Sound + Image

SOUND + IMAGE magazine offers a comprehensive package focused on lifestyle home electronic entertainment. It provides easy-to-read information about audio and video equipment and how ordinary consumers can assemble extraordinary systems that look and sound fantastic.

A bad case of new-formatitis

Vivid's new coppers

Reversing the time warp

Sound + Image

Epson shifts down for the LS9000

Optoma's triple-laser flagship

Higher headphones • During our group test of noise-cancelling headphones for this issue (p55-66), two of the companies on test introduced even higher models that push upwards from the busy $500-$700 market towards something still more premium at $1000+.

Repeat Coda boosts KEF's Wi-Fi range

All new REL Serie S

Nagra gets neat

HDMI 2.2 • Everything you need to know about the freshly up-rated TV connection, and yes, the new AV cables you'll be needing to buy…

A brief history of HDMI

Dolby Vision 2

Tropical retreat • Wavetrain headed to the tropics to deliver this Bond-in-the-Bahamas-inspired reference-level home cinema.

Better brighter smarter • Every year TVs get better, HDR performance gets brighter. Here comes TCL with an EISA award-winner in sizes up to 98 inches; we got to know the 65-inch C8K, which can hit peaks of 4500 nits.

We have lift-off • JBL's Mk2 version of its ‘Bar 1300’ has removable ends that now lift off, rather than pull off, to be employed separately as wireless rear speakers, or for mono or stereo Bluetooth playback, and more besides. This is a clever, versatile and powerful soundbar system.

Digital music, sorted. • Aurender's A1000 is a server and a streamer which proves a bringer of music and joy, whether streaming Spotify from the internet or caching high-res files from its internal SSD drive-bay.

Soissons quatres • You'll need a pretty big bookshelf for Triangle's newest Borea BR04, which arrives from the French company aiming to plug a range gap for those seeking big sound without floorstanders.

Flying high again • We've not been the biggest fans of recent Zeppelins from Bowers & Wilkins, so it was a delight to find the latest ‘Pro’ version of the wireless speaker to be so impressively improved with new in-house drivers, and a price now highly attractive against pricier competitors.

SHELL-LIKE WONDERS • WIRELESS NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES

Sennheiser Momentum 4 80th Anniversary Edition • Now resplendent with 80th anniversary graffiti, Sennheiser's limited-edition Momentum 4s look far less boring and still deliver the same excellent sound.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra • The Gen 1 flagship overears from the original noise-cancelling company were already impressive; a new Gen 2 should offer further useful tweaks.

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 • Hi-fi speaker company builds wireless head- phones. It's not always a recipe for success, but B&W's headwear is just getting better and better.

Sony WH-1000XM6 • A new generation of Sony's wireless-noise cancellers takes an already winning formula and tweaks everything up still further.

Apple AirPods Max • Five years on the market with changes only to colour and socketry — do Apple's wireless headphones still compete with newcomers? Oh, yes.

DO WE HAVE A WINNER?

Plug and play • Forget the buttons, apps and Bluetooth signal throttling. Here's a range-topping open-back headphone where you just plug in the cable and enjoy the magic.

UK Hi-Fi Show Live 2025 • Our feet were aching but our ears were happily humming after a day traversing the enormous Ascot Grandstand for this year's show, with its foyer of crazy cars and a busy schedule of demonstrations and live performances.

SUEDE Antidepressants •...