Reportedly, when Morel was nearing completion of this speaker and the lead project engineer knew the design team had a little more work to do, he said, "It's not over until the fat lady sings." That, they say, is how Morel's new Fat Lady loudspeaker got its name. But it's much more than just a name. With a cabinet of carbon fiber and Morel’s own high-tech drive units that match quite impressively (according to Oden Mordechai, the company's vice president, it wasn't intentional, but they're happy it worked out that way), the Fat Lady is a three-way floorstander that we hope sounds as impressive as it looks. The price is expected to be around 30,000 €/pair when it becomes available later this year.

Various SoundStage! Network reviewers have had very positive experiences with omnidirectional speakers. Germany’s Duevel demonstrated the new flagship Sirius loudspeaker (17,000 €/pair). Through special reflectors, the speaker disperses sound evenly from front to back. We listened to it at length and liked what we heard so much that we're hoping samples make it over to North America for a future review.

Switzerland’s Soulution continues to roll out impressive electronic components that appear poised to present the state of the art for a given technology. The 740 CD player (30,000 €) is a two-box affair (separate power supply underneath) that appears to be a technological tour de force. Among its many reported innovations are 352.8kHz upsampling, a large RAM memory for data buffering, and a 140dB signal-to-noise ratio. What's more, when you look under the lid of many CD players today, you see nothing. Inside, the 740 is stacked!

Audio Research is a hallmark of the high-end industry in the US of A. The company chose Germany, though, to showcase two new products. the CD5 CD player (above, $5995 USD) and the VS115 stereo power amplifier ($6495 USD). The CD5 replaces the CD3 Mk 2 and features a solid-state output stage and a new 24-bit/192kHz DAC, while the VS115 replaces the VS110 and outputs a rated 115Wpc. [www.audioresearch.com]

Naim's HDX (6500 €) is a CD player and then some. This one-box unit will play CDs directly as well as rip them onto its two internal 400Gb hard drives. Why two? So that the owner has a built-in backup for his or her music collection. And if 400Gb isn't enough space, users can connect additional drives. As well, continuing Naim’s history of upgradeable products, there are also two optional power supplies: the XPS and the PS555. There's more, including future plans to make the HDX controllable by an iPhone. Frankly, though, there were too many features on the HDX to list here, so we suggest investigating it fully to appreciate all it does, as will we.

Austria’s Pro-Ject has fully embraced the iPod generation with an array of new mini-sized components. Included in the line are the following: the Amp Box Mono power amplifiers (220 €/each); the Pre Box two-input preamplifier (200 €); the Switch Box (100 €), which expands the number of inputs on the Pre Box; the Tuner Box AM/FM tuner (150 €); the Dock Box iPod docking station (100 €); the Phono Box II USB for archiving and playing records on your computer (100 €); and the USB Box for converting a digital signal delivered through USB to analog outputs via an onboard digital-to-analog converter (100 €). The Boxes are designed to be an affordable, high-quality, expandable system for the iPod user. What a great idea!