<<  -- 4 --  Tess Crebbin    GOING THE EXTRA MILE WITH AN EGYPTIAN DEITY

Before anyone could do anything about it I seized the moment, walked over to the wireless surround sound speaker units, a new development of their Typhoon Acoustic 5.1 Towers speaker system, and popped the CD inside the connected DVD player. Before anyone knew what was happening, Pergamenschikov/Gililov/Rachmaninov flooded the Typhoon stand at CeBIT and everyone present learned a bit about cello music while I got carried away in the listening experience. Heaven knows how the Typhoon lot usually sell their equipment or, without the usual advertising that the other brands engage in, how the average consumer would find out about them, but I know one thing for sure: while I am saving up 10,000 euros plus for the Samsung flat screen TV unit, I am going to throw out all my cheap speaker systems and upgrade to Typhoon. For regular computer listening, the simpler Typhoon Acoustic 2.1 Towers speaker system, with two satellite units in the form of small desktop towers, a sub-woofer and also with a separate control unit and costing only 40 euros, still provided an impressive clarity and quality of sound.

In the near future they will also bring out a new DVD/video player and recorder that will allow me to transfer all my old and cherished opera videos to DVD. It will retail at around 400 euros. My name is on the list now to be one of the first to buy when it hits the market sometime in June. So, from a classical music point of view, CeBIT was a revelation and certainly worth the steep price of a 39 euro day entry pass. While the other less expensive products did not really catch our attention, meeting the Typhoon people and finding out about their products was worth the trip. They can be seen online from the beginning of May or so on their new website, which is still being completed. Until then, it is quite a challenge to navigate their current site to find out more.

British readers, incidentally, can buy Typhoon products at all the major retail outlets like Staples or Macro. For the US, the products need to be ordered directly from Typhoon at this stage.

CeBIT Asia takes place in Shanghai, 11-14 May 2005, and CeBIT Eurasia Bilisim will be held in Istanbul, 6-11 September 2005. Information on the next main Hannover CeBIT, 9-15 March 2006, can be found on the official CeBIT website.