The Audiophiliac

Playing music and movies really loud is a lot of fun, too bad most of you are missing out on that part of the experience. Obviously, the speakers built into TVs aren't up to the job, and that's the way 80% of you experience TV. HTIB owners are likewise out of luck. Yeah, they may boast of having "1,000" watts on tap, but if you believe that, well, puhleeze! That 8 pound amplifier may, on a good day, squeeze out a few hundred watts.

If you really want to feel something when you're watching a flick, listening to Nine Inch Nails, or playing a game, you need big speakers. Something along the lines of Klipsch's Reference RF-83 I reviewed in Home Theater magazine, and a healthy A/V receiver like a Denon AVR-4308CI. If your budget allows, forget the receiver and go for a bona-fide surround processor/separate power amplifier combo, say a Sunfire Theater Grand TGP-5 and TGA-5400, four hundred watt-per-channel amplifier (also reviewed in Home Theater magazine). Sure a hulking subwoofer, a Klipsch RT-12d subwoofer with three 12-inch drivers and an 800-watt amplifier, would come in handy. Pump up that system and you'll feel something. I bring this up because I see the market moving towards ever smaller speakers that just don't have the muscle to rock my world.

We Americans love super-size everything else--Hummers, TVs, houses, Big Gulps--so why do we turn sensible when it comes to sound? Hi-def pictures look pretty, but sound conveys emotion. Pint-size speakers with 3-inch "woofers" ain't gonna cut it.

Nowadays it seems like everybody wants tiny speakers. Catch is, most small speakers sound small--they squash dynamic range, can't play at all loud, and produce a lot more distortion than large speakers. I've always been frustrated by the sound of really tiny speakers--until I reviewed Sunfire's CRM-2 satellite ($800 each) in the May, 2007 issue of Home Theater magazine .

With its grille removed you notice something unusual: the CRM-2's front baffle is almost completely covered by a 6-inch "ribbon" tweeter (essentially a lightweight aluminum foil, suspended between neodymium magnets). The ribbon's ultra-low moving mass allows it reproduce treble detail, up to 40 kilohertz, with a realism no conventional dome tweeter can match. The speaker's sides are each fitted with an all-new 4.5-inch driver with two very unusual design features--an over-sized, four-layer copper voice coil, and a suspension that allows a 1-inch, back and forth excursion that's more typical of a 12-inch woofer. The cabinet's purposeful shape was designed to enhance sound--sides are parallel, but the top panel slopes back to meet the rakishly canted rear baffle. The ribbon tweeter is responsible for the speaker's pinpoint imaging while side-mounted woofers project spectacularly wide soundstages. You've never heard anything quite like the CRM-2. The 8.25-inch tall speaker is finished with seven coats of high gloss Ebonized Lacquer over Rosewood. In all but the brightest light the Sunfire speakers appear black.

Read my full review on Home Theater magazine's website to get the full scoop, but I'll tell you here the sound defies the limitations of its trim size. The CRM-2 can play really loud without duress, and the speaker projects an enormous soundstage, with remarkable width, depth and height. Please understand, I'm not claiming the CRM-2 are the equal of four foot tall, hundred and twenty pound tower speakers, just that the wee Sunfire satellites trump every other mini speaker I've heard. It's a breakthrough design.