Among the ancient castles, quaint houses, and picturesque countryside, Great Britain is actually a hotbed of high-end audio. Brands big and small pepper the island country from the southern coast to the northern highlands. On a recent trip, I had the opportunity to visit three such storied companies: Bowers & Wilkins (speakers and headphones), Meridian …

The city of Huntingdon, home of high-end audio company Meridian, is about a quintessential British town as you could picture. It looks like a movie set. Meridian is perhaps best known for its trapezoidal digital speakers and associated preamps. The company has more recently gotten into portable DACs, music servers, car audio, and more. On a recent trip to England, …

Geoffrey Morrison In an effort to keep confusion to a minimum, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) decreed that next-gen “4K” televisions should be called Ultra High Definition, Ultra HD, or UHD. Sony said “pass” and announced it would continue calling its “UHD” TVs “4K” TVs. Normally Sony’s love for marketing obfuscation generates an eye-roll or four here, but in this …

The town of Worthing is perhaps not where you’d expect to find a world-class speaker company. A typically British seaside town, the parks and beaches are surrounded by squat brick houses sprinkled with Tudors and people driving on the left. Just away from the water is the headquarters of Bowers & Wilkins, a storied audio brand with a wide range …

On a recent trip to London, I got a chance to tour storied speaker company B&W’s factory. They asked if I’d also like to tour Abbey Road Studios. Yes. Yes I would. And I did. It was awesome and I have pictures. This is the first of three behind-the-scenes tours I did on my recent UK trip. Also check out …

Update: There’s been a small update, called HDMI 2.0a. Update 1/2017: There’s been another update, this one is called HDMI 2.1. The HDMI Forum, the nonprofit body that oversees the HDMI specification, recently announced version 2.0. There were numerous changes, not least support for higher frame rates than are possible with the current 1.4 specification. Do you need to upgrade? …

Geoffrey Morrison/CNET If resolution is as important as some say it is, then this should be no contest. On one side, we’ve got a 50-inch Ultra HD 4K LED LCD. On the other side, we’ve got a 720p plasma. A $500 50-inch plasma. Head-to-head, with a variety of content and objective measurements, how do they compare? The results may surprise …

LG 55EM9700 and Samsung KN55S9 (right) Editors’ note: This post was updated August 21, 2013, with new information. As of today, you can buy an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV from LG and Samsung. On the horizon are models from Sony and Panasonic. The long-awaited release of these next-generation televisions is finally starting to happen. So what’s the big deal? …

Geoffrey Morrison/CNET The old adage in TV retail is that the brightest TV sells. This, in a historical context, makes a lot of sense: the brightest TV caught your eye, seemed “better,” and got your hard-earned ducats. But these days all TVs are bright. And just because one TV is brighter than another, it doesn’t mean it’s “better.” Heresy, this …

Just because your TV says it has a refresh rate of 120Hz or 240Hz, does that mean it’s actually refreshing at 120Hz or 240Hz? Nope, not necessarily. One of the latest marketing techniques, shall we say “gifts for fiction,” is using different technology to approximate the effect of a higher refresh rate, without actually driving the TV at the higher …