The YSP line is my favourite soundbar because of the sonar-inspired tech it borrows from cold war subs. The YSP-3050 is a new 23-driver model, second best compared to the 42 driver YSP-4000. The upgrade from the 3000 now has a front mounted minijack in, and HDMI upscaling. Like the higher end models, these will provide glorious surround, but unless you wall mount, the speaker blocks a few inches of your TV. [Yamaha]

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Mitsubishi's 149 iSP series LCDs have a 16-speaker sound bar built-in for people who are too lazy (like me) or don't know how (like my parents) to set up a home theatre. The integrated Sound Projector, as it's called, sends sound flying around the walls to act like surround sound--in my experience, it was way better than typical front speaker-only setups but didn't match the immersive feeling of true surround.

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The Gadget: A soundbar by one of my favourite A/V companies that includes a sub. It is one of the rare soundbars NOT to block your TV if mounted on the same table. Processes DTS and Dolby surround through optical and coax and stereo inputs (But no HDMI). The sub draws power off the main unit at 40 watts, and the six 3-inch drivers get 22-watts each. It comes with a glow in the dark universal remote.

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As I become more and more enthralled by the simple home theatre setup fake surround sound bars provide, I'm surprised to see high-end Marantz get into the game that is otherwise known for midrange players. (This was announced at CEDIA, but I missed it then, and it deserves your attention now). Like the Yamaha YSP series, it uses delays and volume tweaks to emulate surround sounds; unlike the YSP-4000, it only has 6 speakers, a pair of tweeters, mids and lows, with 60 watts total, so you're not going to likely get the same granular, discrete, faux-surround channel effect that the Yammy does using its 42 discrete drivers. They both have HDMI Inputs, but I have no idea if the Marantz does upscaling or audio surround. But there is a price differential of $1299 for the Marantz vs $1800 for the Yamaha. One thing: I don't like the distracting silver strip on the front. [Marantz]

OK, we're calling it: this is the year of the sound bar, those long, slender speaker boxes that you see freakin' everywhere. (Today alone we mentioned three companies introducing a total of six new models!) When our very own Brian Lam was at CES this past January, he heard the editor-in-chief of a top home Audiophile/Videophile magazine tell one of his lead sound gear writers "audio is just dead." That kind of talk is not unexpected—it's about as shocking as a French wine critic calling Australian shiraz "the end of civilization." We all know sound bars have a place, but what have they done to 5.1? As you may have noticed, not all sound bars are surround bars. Here's the breakdown of most currently available models:

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