What Hi-Fi? April 2022

A top-notch home cinema system is a delight that will bring many years of pleasure with friends and family. The very best set-up can cost an almost inconceivable amount of course, and those with enormous funds will dedicate a room for the sole purpose of movie night. For the rest of us, though, things aren’t that straightforward. We need to live with our kit in our living rooms, so we can’t always accommodate nine different speakers, a projector bolted to the ceiling, an AV amplifier chugging away in the corner and so on. Happily, there are some terrific options for home cinema systems (p30) that need not cost the earth, and need not take up all that precious living space. We suggest seven that cover all the bases, from solo enjoyment…

EXPERIENCE. HERITAGE. We’ve been helping the world discover the best in hi-fi and home entertainment for more than 40 years, and have more than 100 years of reviewing experience under our collective belts – so you can count on our expert opinion. DEDICATED TEST FACILITIES We test every product against its peers in our extensive, bespoke reviewing facilities in London, Reading and Bath. We conduct all our tests as a team – our opinions and conclusions are always the result of collaboration. HOW WE SCORE All review verdicts are agreed upon by the team as a whole – not an individual reviewer. Each product will be listened to and/or viewed by several members of the test team, who will then discuss the final verdict before it appears in the magazine or on the website. This…

View offers DAC/headphone amp | £449 | whf.cm/Mojo2 Few real-world (read: not ludicrously expensive) products can be considered real game changers in hi-fi, but in 2015 the Chord Mojo burst onto the then-fledgling portable DAC/headphone amplifier scene as one of them, flag in hand and ready to claim territory. The palm-sized device justified its elongated name (‘Mobile Joy’), pushing the parameters of what was possible for compact, on-the-go sound quality in the three-figure price domain – so much so that it set the performance benchmark at its level, largely uncontested, right up until it was discontinued in late 2021. The fittingly named Mojo 2 is the long-anticipated, re-engineered replacement. And while those familiar with Chord’s most affordable products will see from this review’s accompanying images that the aesthetic hasn’t exactly been overhauled for…

View offers Television | £499 | whf.cm/55A7GQ The 55A7GQ’s headline appeal is that it gives you 55-inches of 4K, HDR-capable pictures for just £499. Adding more bang for your buck, there’s also a smart system built around Hisense’s increasingly impressive VIDAA platform, support for Dolby Vision on top of the more standard HDR formats, built-in Dolby Atmos sound, and even a Quantum Dot colour system. So, what’s the catch? Premium feel The 55A7GQ looks more expensive than it is. The bottom edge sports a smart silver, metallic-looking finish, while the other three edges are exceptionally trim with a black finish, and the screen sits flush with the frame. It’s a little deeper round the back than many TVs, likely due to the set’s promising use of direct LED backlight. The 55A7GQ delivers a native 4K…

View offers Wireless headphones | £279 | whf.cm/Gemini If Thor’s adopted brother Loki wore headphones, these are the ones the God of Mischief would choose – their slide-top case and black-only colourway fit the bill perfectly. But how good are they? Devialet has always come in at the more premium end of the market and, at £279, its debut true wireless in-ear proposition is no exception. This price-point puts the Geminis into direct competition with Sony’s class-leading WF-1000XM4 (£250) and means that plenty of excellent wireless headphones can be snapped up for less – Panasonic RZ-S500W, Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2, for starters. Even Apple’s ever-popular AirPods Pro launched at £249, so Devialet’s pricing strategy is confident, to say the least. Nice touch The circular flourish you can see on these pill-shaped earpieces is the…

View offers Stereo amplifier | £2295 | whf.cm/i7XR Tell today’s impatient consumer that they will have to wait eight years for the next iPhone or Nike trainer and we imagine their face would screw up like that of a toddler who has just been fed a handful of kimchi. But the hi-fi admirer – us and, we suspect, you – is sensibly accustomed to be more forgiving of longer periods between evolutions. Still, as the years rolled by without a major update to Cyrus’s Classic range of components, we wondered if our appetite for a series successor would ever be whetted. And then, in 2021, along came the Cyrus XR Series – not a Classic refresh but indeed a next-level, top-of-the-line range designed to perform a good step above the then-flagship Classic Signature…