It's Show Time!

Michael Laurino

What you are holding in your hands now is The 2006 Buyers’ Guide. Each year, we have produced a laundry list of everything that plugged in, had batteries, or attached to something that did. Not this year!! My directive to our editors was to gather the best of the best in Home Theater—more specifically, everything High-Definition! I will leave the gadgets and toys, cell phones and computers to all the other magazines trying to showcase to an electronic generation every crazy item that comes along. Somebody has to focus on true High-End Home Entertainment. I want the theater experience in my home. I am a High-Definition Living™ kind of guy! I would hope that this magazine’s title makes it clear that we take this category more seriously than any other magazine on the newsstand. The proof is that our sales are in the number-one percentile for magazines in this genre. A world of confusing technologies faces HD consumers today—HD DVD or Blu-ray, on-wall or in-wall, front or rear projection, LCD or Plasma, LCOS or CRT, to HDMI or not to HDMI…these are the questions.

I hope that, over these many years, we have begun to clarify for you the direction of HD broadcast, format wars, and unneeded technologies. One thing is for sure, quality is quality and junk is junk!! I just read a statement in another publication about the aggressive Chinese manufacturers and the U.S., Canadian,and European manufacturers complaining about their own inability to keep up. Basically the comment was, if you can’t stand the heat(competition), get out of the kitchen!! Well, my sympathies to the quality manufacturers trying to compete against the employers who pay their sweat shop laborers two cents an hour, driving the truly incredible manufacturers out of business. If the playing field were level, we would still own receivers that weigh more than three pounds (gutless). The Kitchen is closed!! Check out the feature on quality seating for your theater. More and more, I see the furniture industry delivering the same old junk they sell at the department store, adding only a cup holder—and Presto…Theater Seating! Oh yeah,guess where the big American furniture makers manufacture their stuff? You guessed it...China!!