Crave

(Credit: CNET)

If you're lucky enough to get your favorite piece of home theater gear this holiday season, the next step is setting it up and getting it tweaked just right. CNET dishes out home theater setup advice all year, but we've rounded up our most important home theater tips so you can spend your holidays on the couch rather than crawling behind your TV cabinet.

Home theater setup tips

• Don't buy expensive HDMI cables
• Speaker-placement tips for audiophiles
• Home theater speaker placement tips
• Is it worth setting up my Dolby Pro Logic IIz height speakers?
• Subwoofer setup guide
• How to get the most out of your subwoofer
• How to use your AV receiver's speaker calibration
• What'd he say? How to improve home theater dialogue intelligibility
• What do my speaker specs mean?
• Demystifying speaker impedance--what you need to know
• What's up with watts: How much power do you need?
• How to double your home theater receiver's power
• Six ways to make your turntable sound better
• How to get the best sound from in-ear headphones

Of course, the other half of the home theater equation is the HDTV, so be sure to check out David Katzmaier's HDTV setup tips, too.

The new preamplifier looks amazing.

(Credit: Einstein Audio Components)

We're not talking about Albert Einstein, the legendary theoretical physicist; we're talking about Einstein Audio Components, a Germany-based high-end audio manufacturer.

Its advanced audio equipment designs use vacuum tubes. Its latest stereo preamplifier, The Tube MKII, uses a total of (gulp) 19 tubes. That's a lot of tubes! Most tube preamps only use four, five, or six tubes. However, here's the cool part about the new Einstein preamp: only 10 of the 19 tubes operate at any given time. Eight are used all the time, and two are selected for whichever audio source happens to be playing.

The rear panel of The Tube MKII.

(Credit: Einstein Audio Components)

This feature makes The Tube MKII the only preamp in the world that lets users tailor the sound from each audio source by selecting the specific "flavor" of tube dedicated to each source. Some owners might opt for "warm" sounding tubes for the CD input, and superdetailed tubes for the phono input. Tweaky? You bet, but I guarantee a lot of wealthy tube-obsessed audiophiles will love that feature.

The 33-pound preamp has two large controls on its front panel: one for source selection and one for volume. On its rear, it has three pairs of XLR inputs, two pairs of RCA inputs, and two tape outputs.

Its build quality is superlative and is reflected in The Tube MKII's $17,800 MSRP. The preamp will make its U.S. market debut at the 2010 CES next month.

Is this the future of Blu-ray?

(Credit: Amazon)

Brace yourselves. Less than two weeks after you open your gifts on Christmas morning, the consumer electronics industry will be reminding you that all those new gadgets--touted as lustworthy just days earlier--are already obsolete.

OK, maybe that's a tad cynical. But it's certainly true that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 5-10) codifies the trends and sets the bar for what you can expect to see on store shelves for the following 12 months. That's especially true in the home theater category. But before we look forward to the upcoming show, let's take a look back at what we saw in 2009.

As the 2009 show came to an end, we chose the Samsung HT-BD7200 home theater system and the EchoStar "SlingLoaded" HD DVR 922 as the most promising products in the home audio and video realms. The latter product, to date, has yet to make an appearance in the real world (an all too common trend for many high-profile CES

(Credit: Marantz)

Marantz currently offers a full line of stereo and home theater components, but in the 1950s, the company was one of America's most prestigious hi-fi brands. Early Marantz products were designed and built by Saul B. Marantz in his home in Kew Gardens, New York. Those hand-built components now fetch huge dollars on the used market.

So naturally, I was interested in what Home Entertainment magazine's Richard Ames had to say about the Marantz UD9004 "universal" player. The $6,000 machine spins Blu-ray, SACD, DVD-Audio, and CDs.

The UD9004's rear panel.

(Credit: Marantz)

It certainly looks the part: the Marantz UD9004's copper-plated chassis, thick aluminum/resin front panel, and aluminum-and-zinc die-cast parts are many steps above the build quality of mainstream Blu-ray players. The UD9004 tips the scales at a hefty 42.3 pounds, more than many receivers.

The rear panel hosts two HDMI outputs, so you can send the audio to the receiver without having to route them to the TV. On the analog side, you get ... Read more

Musicians are a paradox when it comes to technology. They have voracious appetites for the latest, greatest gear, but unlike the average tech consumer, they also have a near-religious reverence for all things vintage.

Looking back on what I consider the year's coolest gear for musicians, the thread that ties it all together (well, most of it) is this balance of new and antique. From a guitar pedal that sounds like a tube amplifier from 1959, to USB interfaces that return the look and feel of a pre-Pro Tools era--music tech has a unique way of pushing forward while always acknowledging the past.

To see my completely subjective roundup of 2009's most interesting music gear, click though to our Crave slideshow. If you have some other 2009 music gear you'd like to champion, feel free to add it in the comments section.

Musician tech roundup, 2009

As the name implies, the Yeti is a big microphone. Look, even the font Blue Microphones used on the box is gigantic.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)

When Blue Microphones announced the Yeti USB microphone ($149) in November, I was a little apprehensive about the name. Sure, Blue Microphones has been playing it cutesy over the years with microphones named Snowball, Snowflake, Mikey, and Bottle Rocket--but Yeti?

Well, after getting my hands on this thing I can now say that I fully understand the thinking behind the name. For starters, this microphone is huge--like, disturbingly huge. It measures a foot tall, weighs 3.5 pounds, and--to be perfectly frank--it's starting to give me a complex.

But beyond its intimidating size, the Yeti moniker is just as fitting as a way to describe its sound. Compared with similar microphones, such as the Samson G-Track or even Blue's own $99 Snowball, the Yeti's sound quality offers noticeably better depth and detail. It's a big sound from a big microphone, which is probably what I should have said in the first place instead of wasting your time with the last two paragraphs.

Hands on with the Yeti microphone (photos)

OK, so what else are you getting with the Yeti? From a features perspective the Yeti offers an integrated control for gain adjustment, zero-latency headphone monitoring, headphone volume control, a handy little mute button, and a switch for selecting between four microphone recording patterns (omni, cardioid, stereo, bidirectional). The solid metal man-shaped stand is also a nice feature, and does a better job than the G-Track or Snowball at placing the microphone at mouth level. If the cutesy-ness of the stand is overwhelming, a standard, threaded mic stand mount is also included on the bottom of the Yeti.

When it comes to performance, the Yeti has plenty to brag about. For starters, this is the first microphone or audio input device to receive the coveted THX certification. I asked Blue Microphones to tell me what was required to get the THX stamp of approval. Apparently, it involves a multitude of factors, such as tests for frequency response and signal to noise ratio, and--perhaps more importantly--proof of performance consistency across multiple product batches. In other words, it had to sound good and have a reasonable chance of sounding good every time. ... Read more

Tentatively known as The Cube, this concept from Mintpass puts a retro spin on a conventional MP3 player.

(Credit: Mintpass)

If you love the look of old reel-to-reel tape decks, hi-fi receivers, and analog mixing boards, the latest MP3 player concept from Korea's Mintpass design team will probably leave you drooling.

The Cube MP3 player offers not one but three analog VU meters, capable of displaying volume, battery live, and FM radio frequency.

If the menage a trois of vintage analog gauges wasn't enough, the Mint Cube includes two rows of apologetically chunky buttons that hearken back to an era of cassette decks and bad hair. Other proposed features include Bluetooth audio, FM radio, A-B looping, shuffle, and a standard headphone output.

Of course, the whole thing is purely fiction at this point, with not even a hint of price or release date. Also, my gut is telling me that this thing would be wholly impractical to build. My retro nerd heart, however, is keeping hope alive.

Mintpass 'The Cube' (photos)

(ViaTechfresh)... Read more

Editors' note: Updated on November 23, 2009.

A few years ago, we used to do a feature highlighting some of the top DVDs that made your home theater really look and sound like one. Well, with Blu-ray in full swing, we thought it high time to come up with a similar roundup of our favorite Blu-ray Discs that will help show off your home theater in all its glory.

While my face is at the top of the column, the list was compiled with input from editors John Falcone, Matthew Moskovciak, and David Katzmaier, who look at a lot of content in their day-to-day testing of products. We also keep an eye on AVS Forum's Blu-ray picture- and audio-quality threads and have always appreciated the site's "tier" rating system.

This list is not set in stone, and we'll be adding and removing discs as new ones come out. As always, feel free to make comments and suggest your own personal favorites. They may get added to the list in the future. ... Read more

I can't help but cringe every time I get an e-mail blast referring to "special" gadgets made "just for women!" Maybe this is because I was around during a time when this meant splashing some Pepto-pink paint onto an otherwise unchanged piece of tech. Or perhaps it's more that many of these efforts are still so often misguided. Show me one woman who likes shimmery tech with an interface made of bubble writing and I'll show you another who loves matte-black gear that uses only analog knobs.

Now, I'm not accusing Audio-Technica of taking either path, as the headphones it's currently pushing at females do offer sleek, metallic designs that appeal to my eye (and I am a card-carrying member of said group). But I'm willing to bet there are plenty of men who would be plenty pleased with a shiny blue, orange, green, or gray set of earphones, especially ones with specially made loops to keep them in the ear. OK, I digress...it's Monday, and maybe ... Read more