The Bose Lifestyle 38 (LS38 IV BL) home entertainment system is coming soon to Best Buy's shelves with a price tag reaching nearly $3,000.

Bose's system includes 5.1-channel amplifier with built-in surround sound decoders (digital 5.1 and DTS decoding), AM/FM radio tuner with 50 station presets, progressive-scan DVD player which plays the most popular audio and video content including DVD video, CD, CD-R/RW, VCD, PCM, digital 5.1, MP3 files and MPEG-2. Also, it comprises four Direct/Reflecting speakers that offer spacious sound in a small package, each cube features two magnetically shielded 2" wide-range drivers with neodymium magnets, a center channel speaker and an Acoustimass module with two 5-1/4" high-excursion woofers.

New Panasonic's SC-PTX5 is a compact DVD home cinema system which consists of a DVD receiver, a pair of bookshelf speakers and a powered subwoofer for a whole power output of 140W. The DVD player plays the following files: WMA, MP3, JPEG, MPEG4, and DivX. The SC-PTX5 is also packed with a full array of functions such as Dolby Virtual Speaker technology that creates realistic surround effect from only two speakers, 1080p up-conversion over HDMI connectivity, multiroom playback up to three rooms, and the "EZ Sync HDAVI Control" feature that lets you control your entire Panasonic home theater system using only the TV remote.

Panasonic's system comes bundled with a universal dock for iPod playback and recharging, and it's available at Amazon for a special price of $369.88 instead of $599.88 for a few days.

Harman-Kardon unveiled previously its new DVC 300 and DVC 600 Blu-ray disc player at the IFA show in Berlin last year, now Harman announced the release of these two Blu-ray players during the IFA this September. Both models will include media center capability like HDD recording function with 1TB of storage capacity for the DVC 600 instead of 500GB for the DVC 300, twin built-in digital TV tuners can record up to eight channels of standard or high-definition TV programs simultaneously.

The DVC series also plays back DVDs and CDs, while DVD and Blu-ray disc writers are optional. The system can upscale video to 720p, and has a wide range of connections such as digital DVI and HDMI inputs/outputs, USB and audio sockets.

Final prices for both models should be around $1,000.

Priced at $649 the Denon DHT-488XP home theater system features 5.1 channels speaker system paired with the AVR-488 receiver. The AVR-488 boasts 475W RMS of power (5x 75W + 100W), two HDMI 1.3a inputs with Deep Color and 1080p pass-through (no audio support though) and a 32-bit floating-point digital signal processor provides superior audio and video quality. In addition the receiver is XM-ready and supports the optional iPod dock ASD-1R/3N/3W. To match the AVR-488 Denon has chosen the SYS-57HT speaker system, these speakers are built in MDF wood and include magnetically shieded 3.6" mid-bass driver and 0.75" tweeter, the 8" down-firing subwoofer has a 100W amplifier with volume and cross over frequency adjustment.

Leon Speaker's Horizon 414 series is the first available three-channel LCR, two-channel or center-channel only, combination speaker built to exactly match the size of your Plasma TV, LCD or DLP screen from 32" to 65". Each Horizon speaker features, inside an ultra-thin, space-saving cabinet (4-inch deep) made up of strong MDF, world-class 4-inch woofers and 1-inch cloth dome tweeters, creating a truly high-fidelity speaker with excellent sonic clarity.

The product range comprises the following products: HZ414-LCR, HZ414-LR, HZ414-Center and a pair of surround sound speakers, HZ114-S. Prices start from $1,500 and each model is also available with 1-inch morel tweeters (suffix -A).

Onkyo and SOTEC partnered up on the new APX-2 HD-audio computer with built-in amplifier. The APX-2 comes preinstalled with Windows Vista Home Premium and equipped by a Core 2 Duo T5500 @ 1.66GHz, 1GB of RAM and 500GB of hard drive storage capacity puts inside a "Super Floating HDD unit" to reduce operation noise and vibration (up to -22dB). The built-in stereo digital amplifier can deliver 2x 100W RMS of power into 4Ω.

Also Onkyo bypassed Vista's volume mixer function and installed PDAP (Pure Direct Audio Path) in order to prevent HD Audio loss along with hardware 24-Bit 192kHz D/A converters (PCM1792).

The Onkyo APX-2 will be available in Japan on February 29th at a MSRP of 250,000 yen.

AudioCubes.com imports for $35.99 (worldwide delivery) the new Pioneer SE-CL21M outdoor earphones in black, white or red finish. This model features a nice square-shaped design with a metal insert and a 0.8m cord lenght. The SE-CL21M employs large 9mm driver units with high-quality neodymium magnets to enhance bass response within a compact and light (4g) earphone.

Specifications:
► Frequency response: 10Hz ~ 20kHz
► Nominal impedance: 16Ω
► Sensitivity: 100dB/mW
► Power handling: 75mW

Finally, Focal-JMLab released a "more" affordable product line than the Electra Be series that appeared in 2005. The Electra S series includes the Electra 1007 S (1150€), a 2-way bass-reflex bookshelf speaker, the Electra 1027 S (2100€), a 3-way bass-reflex floor standing speaker, the Electra CC 1000 S (1500€), a 3-way bass-reflex shielded center speaker, the Electra SR 1000 S (2400€), a 2-way sealed bipole/twin mono effects speaker and the Electra SW 1000 S (2000€), an active bass-reflex subwoofer. Focal has reduced the price of its speakers by replacing the Beryllium tweeter with an Al/Mg inverted dome tweeter and by a slightly less developed cabinet and finish. All speakers have a nominal impedance of 8ohm.

Specifications (Electra 1007 S):
► Frequency response: 46Hz ~ 30kHz
► Sensitivity: 89dB/mW
► Power handling: 150W

Specifications (Electra 1027 S):
► Frequency response: 42Hz ~ 30kHz
► Sensitivity: 91dB/mW
► Power handling: 300W

Specifications (Electra CC 1000 S):
► Frequency response: 55Hz ~ 30kHz
► Sensitivity: 91dB/mW
► Power handling: 200W

Specifications (Electra SR 1000 S):
► Frequency response: 72Hz ~ 30kHz
► Sensitivity: 91dB/mW
► Power handling: 200W

Specifications (Electra SW 1000 S):
► Frequency response: 29Hz ~ 150Hz
► Power handling: 450W

The Arcam FMJ P38 power amplifier is the same as the A38 without the pre-amp section and the phono input, also it should cost less than the $1,500 asked for the A38.

The P38 circuitry features ultra stable thermal management, Sanken output devices, massive torroid based power supply and new volume control (Burr Brown PGA2320 chip) to improve audio quality and linearity. The ultra-wide band design of the P38 offers an extended frequency response that is perfectly suited to the demanding requirements of high resolution audio formats such as SACD, DVD-Audio and surround codecs like Dolby Digital+ and DTS-HD. The arcam P38 output stage boasts an amazing 140W per channel @ 4ohm or 100W/8ohm with a 0.5% THD via 5x RCA inputs or 2x recording loops inputs.

The Arcam A38 is the latest integrated stereo amplifier within the FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) series. With a price expected to be around £1,500 the Arcam FMJ A38 retains the best of Arcam's technology to develop the best performing stereo amplifier the company had ever produced. The A38 low noise topology features ultra stable thermal management, new Sanken output devices, massive toroid based power supply and new volume control (Burr Brown PGA2320) to improve audio quality.

The amplifier is able to delivers up to 140W per channel @ 4ohm with a 0.5% THD through 5x RCA inputs, 2x recording loops inputs or from the phono input.