Sound + Image November - December 2022

I spurted involuntarily from my nose some Nomad pineapple gose recently while reading a short online write-up of a new wireless speaker. The news piece parroted from the press release that it had “360-degree audio”. But looking closer, I realised that this phrase was merely hiding the fact that the speaker was, er, mono. Cue spurt. What a top bit of spin work, to take the apparent limitation of a single olde-worlde mono driver and recycle it as a futuristic-sounding 360-degree soundfield! One can only applaud such creativity in marketing and public relations. And perhaps also wonder what other spectacular bullshit they're spinning that we haven't noticed yet. Such BS should, of course, be called out, and it's always a delight when it is. I was involved in an online product presentation…

I spurted involuntarily from my nose some Nomad pineapple gose recently while reading a short online write-up of a new wireless speaker. The news piece parroted from the press release that it had “360-degree audio”. But looking closer, I realised that this phrase was merely hiding the fact that the speaker was, er, mono. Cue spurt. What a top bit of spin work, to take the apparent limitation of a single olde-worlde mono driver and recycle it as a futuristic-sounding 360-degree soundfield! One can only applaud such creativity in marketing and public relations. And perhaps also wonder what other spectacular bullshit they're spinning that we haven't noticed yet. Such BS should, of course, be called out, and it's always a delight when it is. I was involved in an online…

Consumer products branded as Sennheiser now come not from the German family-owned business but from Sonova, headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, a group specialising in hearing care. The group operates in four sectors: hearing instruments, audiology, consumer hearing, and cochlear implants, with brands including Phonak, Unitron, AudioNova and Advanced Bionics. Now that Sonova has fully taken over Sennheiser's consumer electronics business (“under license” its website says), it is increasingly representing the brand's consumer gear as ‘Sennheiser Hearing’. From recent product updates Sonova has seemed to be carrying on business as usual. We had been wondering if the long-mooted plan for a junior Ambeo soundbar would be scuppered by the takeover, but clearly this is not the case, with the announcement of the new Ambeo Soundbar Plus, priced at $2400. The original Ambeo…

The long-held tradition in hi-fi system building is to mix and match equipment: you can combine the strengths of different brands in a system which thereby achieves the best possible value for money. But there's much also to be said for single-brand systems — their components will be designed to work together, they will likely operate under a single system control, and they can provide a good aesthetic match into the bargain. All the more so when a package is supplied at a good price, under the sum of its individual parts, and with all the cables included. That's the deal behind the Rega System One, which launched earlier in the year in Rega's UK homeland, and which is now available in Australia as well. It's no surprise to find that it's…

It's extremely hard not to directly compare AV receivers from the two Sound United brands Denon and Marantz when both are released near-simultaneously and clearly share so much in terms of facilities, layout and development. Witness, for example, the back panels shown below, the range of technologies supported, and the identical HEOS modules which bring streaming and multiroom operations across the range. So what's different? Obviously the features and power ratings rise as you go through each individual range, but if you ask the brands themselves, they'll point to the implementa-tion of different amplification technologies, and the many points of tuning made through the brands’ (separate) tuning processes. Marantz has further differentiated (currently) by announcing its premium processor and power amp separates, the AV 10 and AMP 10, the latter a 16-channel…

news Sennheiser Hearing ◆ Rega Consumer products branded as Sennheiser now come not from the German family-owned business but from Sonova, headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, a group specialising in hearing care. The group operates in four sectors: hearing instruments, audiology, consumer hearing, and cochlear implants, with brands including Phonak, Unitron, AudioNova and Advanced Bionics. Now that Sonova has fully taken over Sennheiser's consumer electronics business (“under license” its website says), it is increasingly representing the brand's consumer gear as ‘Sennheiser Hearing’. From recent product updates Sonova has seemed to be carrying on business as usual. We had been wondering if the long-mooted plan for a junior Ambeo soundbar would be scuppered by the takeover, but clearly this is not the case, with the announcement of the new Ambeo Soundbar Plus, priced…