It’s the first Monday of August, and as a special treat we’ve published the latest entry into our weekly Rewind news digest.
In it, our team of experts once again detail the top developments and hi-fi and home cinema news to break over the past seven days.
And what a week it was, with our reviewers delivering their final verdict on the Sony Bravia Theatre Quads wireless surround-sound package, and numerous hi-fi announcements hitting the headlines.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Sony's Bravia Theatre Quad makes a case for wireless surround sound
The Bravia Theatre Quad is the successor to the older Sony HT-A9, which remains a favourite among the What Hi-Fi? home cinema team. It has a similar goal: to offer movie fans a convenient, easy to set up wireless surround sound system.
After putting it through its paces in our viewing and listening rooms we can confirm it generally succeeds in this aim. During our checks it proved incredibly easy to set up and offered effective, stable wireless audio. In fact, the only things stopping it from earning a perfect five stars are its high price and slightly weak low end, which means you really need to value convenience over best in class performance to make it worthwhile.
Read our full Sony Bravia Theatre Quad review
Rotel’s new affordable integrated amp promises 'no compromise' audio
Last week Rotel unveiled its new A8 integrated amplifier, claiming the unit will offer “no compromise performance” despite carrying an “entry level price”.
We’re yet to get it in for testing, so we can’t comment if this claim holds any merit, but it certainly looks interesting. For £399 / €399 / $450 you get some decent hardware and features including Class A/B amplifier and a high-current toroidal transformer that let it deliver 40 watts of classic power output into 4 ohms.
Read the full story: Rotel's integrated amplifier teases no-compromise performance for an entry-level price
Fiio’s new IEMs take aim at Shure and Sennheiser
Fiio’s been particularly prolific in recent months, unveiling a new product pretty much every other week. This trend continued last week when it unveiled its latest IEMs, the FH19. Aimed squarely at IEM heavyweights Shure and Sennheiser, the FH19 has one key trick up their sleeve to try and help entice buyers away from its more established competition – swappable audio filters that let you adjust their audio profile to your specific tastes.
Read the full story: Fiio's latest flagship IEMs hope to beat Shure and Sennheiser with customisable sound profiles
Samsung’s going all-in on big OLED TVs
Samsung last week dropped a big hint about its next TV strategy. Specifically, during its last quarterly earnings call it openly stated big screen OLED TVs will be its focus for at least the rest of the year.
Read the full story: Samsung has dropped a huge hint about its future OLED and Mini LED TV plans
Audio-Technica could be a hit for vinyl newbies
Audio Technica unveiled its latest affordable record player last week. Catchily named the AT-LP70xBT, the unit is a fully automatic wireless belt-drive turntable that can play both 33 1/3 and 45rpm records. It’s interesting as it sits just above the ever popular, but poorly reviewed, AT-LP60xBT we gave three stars to in 2019. If it could match its cheaper sibling's popularity on social media, but fix the performance issues we had with it, it could carve a space as the best record player for vinyl newbies.
Read the full story: Audio-Technica's new affordable turntable delivers key upgrades on its popular entry-level deck
MORE:
These are the best cheap record players we’ve tested
Our picks of the best OLED TVs
We rate the best surround sound packages
