Table of contents for March - April 2020 in Sound + Image

NAD has used CES in Las Vegas to announce its first product to feature a new Class-D amplifier technology called HybridDigital Purifi ‘Eigentakt’ (which means ‘self-clocking’ or ‘self-oscillating’), developed in collaboration with Danish amplifier module maker Purifi Audio. The new NAD ‘Masters Series’ M33 is a DAC/amplifier that comes equipped with the BluOS (Bluesound) streaming and multiroom platform, and is fronted by a 178mm colour touchscreen, so that in addition to advancing on the previous M32 model it seems to be building on the success of the company’s M10, while offering more inputs and, with the new technology, two sets of speaker outputs and higher power output of 200W per channel. The new amplification is said to be ‘ultraquiet’, “remarkable in that it nears the limits of even the most…

JBL’s updating of its L100 Classic loudspeaker has proven such a success (including a Sound+Image Judges’ Choice Award) that the company has done another — and this time it’ll fit on your bookshelf. The new L82 Classic stands 47cm tall, boasting the same vintage styling with a genuine walnut satin wood veneer cabinet and the iconic Quadrex foam grilles available in the same choice of black, orange or blue. But beneath the period external design, the L82 Classics use thoroughly modern acoustic components: a one-inch titanium dome tweeter mated with a waveguide – the same high-frequency components found in the larger L100 Classic, together with a white eight-inch (200mm) cast-frame pure-pulp cone woofer operating in a bass-reflex design with a front-firing tuned port. While termed a ‘bookshelf’ design, the L82…

The first seven products from a new brand, Theory Audio Design, have been released and will be available in Australia through Queensland-based distributor Cogworks. Theory Audio Design is a newly-established division of Pro Audio Technologies, based in California, and while the range includes architectural speakers and subwoofers, one of the most interesting aspects is the company’s approach to the much-maligned soundbar. “Historically, soundbars and small on-wall loudspeakers have lacked the acoustic power to convincingly recreate a motion picture anywhere near reference level,” says Theory’s Joe Hales, explaining that Theory made this the focus of their entire business, and claims that the company’s three new soundbars provide reference-level theatrical-quality sound from their contoured enclosures (below), with the three initial soundbar releases sized to match 65, 75, and 85-inch screens when they…

While high-end audio has all but left the building at CES in Las Vegas these days, there’s no shortage of headphones on display, with True Wireless designs to the fore. A couple we’d seen before — JBL’s Live 300TWS was shown at IFA in Berlin last September, offering six hours of playback from a single charge, extended to 18 hours using the battery-pack case. They work with Harman’s Personi-Fi app to ‘auto-calibrate’ for your tastes, and have both an Ambient Aware function and Talk Thru to interact with the world without having to take an earbud out and potentially dropping it down a drain. They also connect through the app to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Local price TBA: www.jbl.com.au The prize for shininess goes to the Technics EAH-AZ70W, a…

The Mandalorian doesn’t have an opening ‘Star Wars’-style crawl, but if it did it could easily start “Guerre Stallari, Episodio VI E Mezzo: C’era Una Volta Nello Spazio.” Because it’s basically a spaghetti western in space. And that works — heartwarmingly so — even if it does often feel like an overly referential cover version of Star Wars. Space westerns are nothing new: Firefly, Outland and Battle Beyond The Stars are obvious examples, and Han Solo is clearly a space cowboy. So turning a series spotlighting one of Star Wars’s bounty hunters into a spaghetti western is a no-brainer. The unnamed Mandalorian at its heart is a taciturn Clint Eastwood analogue: not just a man with no name but no face either, since Mandalorians never remove their helmets. The story…

PREMIUM PRICES SLASHED! WHICH TECH WINS? LG OLED Panasonic OLED LAST CHANCE TO BUY! Samsung QLED Sony 8K TVs ON TEST THIS ISSUE Sony Master Z9G 85-inch 8K TV Price: $21,995 Panasonic TH-65GZ2000U Price: $8299 Samsung QA65Q90R Price: $6099 (but see article) LG OLED65C9PTA Price: $5589 (but see article) Sony X95G 65-inch Price: $2495 + Motion processing: p40 + Next year’s TVs at CES: p41 Times were when televisions were little more than dumb displays with a TV tuner attached. Then came the advent of home video, with those clunky video cassette recorders requiring TVs to have an external input. Then LaserDisc, then DVD and on to downloads and streaming, so that today’s TVs are all about processing power, streaming apps, network connections and smart interfaces. Yet at the heart…

This was a treat, followed by a blow. Panasonic has been one of the few TV companies prepared to ship largescreen models out for a full review, rather than offering limited ‘hands on’ time. And we were delighted to spend time with its top-ofthe-range model, this Panasonic TH-65GZ2000U OLED Professional Edition Ultra-HD TV. Then, after the review, came the news that Panasonic is pulling out of the Australian TV market. That makes the GZ2000 the last and best Panasonic TV that will be available here. It’s a last-chance-to-buy scenario—get it while you can. Equipment Perhaps Panasonic was happy to ship this TV to us because it’s tougher than your average OLED TV. Yes, it has the sheet-of-glass look typical of the breed, but it’s a thicker sheet of glass. According…

We’ve been wildly impressed by Sony’s OLED televisions, especially the sloping no-legs monolith designs like the current A9F, though we know these didn’t appeal to all, since more conventionally styled TVs were quickly introduced for those finding the monolith too imposing, or the angling unsuitable. The X95G has legs, and is a full-array LED-LCD television rather than OLED, indeed the top of its LCD range excepting only the Masters series Z9G and Z9F. As such it is nicely competitive on price: it launched at $3499 but even Sony offers it below $2500 on its website at the time of writing, and offers a price match facility too. Sony seems not to follow the usual high website price and heavy store discounting we see with some other brands; its website just…

Fyne Audio is a brand which is new to Australia, arriving also through a new distributor in HiFi Collective, and indeed Fyne is a new company in itself, having launched its first products two years ago, which included the standmounting F500 loudspeaker shown here. But just as HiFi Collective comes from a team with a long history in Australia and New Zealand, so the folk at Fyne have been working together for a decade or more, and boast “over 200 years’ experience” in the arts of musical reproduction. And they’re based in Scotland, so that spelling of ‘Fyne’ is not a pun on the word ‘fine’, it’s a proud and legitimate Scottish variant! Equipment All that experience may explain why Fyne Audio was able to hit the ground running. The…

The last two receivers, from Denon and Marantz, both ultimately hail from their common owner Sound United. While the brands differentiate, they have had an increasing amount in common since they came together. And as we reviewed this Onkyo receiver, Onkyo too was due to be joining Sound United, along with sister company Pioneer. But the merger was stopped at the 11th hour, which from our view was a good thing, as it will avoid all four brands converging in their product lines. Sometimes a different approach is refreshing, or innovative! As with nearly all receivers today, this is a networked receiver which connects to your router and the internet. The very first networked receiver I ever reviewed was from Onkyo, and I remember that well, because I was all…

Which day do you choose for piano day? Why, the 88th day of the year, of course, matching the number of keys on this instrument which is one of the hardest for any audio system to nail perfectly. Not only does piano have one of the widest frequency ranges of any instrument, the nuances of attack and sustain, the tonal subtleties of an accomplished player — these things challenge lesser audio systems and sing out on a good system. We’re happy to join the piano party on 28th March this year, with its aim of being a platform to continue sharing the centuries-old joy of playing piano, so we’ve put together some favourite piano music for testing your system. Son of Parasol by Lubomyr Melnyk A label-mate of Nils Frahm…

Skullcandy Crusher ANC wireless noise-cancelling headphones Three technologies headline these wireless noise-cancellers from Utah-born Skullcandy. Firstly there’s noise cancellation to provide a quieter background for your music in noisy environments. Secondly, there’s ‘personal sound’, where an associated app gives you a three-minute hearing test and adjusts the sound accordingly. And lastly there’s ‘adjustable sensory bass’, with a slider on the left earshell to vary an ear-trembling physical vibration which seeks to accentuate the bass response of the Crushers. Only one of these — the noise-cancelling — is missing from Skullcandy’s other wireless Crusher overear headphones, and yet the price is near doubled, from the non-ANC $279.95 up to a premium $599.95. Noise-cancellation alone wouldn’t justify that jump, but the specs show that there are more changes here. The quoted distortion level…

The Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray and Disney+ releases have completed the journey for Disney’s photo-realistic computer-animated remake of The Lion King, which opened in cinemas in July 2019, quietly going on to overtake Frozen as the highest-grossing animated film of all-time (US$1.6bn worldwide to date), and the seventh-highest of all-time. Its commercial success was perhaps never in doubt. But artistically, it was an epic creative venture, stacked high with challenges. “It was probably just the scale of it and that it’s a remake of such a classic movie,” Elliot Newman, VFX Supervisor at MPC in London, told us. “It was enormous for us; the expectations were incredibly high and it doesn’t get much bigger. It was super-exciting and it’s a special thing to be a part of. But there’s always the…

The forgettable Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) was no way for a starship captain as iconic as Jean-Luc Picard to retire his commission after 15 glorious years exploring the final frontier, across seven TV seasons and four movies. Nearly two decades on, the long-serving commander of the USS Enterprise is now boldly going once more, in new spin-off Star Trek: Picard, streaming on Amazon Prime. Running from 1987 to 1994, Star Trek: The Next Generation was the series that took Sir Patrick Stewart off the boards and bit-parts and made him a star. Yet the actor was hesitant about engaging the warp drive once more. “I had been for a long time saying, ‘Thank you but no,’” Stewart says. “Then, as the subject matter of this new proposed series became clearer…

This is an important release from Musical Fidelity, as it’s the company’s first clean-sheet product build since they were purchased by Audio Tuning last year, even though Simon Quarry (the genius behind so many Musical Fidelity gems) has been retained as Technical Director and Designer. The M8xi is a monster of an amplifier. Rated at 550 watts/channel it is designed to competently drive any loudspeaker in existence. The construction consists of a pre-amp with two mono-block power amps sharing the same chassis. Each component has its own power transformer and heat sinks. Most companies rate distortion measured at 1kHz; Musical Fidelity state a distortion rate of 0.004% at all frequencies from 20Hz to 20kHz. Its maximum peak output is 105 amps, and while that may not mean much to many…

Rega’s new reference stereo amplifier, the Aethos, has received its Australian launch, taking concepts from the UK company’s award-winning Elex-R and Elicit-R amps to the next level in this dual-mono design. The Aethos combines striking looks with high-performance features, including polypropylene capacitors throughout the signal path, K-Power reservoir capacitors, and a high current output stage comprising four 160W 16A Sanken output transistors per channel. The output is quoted at 125W into eight ohms (0.007% THD+N @1kHz, 22Hz to 30kHz) or 156W into 6 ohms. The Aethos uses a custom-wound toroidal transformer and regulated supplies for the sensitive amplification and driver stages, making use of the combined feedback and passive volume control plus line amplifier originally developed for the Elex-R but with improvements through the use of discrete FET input operational…

Dynaudio is expanding its architectural speaker offerings, with a new Performance range marking the entry point to its Custom product line-up, and also two new outdoor speaker models. The Performance series includes both in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, plus an interesting in-surface subwoofer, the Sub RCC (pictured below), which is designed to complement both the Performance and Studio series. The passive subwoofer’s rigid, compact and low-resonance one-piece extruded aluminium enclosure can be installed in walls, ceilings or even floors, mounting on the wall surface or into a 2×4 stud-bay before or after construction, with no back-box necessary. The ‘RCC’ stands for Reactance Cancellation Configuration, derived from Dynaudio’s professional studio subwoofers, where two sets of opposed drivers work together to cancel unwanted vibrations to leave only the desirable acoustic energy emerging from…

Streaming has taken over our viewing so rapidly and totally that it’s easy to forget that Netflix launched here only five years ago. Prior to that, tech-savvy Australians resorted to VPNing US Netflix into their Australian homes (and many still do), until the official launch brought the promise of legal local relief, especially for Aussies who had been forking out more than $100 a month to Foxtel in order to enjoy all that television had to offer. But now the streams are multiplying. Let’s say you want everything on offer today — all the major Australian services at the best available picture quality: Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, 10 All Access and Hayu, along with newcomers Disney+ and Apple TV+. You’d be up for $93 every month, and…

Our Editor is always banging on about Kanopy, partly because so few people are aware of its existence. It began in Perth, but has become an international cross-platform service loaded with material considered arty or educational; indeed it began as a university-only service, but has found its zenith as a service offered free — yes free — to anyone with a library card from a library which supports the service. However there is a limit on the number of items you can watch per month — five in our Editor’s suburb, so you learn to make your choices wisely! To find out if your library qualifies, just type its name into Kanopy’s home screen. (We’d also recommend investigating whether your library offers free magazines on RBdigital or free audio books…

The Sony television overleaf is the only 8K television in this group — and it’s a cracker in many regards. But as you’ll read, we’re not convinced anyone needs to buy an 8K TV yet, because a lot could change before any real 8K content arrives to make the most of its higher resolution. Here’s a primer on the tech, and where it’s up to… What is 8k? 8K refers to resolution — the number of horizontal and vertical pixels in an image. Pixels equal information, so more pixels should, in theory, make for a better quality image. 8K has a horizontal resolution of 7680 pixels and a vertical resolution of 4320 pixels. Ultra High Definition (also known as 4K, through strictly ‘4K’ initially meant a slightly wider pro standard)…

Short of opting for the currently dubious benefits of 8K resolution in Samsung’s Q900R series, the Q90R is Samsung’s flagship QLED model until the new TV ranges arrive in April-May — and this final sales period is the time to make some remarkable potential savings (see our conclusions at the end). ‘QLED’ is an LED-LCD technology here the backlight is used to excite Quantum Dots, which then generate wavelengths of light that are more efficiently perceived by the human eye. This yields higher perceived brightness than standard LED-LCD (and, interesting to ponder, potentially better perceived brightness than measuring equipment will indicate). This technology easily outcompetes OLED for brightness, but can’t deliver the finer graduations down in the blacks where OLED has perhaps its great merit. Which is why Samsung is…

When Mission: Impossible – Fallout was released on Blu-ray, Tom Cruise sent out a surprising tweet to his fans. It was a plea from himself and director Chris McQuarrie to turn off your TV’s motion smoothing before watching their (or any) films. So what’s their problem, and should you follow the Cruiser’s advice? What is motion smoothing? Motion smoothing is designed to reduce judder and blur from video sources. It generally works by introducing artificial frames of video between the actual frames provided by the source. The frame rate for almost all films is 24 frames per second, slow enough that, with fast motion, an object or person can jump from one point on the screen to another a significant number of pixels away. Any TV is capable of displaying…

REVIEWED Denon $1699 Marantz $2570 Onkyo $2999 In recent years we’ve come to regard the Denon ‘AVR-X2-something’ level as occupying a sweet-spot among Denon home cinema receivers. That is, they have everything that a receiver really ought to have, while trimming off most of the unnecessary stuff. That continues with the Denon AVR-X2600H, together with performance at the price which brought it a Sound+Image Award as revealed last issue, to go with the EISA 2019-2020 Best Product Award it had already received from our global colleagues. We told you a little about its merits in that Awards issue; now here’s our full review. Equipment The Denon AVR-X2600H is a seven-channel model rated at a solid 95 watts from each channel into 8 ohms, full bandwidth, low distortion. It supports all…

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant is dominant in the US market over Google’s, but here in Australia the positions are reversed. So the smart speaker market is an important one for Amazon, a point of persuasion for getting its smarts into Australian homes. In terms of musicality, however, the Echo range hasn’t yet moved our souls with their performance. But the burly $329 Amazon Echo Studio certainly looks the part to make amends, standing nearly five centimetres taller and wider than Apple’s HomePod while tipping the scales at 3.5 kilos. Is this the Echo that will take on the more audio orientated brands in the smart speaker market? Plenty of power The design isn’t as easy to hide away in the corner of the room as some rival speakers, and the…

Bowers & Wilkins PX5 wireless noise-cancelling headphones On-ear headphones — supra-aural rather than circum-aural — are often neglected as a breed in favour of either in-ear buds or full-size overear headphones. Some don’t like the permanent press of fabric against ear; the fit can feel tighter, even when, as with the PX5, the softness of the earpads are more like having little pillows either side of your head. Besides, the advantages are considerable. They avoid, of course, the invasion of your ear-canal and potential hazardous pressure development of in-ear designs, while they score significantly for size compared with over-ear models, as is immediately apparent when comparing the PX5 design directly with the PX7. They weigh 241g compared with the PX7’s 310g, and they take up significantly less storage space, though…

Ausdom ANC7S wireless NC headphones These wireless noise-cancelling headphones came to us from Altronics, the 44-year-old Perth supplier which still produces the chunky great mail-order catalogue which graced the shelves of every electronics hobbyist back in the 1980s. Altronics has also now moved online, of course, offering 9000+ products with everything from tiny parts to full consumer products, many of which appear a bargain. Take these wireless noise-cancelling headphones, listed on Altronics site simply as the C9021A, although they are identified there and on the packaging as being the ANC7S by Ausdom, a company founded in California, with manufacturing and assembly in Shenzen, China. Their price is just $139, making them far more affordable than premium noise-cancellers like the others reviewed in this issue. The question, then, is how much…

How many times has a comic-book movie been described as the darkest, or most adult, ever made? Well, Joker really is that film, dumping quips and capes, ostentatious VFX and large-scale action set-pieces into a vat of chemicals. It emerges, stripped to the bone, as a distressing character piece, concerned not with a man’s elevation to the Clown Prince of Crime but his descent into squalor and madness. Made for US$65m — a quarter or less of many comic-book movies these days — and leaning heavily (perhaps too heavily) into Martin Scorsese’s meltdown classics Taxi Driver (1976) and The King Of Comedy (1982), Joker sees Arthur Fleck (Oscar-winning Joaquin Phoenix) lose his job and his family, fail miserably at his dream of becoming a stand-up comic, and slip through the…

It hit cinemas close to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, and Ad Astra feels like a glimpse of some alternate future where the space program never sputtered into public indifference and Apollo was a straight arrow to the stars. It’s a film that wears its influences like mission patches: not just the sterile, utilitarian beauty of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a moonbase that looks like Gerry Anderson was bankrolled by the American government, but every moment of NASA footage that made the future look shiny and glorious. Rockets reach for the heavens above pillars of fire and smoke; Mars is all unexplored ochre promise; an impossible Meccano-gasm of a structure stands bolted between Earth orbit and the planet below, like one of Arthur C Clarke’s daydreams.…

There are very few brands in our industry with the appeal of B&O. In an age where many consumers are trying to hide the audio system out of sight, B&O is unashamedly designed to be proudly placed on display. This is a true merging of design and music (or as publication Wired described it “quality media delivery via striking objects”). While we have become accustomed to traditional box speakers of various shapes, B&O turns their speakers into technical pieces of art. Take, for example, the Beoplay A9 which comes in a variety of finishes, and can be floor- or wall-mounted. Despite its laidback minimalist design it features over 400 watts of amplification (1 x 400 watt amp for the bass driver, 2 x 200 watt amps for the midrange drivers,…

Loewe’s bild 2 range of televisions is now available in Australia through Indi Imports, in another indication of the revival of the German brand as it comes under the new control of Cyprus-based international investment company Skytec. The bild 2 television comes in 43-inch and 49-inch options, both using 4K LED-E-backlit LCD panels supporting HDR and wide viewing angles, together with Loewe’s usual level of intelligent interfacing including Loewe’s app for smartphone and tablet, and compatibility with Alexa voice control. The bild 2 models also have integrated sound systems which benefit from the corrective audio processing of Mimi Defined. Indi Imports also emphasises their style and versatility in being not only wall- or bench-mountable but also pairable with one of Loewe’s attractive floorstands (right) for free-standing positioning anywhere in a…

Sennheiser announced two new over-ear wireless noise-cancellers at CES in Las Vegas, the $299.95 HD 450BT and $199.95 HD 350BT. They’re nicely priced below the premium $599.95 Momentum Wireless 3, yet still offer active noise cancellation and Bluetooth codec support for AAC, aptX and aptX Low Latency for devices supporting them. The compact folding closed headphones promise an impressive 30-hour battery life, with USB-C charging including rapid top-up charging, and sound tailoring via Sennheiser’s Smart Control app, including a new podcast mode. We'll have a full review of the HD 450BT in our next issue. More info: www.sennheiser.com.au…

We rated the Demand D9 very highly, one of three standmounts in the original series from Definitive Technology, so we were pleased to see two new tower models and a centre speaker at CES in Las Vegas, completing the six-strong range shown below. The new towers are the Demand D15 and Demand D17 (pictured right), and they continue the clean, modern look and bead-blasted aluminum baffles, retaining the offset annealed aluminium-dome tweeters while gaining new dual carbon-fibre bass drivers and dual side-firing passive radiators for what the company promises as “some of the smoothest, most accurate and rich reproduction of any tower on the market in its price range”. The D17 is due in Australia in March, price $8099. More info: www.westan.com.au…

After years of widespread use as a home server system adept at serving video, audio and photo files around a home (and potentially beyond) from centralised home storage, Plex has clearly seen the streaming on the wall and has begun to offer its own selection of TV and movies, alongside web shows and podcast content. Pleasingly it’s all free; less pleasingly, it’s rather ad-heavy, not too bad if you’re watching continuously, but if you’re the kind of viewer who pauses and returns regularly, the ads come on every time you sit back down to restart. For existing Plex users the content is a bonus, while those attracted by the content (we couldn’t resist rewatching Zulu) will discover the versatility that the Plex app and server can deliver, even without moving…

Blu-rays and DVDs are in undeniable decline since the rise of streaming, while 4K Blu-ray has found a niche, but a small one. With one new Blu-ray like to cost more than a month’s subscription to perhaps two streaming services offering hundreds of movies, plus the need for a player and physical storage, why would you buy discs? The answer for video enthusiasts is quality: even if your subscription service offers 4K UHD resolution, delivery will be heavily compressed in many ways compared to the lighter compression used on discs; bit-rates don’t lie. There are also often extensive extras on discs, something missing from streaming services (until recently: Disney+ is notable for its extras). And don’t underestimate the joys of ownership — that disc is yours, and it’ll always be…

Any readers following our magazine’s cover-lines about slashed TV prices may want to flip a few more pages on. Sony’s TV here is 85 inches on the diagonal, and it’s 8K. And it’s $21,995, precisely because it’s 8K and an 85-incher. Sony Australia isn’t even listing the larger 98-inch version of the Z9G, perhaps because in markets where it is available, it’s about six times more expensive than this 85-inch. In other words, you need extremely deep pockets if you want to be at this bleeding edge of TV tech. But if you do, there’s really no downside to the KD-85Z9G. If we were in the market for a giant 8K TV, this is where we’d start. 8K is a comin’ in Regular readers will know we’re not yet convinced…

Ah, OLED. When this front-emissive display technology arrived, it made everyone go ‘wow’ — televisions like this had never been seen before. Not only were they super-slim, but their picture quality was to die for, especially in the blacks, because when an OLED pixel is off, it’s absolutely off—black is black. LCD TVs with LED backlighting simply couldn’t compete with that. OLED vs LED But time moves on, and as we’ve seen over the last couple of years in particular, LED-LCD has been tweaking its technologies to deliver many of OLED’s merits, together with potentially higher illumination levels. Meanwhile OLED has not progressed in the same way. According to accepted wisdom, OLED panels hit their performance limits in 2017 and, from a hardware perspective, the 2019-released OLEDs are similar to…

Samsung MicroLED $TBC ◊ Launch: TBC Samsung has showcased its MicroLED tech before, but this is the first time the panels have looked like they might fit into a normal human home. The smallest on offer is now down to 75 inches, rising through 88, 93, and 110-inchers to a 150-inch model, and should you desire more their modular design and near lack of bezel mean that you can join them together into a monster video wall… Hisense ULED XD $TBC◊ Launch: 2020 Hisense had, as usual, a wealth of wonders, including the promise of its first 8K TV launch in Australia this year, and of TriChroma Laser TVs (see News p9). But of special interest is this ULED XD TV, also promised for 2020. Its Dual Cell technology features…

Nine channels is a handy number when you’re putting together a home cinema system. A nine-channel AV receiver will suit a great many users — not too many channels, but not too few. And that’s what the Marantz SR6014 home theatre receiver offers. And there’s also support for 10th and 11th channels as well, should you need them. Equipment Why nine? Well, in the pre-Atmos days, I was a firm 5.1-channel guy. I’ve never been a fan of the rear surround speakers which spread the width of the effects in the home. Too much wiring for diminishing returns. In a theatre, rear surround helps localise centre-rear sounds for those patrons who find themselves seated near side walls. But in your home? Well, not needed in my room anyway. So with…

Bowers & Wilkins PX wireless noise-cancelling headphones While Bowers & Wilkins has been making speakers since the 1960s, it entered the headphone market only a decade ago with the on-ear P5 Mobile Hi-Fi headphones. Those strongly leveraged B&W’s reputation for luxury, all leather and shining metal, connected stethoscope-like with twisting metal rods — in our review back then we called them “truly drop-dead gorgeous things shouting executive luxury from every curve”, though they were then priced accordingly at $500, above the market-leading noise-cancellers of the day, despite the P5s being smaller and lacking noise-cancelling. It was another three years before B&W launched an over-ear model, a more serious headphone at the same price, again linked up with sculptural swirls of steel, and we loved them, though again, no noise-cancelling, and…

JBL Pulse 4 portable Bluetooth speaker Smart lighting is all the rage, and everyone needs a Bluetooth speaker — so why not put the two together? JBL’s Pulse is now in its fourth generation, a right rippling piece of party electronics ready to deliver your personal combo of son et lumière. With each generation the Pulse’s light show has got bigger and smarter. The original Pulse back in 2014 hid its visual glories behind an outer protective grille. The Pulse 2 and 3 clarified the covering but each had a closed lower area to house the essential electronics. With the Pulse 4 the electronics are miraculously squirrelled away into a mere centimetre at the bottom, leaving a full 19cm of its 21cm height and the entire 360-degree circumference to do…

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY “It’s not a message I ever intended to convey in words,” said director Stanley Kubrick of his 1968 science-fiction epic. “2001 is a non-verbal experience.” And of course music plays a huge role in that, with around half of it used in the movie either before the first line of the film’s limited dialogue, or after the last. We might pity the composer Alex North, whom Kubrick commissioned to score 2001. Only when he went to see the movie did he discover that none of his pieces had been used. In their place were works by Richard Strauss, Gyorgy Ligeti, Aram Khachaturian and Johan Strauss II, pieces which the director had originally used as guide tracks, but which adopted such significance once tethered to this cinematic…