has its exotic sports cars, the loudspeaker industry has an exotic league of loudspeaker manufacturers, as well. That would immediately be obvious when you compare the two pricewise. Among the exotic loudspeakers out there, the latest comes from Vivid Audio. This is the G1 Giya.

The first thing you notice when you see the G1 Giya would probably be the cool shape of the enclosure. All of Vivid's speakers are made using advanced, patented cabinet construction and bass loading. The new Vivid Giya's is a bit different when compared to Vivid’s previous designs. Its dual 12" woofers are mounted on the sides with their magnets mechanically coupled. Vivid explains that the big twirl is used to load the bass and prevent audible standing waves. That is supposed to improve the overall quality of the bass, making it more profound.

Vivid's new bass woofers are designed in-house and built from aluminum and use a unique short coil, long gap magnet construction. The tweeter and midrange domes use Vivid's patented tube loading to achieve reduction in back waves and superior performance.

Here are some quick specs:

- Frequency Range: 23Hz to 44kHz (30Hz - 40kHz +/- 2dB)
- Sensitivity: 91dB, 6 ohm nominal, 4 ohm minimum
- Power handling: 800 watts
- Weight: 154lbs
- Size: 67"h x 14"w x 31.5" d

You wouldn’t expect exotic cars to come cheap. However, when compared to those $100k speakers, Giya features a pretty “decent” $54,000 price tag.

I’m sure not many of you have heard about Yorkville. No, it’s not a town located somewhere in the US, it’s actually a renowned American loudspeaker manufacturer. Yorkville makes loudspeakers specifically designed for installation purposes. In my opinion, the Coliseum series really defines the direction that Yorkville has always adopted.

The Coliseum is a successful combination of custom designed woofers and compression drivers mounted on Yorkville's exclusive ABS horns. The design includes less complex crossover networks which have proven to be an excellent compromise between performance and price over the years.
The wooden enclosures of the Coliseum models are constructed of highly rigid 15mm (.59") Baltic Birch plywood. They feature an optimized trapezoidal shape so they can be conducive to array mounting and minimize lobing difficulties. Flypoints are steel reinforced and engineered to allow easy, flexible and safe enclosure suspension.

Here are some highlights for the Coliseum series:

• Full range of installation specific models ranging from 5 watt wall speakers to 800 watt Unity™ cabinets
• 70V option available on most models
• Attractive and discrete white paintable finish
• A variety of custom installation hardware available for all models

The most expensive products in the Coliseum range do not exceed several hundreds of $, but you can rest assured that you’ll get the best bang for your buck. For more information, check out the Yorkville site.

OK, so those pricey speakers are cool, but you actually need something more down to earth. I feel you, people, and here’s what I found for you. A pair of floorstanders that boasts cool specs and is sort of affordable for the average audiophile. Straight from ZU Audio, I give you the Druid MK4 system.

Druid MK4 is actually a complete rework of our ground-breaking Druid loudspeaker and features a proprietary super-tweeter CNC machined from billet aluminum. ZU wanted to provide hi-fi sound for budget audiophiles and decided to include their own B3 silver alloy internal cabling. They have also reengineered the inner connector-to-cable-to-voice-coil termination with the elimination of solder joints. Furthermore, they have raised the tolerance levels on the Zu260FR-G2 driver and the appropriate motor.

The new ZU-T1super-tweeter was reinforced with a high pass network and silver alloy leadouts. Additionally, the super-tweeter leadouts have been shortened to 25cm and terminated directly with the main B3 harness at the voice coil.

All these improvements give the Druid MK4 an increased resolution, bass extension, better amplitude linearity with reduced noise, overall better sound detail, soundstage depth and texture, more instrument color and a playback presence that really recreates the dynamic range of a live performance.

The Druid MK4 can be purchased directly from the ZU Audio online page for $3,400/pair. For more details and tech specs, check out this PDF document.

Still sticking to pricey stuff, how about we take a look at one of the most expensive subwoofers out there? It comes from Wilson Audio and it is known as Thor’s Hammer. Pretty catchy name, if you ask me, but does it really unleash thunder storms inside your living room?

It should, because it integrates some proprietary technologies that are supposed to deliver the best sound quality. First of all, Thor’s Hammer integrates a Dual-Spider driver design that is based on long-throw woofers. These long-throw woofers allow Thor’s Hammer to achieve its 10 Hz response in a relatively compact enclosure. The dual-spider driver provides improved stiffness for the woofer cones by restricting woofer excursions to a single plane of motion.

Other advanced technologies used with the Hammer include the unique Wilson Controller which is the key to integrating Thor’s Hammer with an entire music system. In case you want to add the Hammer to your existing music system, the Controller can act as both a crossover and equalizer, and if you got a hybrid music/home theatre system, the Controller can switch between theater and music modes, dramatically optimizing both. The Controller accepts both single-ended and balanced inputs and outputs.

Here are the tech specs:

- Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms
- Efficiency: 93 dB (2.0 Volts @ 1 meter)
- Woofer: 2 X 15 inch dual-spider
- Enclosure Type: Dual Ported
- Frequency Range: 10 to 150 Hz. (+0, – 3dB)

Thor’s Hammer can be found at online retailers for about $21,000. For more info, check out the Wilson Audio website.