There have been plenty of options out there for people who want surround sound but not surround speakers, but we have to admit that Philips's SoundBar HTS8100 looks like a pretty slick new entry to the category. Using proprietary Ambisound technology and Smart Surround processing, it's meant to replace an entire home theater speaker system with one speaker that's about 3 feet long with an aluminum cabinet and glass front panel. It comes with a separate subwoofer for the deep bass.

The demo wasn't terribly convincing (sounded a little shrill), but if you've got some space under that flat-panel TV (but nowhere else), you'll be able to pick up the wall-mountable SoundBar by June for $999. — Peter Pachal