When it comes to high-end sound bars I had to wrack my brain to think of anything that approaches the $5,800 Creative X-Fi Sonic Carrier in price. (Pricing outside the US wasn’t mentioned but that price converts to around £4,225 or AU$7,330) Maybe Paradigm, or Bowers and Wilkins. Surely GoldenEar has something? It’s safe to …

A new Samsung C-Lab project called S-Ray lets you to listen to your devices without disturbing others by beaming sound straight into your ears. The company says the technology could be used with a number of different devices including a Bluetooth speaker, a phone cover and a personal neckband. It’s a bit like the Bose SoundWear, except other people can hear the …

For anyone looking to take the next step beyond a sound bar, a receiver is usually the first place people go. However, the NAD D 3020 digital amplifier made a good case for keeping things simple. Two-channel only, and around the same size as a hardback book, we loved it, calling it “the best AV receiver alternative.” After three years, …

Klipsch has one of the freshest takes on what constitutes a “smart speaker” at CES 2018 with a pair of resolutely old-school tabletop systems. The Klipsch Heritage Wireless speakers The Three and The One offer the use of Google Assistant with their built-in microphone arrays. The speakers are modeled after the company’s Heritage range, which includes the Forte III, and …

While competitors have offered Alexa voice assistants with their own proprietary microphones, Polk has announced the first sound bar at CES 2018 with what is essentially an Echo Dot built into it: the Command Bar.  The Command Bar integrates Amazon’s own far-field microphones and controls into the speaker and you can use either to control your smart home as a fully-fledged …

Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray has been around for over two years now and, as is customary with maturing technologies, the size of the devices drops alongside the price.  Sony has long been the master of miniaturization, and it’s applied its shrink-ray technology to the UBP-X700, its latest 4K Blu-ray player. The X700’s biggest claim to fame? It now supports Dolby …

Over 10 years ago, Roku was a major competitor to Sonos when it came to the whole-home music business, but it quickly pivoted to become the no. 1 video-streaming brand instead. Now, Roku wants back in to multiroom, and TCL is the first company that wants to help do it. The TCL Roku Smart Soundbar may be a mouthful of …

After essentially reinventing the luxury headphone market with the HD 800, where was Sennheiser to go next? I’ll tell you: It came up with an even more indulgent set of cans the company is calling the HD 820. As the name suggests, the headphones are an updated, closed-back version of its statement piece. It’s showing them off at CES here …

When it comes to “affordable” Atmos sound bars, there is currently a sample size of none, but prices do continue to come down. Sony’s latest Atmos models shave hundreds off the cost of its first, so that’s a good thing, right? The $899 HT-Z9F and the $599 HT-X9000F offer Atmos (and DTS:X) playback in a compact, less costly package. While …

Samsung has announced the stylish looking VL5, a speaker featuring a puck-like magnetic dial that appears to work in a similar way to the Microsoft Surface Dial to control volume. The puck will stick to any magnetic surface and control the volume via a slick dial. The volume control on display at the company’s First Look event in Las Vegas at CES …