Late last year, B.I.C. introduced the Beam Box, a directable indoor FM antenna. Now we have the Boom Box courtesy of dbx, a company that is probably best known for its range expander and noise reduction units. The Boom Box is an entirely new area for them.

What does it do? Well, it pounds your chest a lot. You remember that feeling you get in your rib cage when you enter a live rock concert? Well, it's not the excitement of an imminent heart attack, but high intensity low frequency sound that's making you feel like your ribs have just shrunk a size and a half; but the items contained in your chest cavity have not quite caught up.

We have long assumed that part of that feeling was the general sound level at near-deafening force. That's probably only partly correct, according to dbx. The feeling of excitement is the result of extremely low frequencies at significant force. Those frequencies fall in the area between 25 and 50 Hz and are generally removed from arecording in the mastering process. They are also reasonably inaudible as sound or discreet tones.