And that's what we have here. The Dali Sonik 5 5.1 package, which replaces the Award-winning Oberon 5 5.1 Speaker Package, uses a pair of five-star Sonik 5 floorstanders at the front and a pair of equally acclaimed Sonik 1 standmounters as surrounds.

They're joined by the Sonik Cinema centre speaker and Dali's long-serving Sub E-9 F subwoofer, which first launched back in 2013.

We already know the Sonik 5 and Sonik 1 are excellent, and the Sub E-9 F has proved its worth over the years. But how well do they work together, and can the Cinema centre maintain the same high standard?

Price

Buying the components separately in the UK would cost you £2396, but retailers such as Richer Sounds are doing a package deal that drops the total price to £2199. As we’ll see, that’s excellent value for the performance on offer.

While we’ve not been able to find any such packages in Australia, the total cost to buy the components separately is AU$4596, which again looks like very good value, essentially being a close-to-direct currency conversion from the UK price.

It’s a different story in the US, where again there are no pre-bundled packages, and the cost of buying the speakers separately will set you back $4800. If we were to simply do a currency conversion on the UK price, the US price would be around $3000.

While the package is still a compelling option at $4800, such is the level of performance it offers, it’s not the no-brainer bargain that it is in the UK and Australia.

Design

The first thing that strikes you about this package is how compact each component is. The Sonik 5 floorstanders are delightfully dinky, measuring just 83cm once the spikes are attached.

They’re relatively narrow, too, and while their surprisingly diminutive form might immediately make you question their ability to produce satisfying cinematic scale (something we’ll get to in the Sound Quality section), it also makes them vastly more living room friendly than typical floorstanders.

The Sonik 1 surrounds have the same 16cm width as the floorstanders, but they’re just 21cm deep and 28cm tall. They’re not so small as to be confused for ‘lifestyle’ speakers, but for proper hi-fi speakers, they’re decidedly bijou.

These compact dimensions make the Sonik 1s easy to find space for on a shelf, and there are even eyelets on the back so they can be hooked onto wall screws, though a pair of solid stands will get you the very best performance.

The E-9 F is very small by subwoofer standards, too, which is great for flexibility over positioning, if mildly concerning from a bass depth point of view. We’ll get to the sound it produces below, but it is worth noting that the E-12F, a larger subwoofer with a larger driver, is available in the same range, should you have the space and bass demands to warrant it.

Given the sizes of the other speakers, we were slightly concerned that Dali might have gone tiny with the centre. Instead, proportionally speaking, it feels like the most substantial speaker in the system.

This is a good sign as far as we’re concerned: with so much audio going through the centre channel, most notably the all-important dialogue, it’s vital that the centre speaker is a serious bit of kit, rather than the afterthought it occasionally appears to be in some packages.

Unusually, the centre speaker uses a pair of elongated reflex ports on the front, flanking the trio of drivers, whereas the Sonik 5 and Sonik 1 use the conventional circular variety on their rears.

The front-facing ports make the Cinema centre more comfortable right up against a wall, which is where it may well find itself. The rear-ported speakers, though, benefit from having just a little room to breathe – about 10cm from a wall in the case of the little Sonik 1, and around 40cm for the Sonik 5.

If they’re much closer, you may find that bass is a little exaggerated – a good AV amplifier will be able to compensate for this at least to a degree, but it’s best to get the placement as correct as possible.

Speaking of which, Dali recommends that the Sonik 5 are positioned facing directly forwards, rather than toed-in a little as is the norm for stereo speakers. We found this advice to be well worth following when testing them as a stereo pair in our hi-fi room, but in our AV room, where we tend to position front left and right speakers a little further apart, we find that a minor amount of toe-in provides an excellent stereo image with music without compromising the width and openness of the cinematic soundstage.

As well as having living room-friendly dimensions, the Sonik speakers have a very living room-friendly design, with straight edges and a smooth MDF finish.

Four colours are available – white, black ash, walnut and the natural oak of our review samples – with the wooden speakers having a clean front panel that complements the subtle grain of the rest of the cabinet. The slightly beige colour of the front panels of the speakers in our oak package won’t be to everyone’s taste, but in the right room the speakers will look lovely.

The one shame is that the E-9 F subwoofer is only available in black or white, so if you choose the walnut or oak finish for your speakers, you will have a subwoofer that doesn’t match. That won’t be an issue for those who plan to hide their sub out of sight, but a consideration for those who expect to position it on show.

Features

Every speaker in this package uses the same driver technology, which is a good starting point for achieving a cohesive surround sound presentation.

Each has a 29mm woven-fabric soft-dome tweeter, while the 13cm mid/bass drivers use a combination of paper pulp and wood fibre. The Sonik 5 floorstanders and Sonik Cinema centre each have two of these mid/bass drivers, while the smaller Sonik 1 make do with one.

Those mid/bass drivers also incorporate Dali’s patented Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) technology in the motor system, which the company says reduces distortion by combining very high magnetic conductivity with very low electrical conductivity.

Each speaker uses a two-way crossover, and sensitivity is relatively consistent across the range: 88dB/W/m for the Sonik 5, 86dB/W/m for the Sonik 1 and 89.5dB/W/m for the Sonik Cinema. All have a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, so the specifications suggest no obvious obstacles to partnering them with a suitable AV amplifier.

There’s just one pair of speaker terminals on each model, so bi-wiring isn’t an option.

The E-9 F subwoofer has a 23cm driver powered by a Class D amplifier rated at 170W RMS, with a quoted frequency range of 37-200Hz.

Sound

It’s hard to resist the draw of Sinners when testing a new piece of home cinema kit, but we skip past the usual genre-bending performance by Sammy and kick off with the intoxicatingly wild Rocky Road To Dublin section.

There’s excellent detail as Stack and Sammy drag another poor soul out of the club, while the first lines of Remmick’s song echo airily across the room, as if travelling over open fields. There’s no sense of individual speakers producing the sound; instead, the perfectly matched speakers place effects exactly where they should be.

Despite the lack of upfiring or ceiling speakers, the Sonik package manages to place effects such as rolling thunder high in the space, while sending sounds convincingly behind the listening position, too. Adding dedicated height speakers and additional rears for a full Dolby Atmos system would increase immersion further, but this cohesive, room-filling 5.1 package already delivers impressive scale.

That cohesion isn’t just spatial; it’s tonal, too. When the song kicks in fully, the subwoofer does a terrific job of integrating the thumping drums while giving them plenty of power and texture. Unsurprisingly, given the size of its driver, the E-9 F doesn’t produce the deepest bass, but it compensates with impressive rhythm and expression. It never sticks out in the way some larger, less sophisticated subwoofers can, either.

These qualities are further illustrated by our usual bass stress test: the opening of the second chapter of Blade Runner 2049, which can turn many a subwoofer into a sobbing, distorting mess. The E-9 F again doesn’t dig as deep as a larger sub might, but it produces more depth than you’d expect from its size, remaining composed while gamely delivering the rhythm within the dense low end.

The Sonik Cinema centre speaker is excellent, too. Like the other Sonik speakers, it combines dispersion and directness expertly, giving dialogue a lovely focus without drawing attention to the speaker itself. Dialogue is detailed, with the low-level dynamic subtlety needed to convey emotional inflection and the tonal expression to make each character’s voice sound clear and natural.

Subtle, refined and composed it might be, but the Dali Sonik package is also capable of thrilling dynamic shifts. The opening race in F1: The Movie is packed with bombastic moments, which the system reproduces with terrific authority while remaining composed throughout.

We already know the Sonik 5 floorstanders are excellent with music, and they prove it again when we switch from surround sound to lossless stereo.

Playing Feeling Like a Stranger by Midnight Faces, we’re struck by how the speakers combine spaciousness with stereo focus. The instrumentation has room to breathe, while the vocals remain clear and direct. The gentle sax is a delight, too, with a lovely balance of airiness and tangibility.

My Curse by Killswitch Engage demonstrates the speakers’ ability to marshal a bludgeoning metal composition without letting it become mushy or suppressing the soaring vocals. The Mother, from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s haunting score for The Road, meanwhile, is delivered with all the subtle detail of the analogue-style recording intact.

Verdict

The Dali Sonik 5 5.1 package is a superb all-rounder.

Regardless of the movie we’re watching or the track we’re listening to, it delivers a beautifully cohesive performance, combining smooth openness and detailed directness with impressive scale. Nothing sticks out, nothing feels out of place, and the system handles everything we throw at it with effortless composure.

Few speaker packages offer such a comprehensive blend of talents, and the fact that the Sonik 5 does so at this price only adds to the achievement.

At this level, it’s among the very best we’ve heard – and it gives packages in the class above a serious run for their money.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Design 5
• Compatibility 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Bowers & Wilkins 606 & 607 S3 speaker package

Also consider the KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 Speaker System

Read our Dali Oberon 5 5.1 Speaker Package review

Best surround sound systems: home cinema speakers and soundbars put to the test

That’s precisely what we have here. Having tested myriad budget sets as part of our Awards judging process, one model stands head and shoulders above its rivals: say hello to the TCL P8L.

Price

The 65-inch TCL P8L we’re testing launched with a price tag of £849, but it can now be bought for an even more attractive price of £749.

If you want to go a little smaller and/or cheaper, there’s a 55-inch P8L with a price tag of £649, and the range goes up to a whopping 98-inch model, although pricing for that one has not yet been revealed.

The P8L series is designed to offer a more budget-conscious alternative to LG's C-series, but the specs still look very attractive for the price, with Mini LED backlighting, Quantum Dot colours and 4K/144Hz gaming all on the menu.

If you’re wondering about US and Aussie pricing, there isn’t any, as the P8L isn’t available in either of those regions. We understand that the US QM6K model is at least very similar, but the potential for differences means this P8L review shouldn’t be considered as also applying to the QM6K.

Design

The TCL P8L is a pretty good-looking TV for its price. Plastic features heavily, of course, but it’s been largely successfully disguised to look like metal.

The thin bezel is black on three sides, with a slightly thicker silver lip at the bottom. There's a TCL logo at the centre of this bottom lip, and another badge that says ‘Premium QLED’ close to the top of the right edge. It looks rather like a cuff at the top of someone’s ear, and it really bothers some of our reviewers.

In the box are two silver feet that can be positioned either fairly close together, giving the TV a footprint that’s just 56cm wide, or further apart to make more room for a soundbar. The amount of clearance beneath the bottom of the screen is just 6.5cm, though, so do bear that in mind.

At its thickest point, the TV is a not inconsiderable 7cm, but this tapers at the edges in a fairly attractive way. This thickness serves a purpose, too, as in the centre of the rear of the TV is a large Onkyo-branded ‘Ultra Bass’ subwoofer that will hopefully give the TV’s audio some low-end heft.

Features

Also on the back of the P8L is a recess for the physical connections, which include four HDMI sockets, through two of which the TV can handle 4K/144Hz (and 4K/120Hz) gaming. VRR, ALLM and Dolby Vision gaming are all supported, too, even via the two 4K/60Hz ports.

Dolby Vision is of course supported for movies and TV shows, too, but so are HLG, HDR10 and HDR10+, which means the P8L scores a clean sheet of high dynamic range format support – something that no TV from Samsung, Sony or LG offers, regardless of price.

As is the norm for TCL TVs, the P8L runs the Google TV smart platform, which brings with it a huge app selection. TCL has also gone out of its way to support all four of the UK’s terrestrial catch-up apps.

In fact, of the 32 apps we check every TV for, just four are absent from the P8L: the Amazon Luna and Xbox cloud gaming apps, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Not only is everything else on board, but every app that should support 4K, HDR and/or Dolby Atmos does so.

In terms of core panel tech, the P8L is of course an LCD set, but it features Quantum Dot colours and a Mini LED backlight with, according to our count, 72 independent dimming zones.

The P8L also boasts one of TCL’s HVA panels, which launched last year and have quickly garnered a reputation for providing better viewing angles and less blooming than typical VA panels. TCL says that this is backed up by a ‘Bionic Lighting Algorithm’ that is designed to optimise details of light and dark scenes.

‘Transient Response’, meanwhile, is designed to reduce ghosting caused by backlight lag, and there are, as is the norm in 2026, umpteen AI picture processing features on board, though we elect to avoid these in favour of a more authentic picture that’s truer to creative intent.

It’s worth noting that the P8L’s panel features quite a reflective glossy coating that can prove a little troublesome in very brightly lit rooms. Of course, that also means it doesn’t have the raised black issue that is common with TVs with matte coatings.

For sound, TCL has teamed up with Onkyo, which has produced a 2.1-channel system comprising the aforementioned rear-mounted, 15W subwoofer, and two 10W speakers built into the TV's underside. Dolby Atmos is supported via this speaker system and the HDMI eARC port.

Picture quality

At the P8L’s level, we still see lots of TVs with no local dimming, and yet more with very poor local dimming. The TCL’s Mini LED backlight, though, is a breath of fresh air.

While blooming around bright objects on black or very dark backgrounds (studio logos at the start of movies, for example, and the spotlights during the bomb test scene of Oppenheimer) certainly isn’t non-existent, it’s subtle and diffuse enough not to distract, and while blacks certainly aren’t OLED-deep, the P8L skillfully avoids producing the flat, grey image that’s typical of similarly priced rivals.

In fact, this is a pleasantly dynamic performer that delivers punchy highlights and impressive depth for the money. It skilfully balances the requirements for sparkling stars and deep, dark space in the opening of Alien: Romulus, for example.

This knack for balance is evident in the way the P8L handles colours, too. The reds and oranges of the recovery ship’s cockpit lights are punchy and vibrant against their dim, metallic housings, but character skin tones are rendered in natural hues and shades.

This balance is achievable with very little user input required, too: the Filmmaker Mode has been really well tuned to deliver impressive cinematic authenticity without the lifelessness that can afflict this same preset on other budget-oriented TVs.

That said, if you prefer a bit more pop, the Standard preset provides a crisper, cooler, brighter picture that’s still surprisingly nicely judged – just remember to reduce the Motion Clarity setting to Low or Off if you choose this preset, as the default Medium setting over-smooths motion in that soap opera fashion we all know and loathe.

On the subject of settings to watch out for, be sure to delve into the TV’s Energy Dashboard to switch off Dynamic Brightness, as this can artificially dim the picture.

Even when uninhibited, the P8L isn’t the brightest TV. It’s bright enough to deliver the benefits of HDR, but in a very bright room, it can struggle somewhat to punch through, even in its brighter presets.

And while we’re talking flaws, while the P8L’s black levels are satisfyingly deep considering the price of the TV, there’s also a little black crush, with some fine details lost to dark shadows. Raising the Black Level setting just a touch can resurface this lost detail at the expense of some depth, but it’s tricky to find the perfect balance. We find 53 to be the sweetest spot, but it still doesn’t quite provide the perfect blend of depth and shadow detail.

These really are minor niggles considering the price of the TV and the overall picture quality it provides at that price, and that remains true when we drop from the 4K HDR movies used so far to an HD SDR stream of The Turkish Detective from BBC iPlayer, which once again demonstrates the TV’s considered approach to colours and contrast while also proving it to be capable of clean, detailed upscaling.

The P8L is a strong option for gamers, too, with those impressive specs being backed up by a punchy, responsive performance. Gamers looking for a big, budget TV to accompany their PS5 or Xbox Series X should put this TCL to the top of their lists.

Sound quality

Considering the down-firing nature of the drivers, the sound they produce is impressively well anchored to the screen, with the dialogue of The Turkish Detective appearing to come directly from the characters. And while voices aren’t projected particularly far out into the room, they’re still clear, relatively detailed and reasonably emotive by the standards of affordable TVs.

That said, there’s a bit of a lack of lower midrange that can make deeper voices sound a little more lightweight than they should.

Switch to a Dolby Atmos movie, and the P8L has a surprisingly successful stab at supplying cinematic width and height, with effects stretching reasonably far to the left and right, and even a little way above the TV. And while the lower-midrange might be a little lacking, the subwoofer provides a useful bit of upper-bass that gives the presentation some additional solidity.

Of course, while the P8L sounds pretty good for a TV in its price range and will do the job with everyday content, you really need to budget for a dedicated audio system if at all possible. One of the best budget soundbars will boost your overall movie enjoyment substantially.

Verdict

The TCL P8L is a rare find. It’s not the cheapest TV, but it punches well above its weight in terms of picture quality and specs, and it sounds good by general TV standards, too.

Those with super-bright rooms might find its unspectacular brightness and reflective coating a slight issue, but for everyone else, this is the new benchmark for large, sub-£1000 TVs.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Amazon QL65F602U

Also consider the TCL C8L

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

Our excitement has been heightened here by the fact we rate the step-down model from Arcam’s Radia range of separates, the CD5, extremely highly. It’s a five-star machine and a current What Hi-Fi? Award winner.

If Arcam can take the performance of that CD player and elevate it to a new level, we could be looking at something quite special, not to mention a great excuse to pause our music streaming subscription.

Price

At £1499 / $1800 / AU$3295, the CD25 is more than double the price of the entry-level model CD5 (£699 / $699 / AU$1495). It sits somewhere between that model and firm five-star favourite of ours in this mid-tier arena, the TEAC VRDS-701 £2499 / $3799.

Its closest natural rival is the multi-Award-winning Cyrus CDi – we tested it at £975 back in 2014, but this is a model that, after an extremely long innings, is now discontinued and extremely difficult to track down new.

Design & build

In the flesh, the CD25 is quite an impressive specimen.

It’s styled to match Arcam’s other Radia components, so you're getting a large full-width chassis with a moody black finish and yellow accents, including stripes on the left and right side panels, a small yellow ring around the power button, and rings around the base of each foot. Think bumblebee-chic.

Its stance appears a bit more imposing thanks to a cowl, which stretches over the back of the unit to protect the player’s sockets from attracting dust. It adds a little extra depth to the unit, which, in case you were wondering, measures 32.9cm.

The glossy, glass OLED display is a classy touch and gives it a sharper, crisper appearance than the display on its CD5 sibling – the CD25 both looks and feels like a proper step up.

It’s relatively basic in terms of the information it displays – there’s no CD text, for example – but it’s nice and clear, and easy to read.

The CD25 feels solid and sturdy. The loading drawer slides out confidently and quickly, and we’re surprised just how quiet the mechanism is once it’s been fed a disc and starts to tee it up.

Some machines (including the Cyrus CDi) can be a cacophony of clicks and whirs, whereas the Arcam goes about its business calmly and quietly. It’s a very smooth operator.

Our only minor gripe is that there is a slight delay between you pushing the eject button, either on the fascia or remote, and the player actually doing your bidding. We wouldn’t say it’s sluggish, just that some players are a bit quicker.

Features

You won’t find too many surprises on the feature front. There are both analogue and balanced outputs for connecting to an integrated amplifier, or you have the option of either an optical digital or coaxial digital output should you want the player to feed an external DAC.

Through the remote control, you can dim the player’s display and change its playback mode between normal, shuffle, repeat one and repeat all.

You can also switch between the player’s analogue and digital outputs depending on how you want to use it and turn autoplay on or off. Regarding autoplay, we found it mildly distracting for the CD to immediately start spinning every time we closed the drawer, so we disabled it during testing.

Those who like to tinker with their sound have a choice of DAC filters. The options are: Min Slow, Min Fast, Apodizing, Linear Slow and Linear Fast.

We switch between them during testing, and can report that the differences are small and very subtle. However, we settle on Min Slow, which just seems to be the most sonically neutral and balanced.

Unlike on the Arcam CD5, there’s no USB playback – the port on the rear of the CD25 is for servicing only.

As with Arcam’s other electronics from its Radia range, you get a small remote control with complementary black and yellow styling to match.

It performs all the basic functions without issue, although we do miss the time when remotes had a full complement of numbers so you could choose a specific track, instead of having to hammer the skip button repeatedly. Ah, those were the days.

Sound

We plug the Arcam into our main reference system first, which consists of a Burmester 088/911 Mk III pre/power amplifier combination and ATC SCM50 speakers, and the biggest compliment we can give the CD25 is that it doesn’t sound out of place.

We also plug it into a more price-comparable set-up which includes the fantastic Naim Nait XS 3 amplifier and PMC Prodigy 5 floorstanders, and once again we are extremely pleased with the results.

We start with Mountains from the Interstellar OST, and there's an immediate quietness that descends over the track before the wooden clicking kick-starts the song’s tempo.

As the track progresses, it becomes beautifully layered with percussion and strings weaving their way through the background. The clicking is integral to the track’s sense of timing and rhythm, and the Arcam ensures that all the other elements surround the leader, following it with precision and accuracy.

All that space around the track’s individual strands helps deliver a real rush of adrenaline as the strings rise and soar while the track delivers its payload. Each dynamic jump is communicated clearly and accurately – the sense of scale that the Arcam delivers is hugely impressive.

The intensity of the percussion ramps up, as does the feeling of solidity and weight behind the piano and organ play. It’s a confident, assured and wonderfully engaging and believable performance that oozes with detail.

The Arcam manages to capture and convey the drama of the track superbly, and even without watching the movie, you can sense just how big the accompanying scene is.

Our long-term favourite, the Cyrus CDi, is good, but it can’t match the extra gears the Arcam can show, the extra detail it can uncover and that wonderfully clear, quiet backdrop.

We drag ourselves away from Interstellar just long enough to spin White America by Eminem and the CD25 delivers a powerful performance, full of energy and vigour.

The plane screaming across the soundstage in the opening seconds is delivered with power and precision, but it doesn’t sound harsh or edgy.

That quiet background comes to the fore once again, allowing bass notes to hit with authority and conviction. There’s real weight and momentum behind each one.

Eminem’s delivery really stands out too. The Arcam’s excellent insight and attention to detail allow it to communicate the intent and intensity of his delivery. His vocal flow comes through loud and clear, with texture and feeling.

The Arcam CD25 delivers a very grown-up sound, but it’s still an enjoyable listen. It’s detailed but doesn’t overanalyse and is more than happy to just go with the natural flow.

Verdict

If you were considering dumping your CDs in favour of a streaming subscription, it’s machines like the Arcam CD25 that will make you change your mind.

It’s a clear step above any entry-level player on the market and brings a level of sophistication, musicality and clarity that will have you shopping for new additions to your CD collection. A very talented performer that we’d seriously recommend taking for a spin.

Review published: 12th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Cyrus CDi

Also consider the TEAC VRDS-701

Best CD players: budget to premium options tested by expert reviewers

Of course, the iPad Pro boasts an OLED screen these days, whereas the Air has an LCD panel, but thanks to Apple’s still-under-appreciated attention to cinematic tuning, the two previous generations of the Air have proven to be something of a sweet spot in the iPad range.

This new model should prove to be more of the same, because it is, well, more of the same, with identical screen and speaker specs as its predecessors.

The changes are, as the name suggests, to the hardware powering the device, with Apple's M4 chip and 12GB of RAM giving the new iPad plenty of power for demanding productivity and AI tasks, including Apple's new Siri AI.

Those things have very little bearing on movie and music performance, of course, but that’s okay, because this remains an excellent tablet in both regards.

Price

There’s some bad news to get out of the way first. While the 13-inch iPad Air (M4) launched for £799 / $799 / AU$1349, the price has since been raised to £949 / $949 / AU$1599. Predictably, the global RAM shortage is apparently to blame.

That price gets you the entry-level wi-fi version with 128GB of storage. There are also 256GB, 512GB and 1TB versions available, should you need more storage and be willing to pay for it, and adding cellular support will incur a premium of £150 / $150 / AU$250 on whichever capacity model you choose.

If that sounds like a lot of money for a tablet, that’s because it is, but bear in mind that the 13-inch iPad Pro currently starts at £1499 / $1499 / AU$2599, and the 13-inch Air starts to look almost like good value.

Regardless, unless you’re happy to go second-hand (which is a very viable option), this is, as we said, the cheapest way to get your hands on a 13-inch Apple tablet.

Design

While design stagnation is never really something to celebrate, particularly over three product generations (could we not even have new colours, Apple?), there’s no denying that the 13-inch iPad Air remains a gorgeous bit of kit.

At 6.1mm thick and weighing 616g for the wi-fi model, it’s impressively slim and light for a tablet with such a generous screen. The aluminium chassis feels reassuringly solid, while the flat edges, rounded corners and slim bezels give it a clean, understated look. It’s a design that feels premium without being flashy, and the large display makes it a particularly appealing device for watching films and TV on the move.

The familiar Touch ID button sits on the top edge, while the USB-C port handles charging and data transfer. There’s also support for the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard, should you want to turn the Air into something more laptop-like. As before, though, those accessories come at an additional cost.

Of course, one benefit of the repeated design is that anyone upgrading from either of the last two generations will find that their existing Magic Keyboard remains compatible, so there’s no need to splash out on a new one.

Interestingly, the "Air" monniker that was once reserved for Apple's thinnest and lightest devices is here attached to an iPad that is thicker and heavier than the iPad Pro. That razor-thin OLED-equipped Pro weighs in at just 579g; is it time for Apple to rename the Air?

Nevertheless, there’s little to criticise about the Air’s design, but equally little here that’s new. If you liked the previous model, you’ll like this one just as much; if you were hoping for a fresh look to accompany the M4 chip, you’ll have to wait a little longer.

Features

The big change this time – and the very reason for this new iPad’s existence – is the M4 chip, which is backed by 12GB of memory rather than the 8GB found in the M3 model. It's a substantial amount of power for a tablet, and it’s primarily aimed at people who use their iPad for demanding creative tasks, graphically intensive games and Apple's expanding suite of AI features.

For those with more of a content-consumption persuasion, though, the biggest benefit is likely to be longevity. The M4 gives the Air plenty of performance in reserve, which should help it remain snappy and responsive for years to come, even as Apple adds more demanding features with future versions of iPadOS. It's not a particularly compelling reason for existing 13-inch iPad Air owners to upgrade, but it does make the M4 a reassuring purchase for anyone buying a new tablet now.

Our delay in getting to the M4 iPad Air means our sample is running iPadOS 27, rather than the iPadOS 26 that was pre-installed at launch.

The big news with this is the introduction of Siri AI, Apple's more conversational assistant with personal-context understanding and awareness of what's on screen. It can help find information across your apps, answer questions and assist with writing, and it is genuinely useful, even though it’s currently officially in beta form.

Of course, you don’t need to buy the new version of the iPad Air to get access to Siri AI – it’s compatible with models as far back as 2022’s iPad Air (5th generation).

For watching films, though, nothing has changed on paper. The 13-inch Air uses Apple's Liquid Retina LCD panel, with a 2732 x 2048 resolution, 264ppi pixel density, and a quoted peak brightness of 600 nits. It also has a fully laminated screen and an anti-reflective coating.

What it doesn't have is the OLED technology, higher peak brightness or 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate found on the more expensive iPad Pro. The Air's screen remains a strong proposition for watching video, but those looking for the very best picture quality Apple offers will need to stump up the considerable extra money for a Pro model.

Battery life of the 13-inch iPad Air is unchanged, with Apple quoting up to 10 hours of video playback on a single charge – a number that holds up during testing. That's enough for most flights and train journeys, and means you can comfortably get through a good chunk of a long trip without hunting for a power socket.

Audio is similarly straightforward. The tablet has the same landscape stereo speakers arrangement as the two previous generations. As we'll discuss in the Sound section, that doesn't prevent the Air from being an enjoyable device for watching films and TV, even if headphones remain the better choice for serious listening.

In short, the M4 brings welcome performance and longevity, while iPadOS 27 adds new software capabilities. But for AV enthusiasts, the core proposition remains much the same: a large, capable tablet with a beautiful, big LCD screen and capable built-in speakers, rather than a radical change in how the Air looks or sounds

Picture quality

There’s something incredibly enjoyable about having a 13-inch Apple screen that you can take almost anywhere. Whether you’re watching a film on a flight, catching up with a series on a train or settling down to watch something in bed, the big iPad Air gives you a properly generous canvas without requiring you to pay iPad Pro money.

The picture quality remains a real strength. Firing up F1: The Movie, the Air delivers the kind of sharp, natural and balanced image that captures all of the intended crispness of the super-high-budget production. Colours are rich and engaging without becoming overblown, while the presentation has the subtlety to keep skin tones and more restrained shades looking convincing.

The 13-inch display also makes a real difference to the viewing experience. Watching Detective Hole on Netflix, the extra screen real estate makes it easy to settle into the action, while the Air's refined presentation ensures that all of the gritty details remain clear. It’s an easy screen to watch for extended periods, too, with a natural-looking picture that doesn't feel as though it's trying too hard to impress.

That measured approach is also evident with high-definition material. Contact, purchased through the Apple TV app, is a useful reminder that there's plenty of life left in older films. The Air upscales the HD picture cleanly, keeping the image looking sharp and clean without making it appear artificially enhanced. The tablet’s handling of SDR also ensures that the presentation remains balanced rather than inauthentically punchy.

Back to 4K Dolby Vision, there's enough detail and colour depth to make The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey an engaging watch, too. The Air's picture is punchy but composed, with a blend of vibrancy and naturalness that suits the film's mix of landscapes, character close-ups and darker scenes.

Of course, this isn't the best screen Apple makes. The OLED-equipped iPad Pro delivers superior contrast, with deeper blacks and greater impact, making it the better choice if picture quality is your overriding priority. An OLED iPhone 17 or iPhone 18 Pro can also produce a more impressive image in certain respects, too, but the much smaller screen makes for a very different viewing experience.

And therein lies the trade-off: the Air's LCD can't deliver the same contrast or HDR punch as the Pro, but the Pro costs vastly more, while an iPhone simply can't offer the same cinematic scale.

For watching films, the 13-inch iPad Air remains an extremely appealing compromise: a large, sharp and natural-looking picture in a device that will still fit in a modestly proportioned backpack.

Sound quality

As with the picture, the iPad Air's sound performance remains a strong part of its appeal. The stereo speakers and Spatial Audio processing are capable of making watching films and TV shows enjoyable without headphones, while connecting a decent pair of cans opens up a much more involving listening experience.

For music, we use Spotify Lossless with a pair of AirPods Max 2 connected to the iPad via USB-C for the best quality. Rosalía's Divinize is a good test of the Air's ability to deliver a full-bodied, rhythmically assured sound, while Dark Heaven by President demonstrates weight and impact without losing the definition of its more intricate elements.

The Air gives Feel Around You by Le Youth room to breathe, with its layered electronic production benefiting from the clear, well-organised delivery. A Perfect Circle's To Whom It May Concern, meanwhile, demonstrates impressive separation of instruments and the ability to maintain control when the arrangement becomes more dense.

For movies, we unplug the headphones. F1: The Movie is an excellent test of the iPad's Spatial Audio capabilities. The opening race sequence demands a convincing sense of space, with engines, trackside noise and the wider atmosphere of the event combining to create a surprisingly expansive soundstage.

Dialogue clarity is strong, too, and The Traitors on BBC iPlayer provides a useful test. Hushed conversations remain intelligible amid the programme's music and dramatic sound effects, and the Air's built-in speakers make it perfectly viable to watch an episode without reaching for headphones.

Ultimately, the Air remains a versatile audio companion. Its speakers are good enough for casual viewing, while a quality pair of headphones makes it a much more serious proposition for music and movies.

There are limits to what you can expect from such a slim device, of course, but the overall sound performance remains entirely in keeping with the Air's strengths as a portable entertainment machine.

Verdict

This iPad Air upgrade isn’t really aimed at us. The new chip brings welcome power, but has no real bearing on AV performance.

That’s no great disappointment, though, because the Air remains an excellent portable entertainment device, with a sharp, natural-looking picture, surprisingly expansive sound and battery life that’s ideal for travel.

The OLED iPad Pro offers even better picture quality, but it costs vastly more, while an iPhone can’t match the Air’s cinematic screen size.

If you want a big-screen iPad for films and TV, this remains a highly appealing option. The M4 doesn’t transform it, but there was little that needed fixing.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Apple iPad Air 13-inch (M3)

Also consider the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review

These are the best tablets for movies and music

While there haven’t been huge performance leaps between generations, we have found subtle improvements occur each year, and we expect to see a similar affair with the 42-inch C6 that we have before us today.

This compact OLED aims to deliver a large-scale cinematic experience that suits smaller rooms, which is a mission we’re more than familiar with after reviewing every generation of this TV since 2022’s C2; the first 42-inch OLED to hit the market.

The real question is, does it continue the legacy of the acclaimed series that’s been championed by cinephiles and gamers alike? We certainly think so…

Price

Originally launching at £1300 / $1399 / AU$1999, the OLED42C6 can now be found for around £999 / $1000 / AU$1695 thanks to months of discounts. Going back to that launch price, LG actually undercut the outgoing 42-inch C5, which launched at £1400 / $1399 / AU$2199, making it cheaper in the UK and Australia.

Speaking of which, there are still some C5 stragglers to be found for around £849 here in the UK. That’s a decent discount, but we could certainly make a case for spending the additional £150 to score the latest and greatest C-series TV.

Looking at the competition, LG’s main rival is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Samsung. The Samsung S90H is available in all the same sizes as the LG C6, with the equivalent 42-inch model currently available for £999 / $1000 / AU$1466.

Panasonic also offers last year’s Z90B, which we awarded five stars at 48 inches, in a 42-inch option. It costs slightly more than the C6 at £1099, but the Z90B’s front-firing speaker bar may appeal more to audiophiles.

Design

Place the 42-inch C6 next to the C5, C4, C3 and C2 from the previous five years, and you’d have a nearly impossible game of Where’s Wally on your hands. The C6 looks identical to its predecessors, although that’s no great shame as LG is sticking with a well-built and smart-looking formula.

The compact set rests upon two blade-style feet at each end; usually we prefer a central stand (as found on the C6 from 48 inches upwards) for maximum furniture compatibility, but the small footprint of this TV means that it’s not too wide and should fit on a majority of media units with ease.

And with 72cm between these feet, there is enough room to squeeze a soundbar between them; the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), for example, measures in at 65cm, meaning it should easily fit.

However, we should note that the feet can only be attached at one height, that being 3.7cm. That’s not loads of clearance; going back to the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), that soundbar stands at 6.8cm tall, so there is a chance that your soundbar may encroach on the C6’s bezel.

Assembly is simple thanks to the feet attaching with just two screws each, and the “small” screen size is easy for a single person to get into position provided they possess the appropriate wingspan.

Rounding things out with the remote, LG continues to offer just one button-heavy handset in the box. Its Magic Remote has some nifty features, such as a scroll wheel and Nintendo Wii-style motion pointer, but we’d still like to see a backlight and the return of a dedicated source select button, which has unfortunately been sacrificed for a general smart home-focused connected devices button.

Features

The 42-inch C6, much like the 48- and 65-inch versions, is a feature-packed OLED TV that’s equipped for cinephiles and gamers alike.

This TV sports a 4K WOLED panel, as has been the case with all previous iterations of LG’s 42-inch C-series TVs. While that may seem somewhat obvious given LG’s track record, it is worth highlighting this year, as LG seems to be mixing in Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel technology depending on the screen size.

Officially speaking, the 77- and 83-inch options tout LG’s Brightness Booster Max feature and Hyper Radiant Colour system, which require the Tandem OLED technology to work. On a more speculative note, we recently reviewed the 48-inch version of this TV, and its unexpectedly high brightness led us to believe that it too is using the more advanced panel technology, although LG will neither confirm nor deny whether that is the case.

Regardless, our main concern is how this TV performs, as panel technology and on-paper specifications are not always indicative of picture performance.

Moving on to the processor, the OLED42C6 sports the same Alpha 11 AI Processor 4K Gen3 as its larger siblings, which handles picture processing and runs the webOS smart platform. New for this year is a 12-bit processing pipeline, which reportedly enhances brightness and colour.

There are also countless AI picture and sound features, which are handled by this processor. Dual AI Super Resolution, for example, is a two-layer upscaling system (one for sharpening edges, the other to refine textures and details), which enhances lower-resolution content as well as 4K content.

AI HDR Remaster, another AI-backed persistent picture feature, enhances contrast, sharpness and colour using a frame-by-frame process. SDR content takes on a more HDR-like appearance, and HDR content should look “more vibrant and realistic”, according to LG.

AI Picture Pro serves as a hub for many of these picture features, and it also uses content recognition algorithms to tweak the C6’s settings depending on the content you’re watching. Alongside this is AI Sound Pro, which works in a very similar way, albeit for the audio settings instead.

For those hoping to add a more personalised touch to their AI experience, Personalised Picture Wizard and Personalised Sound Wizard allow you to choose from a range of preset image and sound samples to adapt the settings to best suit your taste without having to dig into the system settings menu.

That said, we find that LG’s AI settings can be a bit heavy-handed and usually don’t preserve picture and sound authenticity. Switching to Filmmaker Mode in the picture settings is a much more effective and equally easy way to dial this TV’s picture in.

Stepping away from AI and back to the realm of AV, the 42-inch C6 supports HDR in the HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision HDR formats. HDR10+ isn’t supported, which isn’t a surprise considering the format was created by Samsung.

Dolby Atmos immersive audio is also supported via the 2.0 channel sound system and through connected HDMI eARC audio devices.

Speaking of HDMIs, LG’s established formula for winning over gamers remains, as the OLED42C6 sports four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets capable of handling signals up to 4K/165Hz with VRR and ALLM. For those without a console, the C6 also supports a wide range of cloud gaming apps, including Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now and Amazon Luna. LG claims that the C6 is also the first TV capable of 4K/120Hz game streaming via Nvidia GeForce Now.

webOS 26 is also home to plenty of non-gaming-related streaming apps too, including a strong array of regional and global offerings, from BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 to Disney+ and Apple TV. Our biggest criticism is how advertisement-heavy the operating system is, but sponsored content can be switched off in the settings menu.

Picture quality

While the 48-inch C6 surprised us with its bright, rich and punchy performance, the 42-inch C6 follows in the footsteps of its 65-inch sibling by acting as a subtle but appreciated improvement over its predecessor. That’s to say it's a refinement on a five-star formula in the picture department, which is fine.

As has been the case with several previous C-series OLEDs, we gravitate towards Filmmaker Mode as our preferred picture setting, although we do switch to Cinematic Movement in the TruMotion settings as we feel this irons out judder effectively without introducing the soap opera effect.

LG’s Cinema Home setting – which is essentially its version of the “movie” preset found on other TVs – is also a setting that’s worth exploring for those who crave a touch more punch, or who are viewing the C6 in environments with abundant ambient light.

With these settings dialled in, the 42-inch C6 serves up a superb cinematic image that never reminds us that we’re watching a “small” TV.

Much like the 65- and 48-inch versions of the C6, the 42-inch excels when it comes to contrast. The opening of F1: The Movie features impressively punchy highlights, including stadium lighting and fireworks, which juxtapose the inky-black night sky effectively.

There is an impressive sense of depth, solidity and richness to the picture as Sonny Hayes waltzes towards the garage and pit lane during the opening of the film, which, when paired with the sharp outlines of subjects and strong detail levels, develops an excellent sense of immersion.

Switching to Civil War, the C6 proves it can deliver a balanced, natural image during the military base sequence. Foliage looks crisp and verdant without straying into over-vibrant shades of green, and there is a real sense of three-dimensionality to the picture too.

As fighter jets soar over the camp, we find that the 42OLEDC6 takes fast-moving objects in its stride, with no apparent judder. Switching to Blade Runner 2049 affirms this, as a sequence in which Officer K’s flying Peugeot hurtles towards the LAPD and passes behind a handful of buildings in the foreground reveals no artefacts or flickering motion.

Simply put, the 42-inch C6 ticks every box in our picture testing process, and its large-scale cinematic picture isn’t held back by its modest display size.

Sound quality

LG’s small OLED TVs have never blown our socks off when it comes to sound performance, and the C6 isn’t really an exception. That said, it’s not a total disaster either; it’s more of a mixed bag, if anything.

We do like that the sound presets are pleasingly simple, and things become even easier with our guidance: skip the AI-labelled sound modes and stick with standard. While they aren’t without use (the dialogue setting will certainly be handy for those who struggle to hear voices, for example), they do compromise the overall mix and apply a synthetic finish to the sound. Our advice is to stick with “standard”.

With that in mind, we use the opening sequence of F1: The Movie to assess the C6’s performance. Overall, there are a few strengths to note here; the C6 produces quite a clear and detailed sound, which especially extends to voices. While they don’t project all that well, there is certainly definition and a touch of tonal variation, which is appreciated given dialogue really is the most important factor.

Furthermore, the sound of race cars soaring around the track (and, from our perspective, across the screen) flows nicely from right to left, and there is a sense of spaciousness and openness that is quite impressive given the size of the set. The sound doesn’t fill our testing room, but we have to commend the sense of space it is able to muster given its speaker configuration.

While there isn’t a huge amount of height to the fireworks that burst over the race track and shower sparks onto the cars below, the C6 presents them with satisfying snaps, crackles and pops; although, much like Rice Krispies, there isn’t much weight behind them.

And that brings us onto the overarching issue with the 42 C6’s sound: there just isn’t much oomph. Given that this is a 2.0 channel, subwoofer-less system in a relatively small chassis, that’s to be expected, but it isn’t helped by the shortfall of absolute volume. When cranked to 100 per cent, it remains easy to talk over the C6 without having to raise your voice, and there is a dip in the midrange that leaves the sound (especially voices) feeling a bit hollow and lightweight.

Paired with a somewhat drab approach to dynamic expression, which leaves Led Zepplin’s Whole Lotta Love sounding flat, the C6 is best accompanied by a compact Dolby Atmos soundbar for serious movie watching sessions.

Verdict

The 42-inch LG C6 once again proves that you don’t need a huge TV to score genuine cinematic impact.

Middling sound aside, the C6 delivers a seriously impressive experience, underpinned by a composed approach to contrast and sharpness, resulting in oodles of cinematic depth.

While we’re used to sets 55 inches and above, we’d happily spend hours watching movies on this compact OLED.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 3
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the LG C6 48-inch

Also consider the LG C5 42-inch

Read our Panasonic Z90B 48-inch review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and teste

We found the system to be excellent in both guises, but we theorised that an upgrade from the Sub 8 to the Sub 9 might solve the one remaining niggle (very occasional buzzing from the subwoofer) and elevate the system from excellent to truly exemplary.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been testing that theory, and at the risk of tooting our own horn in an undignified fashion, we were absolutely right. Although we think there’s a way it could be made better still…

Price

The Bravia Theatre Trio alone is a premium product with a £1999 / $2000 / AU$2999 price tag, and the Rear 9 speakers and Sub 9 will set you back £699 / $750 / AU$1299 and £899 / $900 / AU$1299 respectively when bought separately.

However, in the UK, you can get the extra components for half price when they’re bought with the core system, taking the total price to £2798. In the US, meanwhile, we’ve found everything bundled together for a not-quite-as-discounted price of $3250.

No such discounting currently exists in Australia, so Aussies will currently have to pay AU$5597 to put this complete system together.

Alternatives at this level aren’t terribly common, but the Sonos Ultimate Immersive Set with Arc Ultra (£2516 / $2446 / AU$4366) is a strong option, while the LG Sound Suite Immersive Suite 7 Pro (£2300 / $2150 / AU$3996) is a much less appealing one.

Another alternative, particularly for those who don’t want the soundbar component, regardless of how compact it is, is Sony’s own Bravia Theatre Quad, which is also compatible with the new Sub 9. That pairing will set you back £2949 / $2496 / AU$4998.

Design

As we said in our original review, the Bravia Theatre Trio is an unusual proposition from a design perspective, replacing the traditional soundbar with three separate speakers.

The centre speaker is essentially a very narrow soundbar, while the left and right speakers are substantially larger cylindrical units with fabric coverings, metallic top rings and up-firing drivers. They're attractive and reassuringly solid, if a little imposing.

The centre speaker's low-profile design means it’s unlikely to obstruct your screen, and Sony supplies spacer feet if you need it to straddle your TV's pedestal stand. The left and right speakers have flat backs and can be wall-mounted using suitably positioned screws.

The two Rear 9s have a strong resemblance to the Trio's front left and right speakers, but they're a little shorter and lack the extended, flat back.

They can still be wall-mounted directly using a suitable screw, though, or attached to the supplied brackets if you want to angle them towards the listening position, which, thanks to Sony's calibration system (which we'll get to shortly), isn't really necessary unless your placement is particularly unusual.

Then there's arguably this system's centrepiece, the Sub 9, which is quite a different proposition. This is a huge, almost cube-shaped subwoofer that looks rather like two Sub 8s that have been fused together.

At 23.3kg, it's also almost twice the weight of a Sub 8, so you'll want plenty of space for it and a bit of muscle to get it into position. Measuring 39 x 40 x 35cm, it's not something you can casually tuck behind a sofa, either.

All five speakers are wireless, of course, so there are no cables to run between them, but each obviously needs a mains connection.

One omission is the lack of a display. The Trio relies on status lights and the Bravia Connect app to tell you what it's doing, which is fine for changing volume but less convenient if you simply want to check that you're correctly receiving, say, Dolby Atmos.

If you don't have a recent Sony TV that can display this information for you, you'll need to pick up your phone, unlock it and open the app to find out. That's more faff than there really should be for such a simple task.

Features

The Bravia Theatre Trio is a 3.0.2-channel system on its own, with a claimed 405W of amplification.

Add the two Rear 9 speakers and Sub 9, as we have here, and it becomes a full 5.1.4-channel system, with a further 180W claimed for the rear speakers and a substantial 600W claimed for the Sub 9. That’s a hefty 1185W of claimed total system power.

The system supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and the addition of the rear speakers and subwoofer means it’s also fully IMAX Enhanced certified.

Sony's 360 Spatial Sound Mapping technology remains at the heart of the system, using the physical speakers as the foundations for up to 24 phantom speakers around the room. With the Rear 9s adding physical speakers behind the listening position, the surround field should be considerably more convincing, with Sony's processing continuing to fill in any remaining gaps.

The Rear 9s also broadly mirror the driver arrangement of the Trio's front left and right speakers, with a woofer, tweeter and up-firing driver, and while the rears use slightly smaller woofers and tweeters to the front speakers, the up-firing drivers are the same, potentially boosting consistency and cohesion, particularly of height effects.

Set-up is handled through the Bravia Connect app, which walks you through the process and asks for the positions and heights of the individual speakers. You can use approximate, relative positioning to get through the process quickly, and this produces excellent results in typical layouts, but it’s also possible to add specific distances, which results in even greater cohesion and accuracy of effect placement, particularly in unusually shaped rooms and/or when the speakers are positioned asymmetrically.

The calibration system is particularly neat. The speakers have their own microphones, but Sony also supplies a dedicated USB-C calibration microphone that plugs into your phone. You then hold the phone in the listening position and let the system measure the room.

It's a much more reassuring solution than relying on the microphone built into whatever phone happens to be running the app, and it makes the calibration process both consistent and thorough.

The system then adjusts itself to account for the room and the actual positions of the speakers, including compensating for speakers that aren't perfectly positioned. The whole process is surprisingly quick, too.

There's plenty of scope for tweaking afterwards, including bass level, voice enhancement and different sound modes, but the default settings are accurate and sensible enough that most people will never need to venture into the advanced settings.

In terms of physical connections, there’s an HDMI eARC port for connection to your TV, plus a dedicated HDMI input that supports 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. There's also Bluetooth, wi-fi, Apple AirPlay and Spotify Connect on the wireless side.

If the TV to which the Trio is connected is a recent Sony model, various controls and settings are integrated into the on-screen menus, which is genuinely handy, but the dinky bundled remote is fine as an alternative, and the aforementioned Bravia Connect app is excellent if you can be bothered to pick up and wake up your phone.

Sound quality

The Bravia Theatre Trio was already an impressive performer on its own, but adding the Rear 9s and Sub 9 transforms what is already a big, cohesive presentation into a genuinely immersive home cinema system.

Arrival in Dolby Atmos is an excellent demonstration of what the complete system can do. Dialogue is clean and precisely anchored to the screen, while the more subtle elements of the soundtrack are reproduced with impressive delicacy and insight.

When the soundtrack suddenly opens up, such as when a squadron of jets buzzes Louise's school or the transport chopper lands on her lawn, the system fills the room with sound.

The cohesion and precision are deeply impressive. You don't hear the speakers, you hear the sound they make. The jets fill the ceiling and streak from one side of the room to the other in a completely natural fashion, with no obvious gaps as they move around the soundstage. There's enormous scale here, but also excellent tonal consistency and enough refinement to prevent the presentation becoming hard or harsh.

The Rear 9s add considerably more than simply sound from behind you. Effects move seamlessly from front to rear, while the system maintains the same sense of cohesion that impressed us with the Trio on its own. The result is a convincing bubble of sound around the listening position, rather than a front-heavy presentation with occasional effects coming from the rear.

The first trip into the alien vessel is particularly effective, with the system creating a cavernous, echoey environment and giving the aliens' deep ‘voices’ a wonderfully convincing presence. There's a strong sense of space, but also plenty of detail within it, allowing individual sounds to remain clearly defined rather than becoming lost in the overall effect.

The system's precision is just as impressive in Blade Runner 2049. The adverts outside K's apartment are positioned perfectly, high above the listening position, while individual raindrops in the balcony scene are placed with remarkable accuracy. This is the sort of three-dimensional positioning that makes Dolby Atmos feel genuinely worthwhile, rather than simply adding a vague sense of height to the presentation.

Bass is another major strength of the complete system. Arrival contains plenty of low-frequency information, but it isn't simply a succession of brutal bass drops. The Sub 9 handles the soundtrack's varied low end with impressive subtlety, sounding tuneful and controlled when required, before delivering enormous weight when the soundtrack demands it.

Its integration with the rest of the system is excellent, too; it never feels like a separate speaker doing its own thing.

The improvement over the Sub 8 we tested with the Trio previously is particularly obvious with chapter two of Blade Runner 2049. The minor buzzing we heard from the smaller subwoofer has disappeared, replaced by an almost sub-sonic thump that is both exceptionally deep and tightly controlled.

The Sub 9 also resolves the rhythm within those deepest notes much more cleanly, where lesser speakers can turn them into an indistinct rumble. The result is greater impact, but also greater definition and composure.

The system has plenty of dynamic firepower elsewhere, too. Civil War's chaotic battle sequences and the aerial action of Top Gun: Maverick show how effectively it can transition from quiet dialogue and subtle background detail to huge, room-filling effects.

Despite its wireless and relatively lifestyle-friendly design, this is capable of the sort of scale, dynamics and precision we'd expect from a much more conventional home cinema system.

For music, the system gives you a useful choice of presentation. Leave Sound Field switched off and stereo material is played through the front left and right speakers and Sub 9, giving you the most direct and authentic stereo presentation. Switch Sound Field on and you can either have the system upmix stereo material into a surround presentation or select Multi Stereo to send it through all of the speakers.

Being the purists that we are, our preference is to turn Sound Field off, which gives you the kind of authentic stereo experience that a soundbar can’t match. That said, we would like the option to play stereo music without the involvement of the subwoofer: while it’s impressively integrated and tuneful for a speaker of its type, the two front speakers are capable of producing a cohesive, balanced delivery without it.

The Bravia Theatre Trio was already an unusually accomplished home cinema system, but adding the Rear 9s and, crucially, the Sub 9 turns it into something genuinely exceptional.

The scale, cohesion, precision and bass performance are all outstanding, while the wireless design and clever calibration make it considerably easier to accommodate than a conventional 5.1.4-channel speaker package.

Most importantly, our theory about the Sub 9 has proved correct. The occasional buzzing we heard from the Sub 8 has disappeared, while the larger subwoofer delivers deeper, cleaner and more controlled bass.

Combined with the Rear 9s, it gives the Trio the kind of immersive, room-filling performance that makes this feel much more like a proper home cinema system than a collection of wireless lifestyle speakers.

There are a couple of minor niggles: we'd like the option to remove the Sub 9 from the stereo music configuration, and the lack of a display makes checking the incoming audio format more fiddly than it should be. But these are tiny blemishes on what is otherwise an outstanding package.

A properly configured AVR and Dolby Atmos speaker system will still have the ultimate performance advantage, but it will be considerably more complicated to accommodate and set up.

Verdict

If you want serious, genuinely cinematic surround sound without turning your living room into a speaker installation, the Bravia Theatre Trio with Rear 9s and Sub 9 is the best alternative to a traditional AVR and Dolby Atmos speaker system that we've tested – and we'd be very tempted to add a second subwoofer…

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Design 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony Bravia Theatre Trio

Also consider the LG Sound Suite System

Read our Sony Bravia Theatre Quad review

Best surround sound systems: home cinema speakers and soundbars put to the test

Whether or not there’s any longevity in this latest trend remains to be seen, but it does feel like more headphone manufacturers are adding wired options to their model ranges, as an alternative to wireless earbuds.

However, because the 3.5mm headphone socket has become rarer on modern smartphones, you’re more likely to come across a pair with a USB-C connection than a 3.5mm jack, just like the Sennheiser CX 80U.

Now, with this category of headphone, you do need to bear in mind that some of the manufacturer's costs needs to be assigned to the built-in DAC (digital-to-analogue converter), which takes the digital signal from your source’s USB-C output and converts it into analogue for your ears, as well as a pair of amplifiers.

So when you look at the price of the Sennheisers, you’d be forgiven for wondering if this leaves any room to make an in-ear headphone that’s up to scratch sonically? Let’s find out.

Price

At just £35 / $40 / AU$59, the CX 80U sit firmly at the budget end of the wired earbuds market. The closest comparable pair that we have tested and rate highly is the USB-C-equipped SoundMagic E80D, which will set you back £39 / $44 / AU$66.

Design & comfort

Cheap and cheerful is the name of the game here, and that’s reflected in the build quality and plastics used in both the headphone cable and earbuds.

They’re a lightweight design, and the buds themselves are tiny, which means that although they can be a bit finicky to get to grips with, they do fit snugly and don’t protrude out of your ears.

Add the soft silicone eartips into the equation, which come in small, medium and large sizes, and everything adds up to a comfortable, discreet fit with good passive noise isolation.

There is some cable noise, which isn’t exactly unexpected given the design – what could be useful here is a rubber clasp that can keep the left and right earbud cables connected so there’s less rustling about when you’re on the move. This is something you do get with the SoundMagic E80D.

Features

Given their asking price, you won’t be unboxing the Sennheiser CX 80U expecting a long list of features.

There’s obviously the USB-C connection for your smartphone, tablet or laptop, inside of which sits the DAC, which converts all the digital files you feed into them.

Speaking of which, the DAC can support hi-res files up to 24-bit/96kHz natively and will downsample anything higher. We think this level of compatibility is going to be more than enough for most users.

The inline remote control is housed on the cable for the right earbud. You can answer calls, play, pause and skip tracks through different combinations of tapping and holding the button.

There aren't any volume controls on the remote, though – you’ll need to use your source device should you need to turn it up or down. And, being particularly picky, we’d like a simple travel pouch to keep them protected.

Sound

We plug the USB-C connector into an iPhone 15 Plus and are immediately taken aback by the surprising level of maturity and sophistication that greets us.

For the money, you might be expecting a slight imbalance at one end of the sound spectrum, either scratchy, wince-inducing highs or fat, blobby bass, but the CX 80U produce nothing of the sort.

In fact, what greets us is brilliantly judged sound that’s both rich, detailed and surprisingly sophisticated for the money.

15 Step by Radiohead is a tricky test of timing, and the Sennheisers pass with flying colours. Not only do they hold on to and organise all the different musical threads that intertwine throughout the track, but they also extract an impressive amount of information from them.

There’s a fine sense of space around the different elements too, and a sense of expression and natural tone from the vocal that poorer-performing in-ear headphones at this price just wouldn’t be able to provide.

And as we’ve mentioned, there’s no obvious bias in their tonal balance: highs sound crisp but never harsh. Bass notes have a wholesome flavour but don’t arrive at your ears overpowered and lacking definition.

We switch to Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and the Sennheisers display musicality in spades.

You’re encouraged to tap along to the brisk, pointed drum play. The CX 80U showcase speed and agility, and that goes for the accompanying electric guitar play too. The track is off to a frenzied start, but these earbuds don’t find themselves flapping. It’s a very mature sound for the money, and an even more rewarding listen than the SoundMagic E80D.

Each thwack from the drum kit sounds solid, the bassline is precisely cut and easy to follow, and the vocal is natural and expressive – the headphones do a great job of capturing Alex Turner’s northern swagger and keeping your attention all the way to the end of the track.

Verdict

If you’re tired of charging or losing your wireless earbuds, or just want to relive a time when wired earbuds were all the rage, we seriously recommend the Sennheiser CX 80U.

You might not be expecting much given the price, but we think you’ll be shocked – in the best way possible.

Review published: 9th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 4
• Comfort 5

MORE:

Also consider the SoundMagic E80D

Best wired earbuds: top in-ear models tried and tested by our experts

On the one hand, while the iPhone 17 Pro was the biggest redesign of the Pro line in years, this new model looks essentially identical to its predecessor. On the other, Apple's first foldable iPhone is about to arrive, attracting much of the attention that would normally be reserved for a new flagship.

And yet, while the changes to the iPhone 18 Pro may not be immediately obvious, they add up to a phone that's subtly better in some important ways. The new A20 Pro chip brings more power and efficiency, the variable-aperture main camera is an impressive piece of engineering, and battery life has taken a significant step forward.

For us, though, the biggest question is what Apple has done with the bit that hasn't apparently changed. The screen and audio hardware are almost identical to those of the 17 Pro, yet our testing reveals some surprisingly worthwhile improvements to both picture and sound.

Price

There is a disappointment to get out of the way immediately, though: the iPhone 18 Pro is £100 / $100 / AU$100 more expensive than its predecessor was. That means the price for the entry-level 256GB model is £1199 / $1199 / AU$2099.

The 512GB version again commands a premium of £200 / $200 / AU$400, but the cost of the 1TB model has now jumped to a disproportionate £1799 / $1799 / AU$3299.

If that’s still not enough storage for you, there’s also now a 2TB model, which will set you back the princely sum of £2399 / $2399 / AU$4499.

If you’d like a bigger screen, meanwhile, a 6.9-inch iPhone 18 Pro Max costs £100 / $100 / AU$200 more than a 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro of the same capacity.

Design

There's very little that's new about the iPhone 18 Pro's design, but that's hardly a complaint.

This is a beautifully made, exceptionally handsome phone, with its combination of smooth surfaces, premium materials and robust construction giving it the kind of in-hand comfort and reassuring solidity you'd expect from a flagship iPhone.

The Ceramic Shield 2 front and Ceramic Shield back should help it withstand the knocks of everyday use, too, and the IP68 rating remains.

At 211g, it's just 7g heavier than the 17 Pro, while the dimensions are identical.

The new colours are Black, Glacier and Burgundy, joining the returning Silver. Our Burgundy review sample looks considerably better in person than it does in pictures, but we don't think it's quite as handsome as the Deep Blue finish of our 17 Pro review sample. It's also a shame that there's no particularly vibrant option this time around, with nothing quite as eye-catching as last year's Cosmic Orange.

Those are minor niggles, though – the iPhone 18 Pro is an absolutely lovely device from a design perspective.

Features

The biggest changes from last year's iPhone 17 Pro are the new A20 Pro chip, a larger vapour chamber for better cooling, longer battery life and an extremely impressive variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion Main camera.

Apple claims that the A20 Pro delivers up to 20 per cent faster CPU performance and up to 40 per cent faster GPU performance than the A19 Pro, while the new cooling system helps deliver up to 40 per cent better sustained performance.

As ever, this is more power than a humble portable movie and music player is ever likely to need, but it will be useful for long sessions on iOS’s most advanced games, and it should make more advanced AI tasks that bit quicker and speed up jobs such as video editing, should that be your sort of thing.

For most of us, perhaps the biggest benefit to all of that power will be how long the phone should remain capable of delivering a satisfying performance – if you’re a content consumer, this is a phone that could last you years.

On the subject of AI, Siri AI is finally available – albeit officially in beta form. This delivers an AI experience much closer to that which many people have become accustomed to with ChatGPT and its rivals, but with added personal depth thanks to integration with your messages, emails, calendar, etc. It’s worth noting, though, that you don’t need to buy the iPhone 18 Pro in order to access Siri AI – it’s available via phones as old as the iPhone 15 Pro.

The iPhone 18 Pro’s more efficient chip, combined with the improved cooling system, also contributes to better battery life, with Apple quoting up to 34 hours of video playback compared with 31 hours for the 17 Pro. Opt for the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and that battery life leaps to a whopping 43 hours of video, up from the 37 hours of the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Charging is faster, too. Apple says the 18 Pro can reach 50 per cent charge in around 15 minutes, although you'll need a suitable 60W charger with Adjustable Voltage Supply to achieve that. There's no charger in the box, of course.

The camera system's biggest change is the variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion Main camera, which automatically adjusts for lighting and depth of field. This really is a very impressive feat of engineering, with six laser-cut blades, each thinner than a human hair, arranged in a circle and able to open and close to physically control the amount of light hitting the sensor. This isn’t the first time such technology has been implemented in a phone, but the iPhone 18 Pro is the only mainstream phone that currently features it.

To go with this new pro-style camera hardware are several pro-style software features, including ‘Pro’ controls for the aperture, upgraded photographic style customisations, smart focus tracking and improved low-light video, and cinematic effects can now be applied after you’ve recorded your video.

Of course, this is largely overkill for those of us of a more point-and-shoot persuasion, but the variable aperture does appear to make the promised improvements to low-light shots, which are crisper and more detailed than those we capture with the iPhone 17 Pro. In fact, across the board, we find the iPhone 18 Pro produces subtly sharper photos than its predecessor, even when simply left in the Auto mode.

As ever, though, our real interest lies in the picture and sound performance, and in this respect, on paper, almost nothing has changed.

The one small screen change is that the Dynamic Island has been shrunk, so it should prove even less likely to distract when watching full-screen movies.

Specs-wise, though, this is the same screen as before: a 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with a 2622 x 1206 resolution, 460ppi and ProMotion with adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz.

Maximum outdoor brightness remains 3000 nits, HDR format support is once again universal, and Apple quotes a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a minimum brightness of 1 nit.

Apple hasn’t flagged any changes to the speaker system or audio hardware, either, so in theory, the iPhone 18 Pro should deliver movies and music exactly as the iPhone 17 Pro does.

Picture quality

Despite the identical screen specs, there are subtle but noticeable differences in the picture quality of the iPhone 18 Pro compared with the iPhone 17 Pro.

Playing F1: The Movie, we’re treated to an awesome contrast-rich, sharp and detailed delivery. The crispness of the rendering of the GT cars in the opening of the scene is superb, even as they bomb along the back straight of Daytona, and the deep, inky OLED blacks give the night-time scene a wonderful presence and solidity.

All of this is true of the iPhone 17 Pro, too, though. The difference lies in colour temperature, with the new model skewing slightly cooler. It’s not so cool as to give the presentation an overly blue, uncinematic appearance, but it does lend the whole scene an even cleaner, punchier look, with highlights that have even more bite. For a movie such as F1, the new balance works brilliantly.

It’s slightly less of a qualified success with a movie such as Shutter Island, though, where the cooler balance removes some of the intentionally old-fashioned richness of the mastering.

In truth, the iPhone 17 Pro perhaps skews a little too warm, exaggerating this richness, and the perfect balance probably lies somewhere between the delivery of the two phones, but the new model makes Leonardo DiCaprio look even more pale than he’s supposed to, and also robs his ridiculous tie of some of its vibrancy. On the other hand, though, peak highlights again pop a little more dynamically, as seen in the ceiling lights of the hospital and gleam off the barrel of a silver pistol.

It’s also worth noting that while the differences are relatively easy to spot when the two phones are viewed side-by-side, in isolation, both models are superb for watching movies on the move – it’s like having a small, high-quality OLED TV in your pocket.

Finally, a word on the Dynamic Island. As mentioned, this has been made smaller for the new iPhone Pro (though it can conversely expand further to present more live information when required).

As before, it’s invisible when watching movies in the default letterbox style, but it intrudes into the picture when you expand it to fill the display. We’ve always found the Dynamic Island surprisingly easy to ignore, with your brain quickly forgetting it’s there, but it’s even less noticeable on the iPhone 18 Pro.

Sound quality

We were really impressed by the iPhone 17 Pro’s spatial openness and organisation, and the iPhone 18 Pro is even better in these regards, albeit only very slightly so.

Watching the opening of F1: The Movie once more, as Sonny peers out at the racetrack from his team’s garage, the degree to which the sound of the cars stretches from far right to far left as they roar along the straight is disarmingly impressive, and the placement of all of the competing effects is even more precise than with last year’s model.

This precision helps dialogue emerge from the chaotic sonic backdrop even more clearly, too, and there’s a very small degree of additional dynamic subtlety and detail to voices.

Of course, we’re still talking about phone speakers here, so while the sound is remarkably impressive for a device this small, it’s still lightweight and shrill by absolute standards, and watching movies this way should really only be a last resort.

That’s even more true of stereo music, although the iPhone 18 Pro is very slightly better than the 17 Pro here, too, with a marginally cleaner and less congested presentation.

Of course, it’s when a pair of headphones is connected that the iPhone produces a sonic performance that’s really worth getting excited about.

Listening to Sleep Token’s The Summoning via a pair of AirPods Max 2 headphones connected via USB-C for maximum quality, the 18 Pro delivers all of the track’s bruising aggression without introducing any hard edges or harshness.

The initial percussive attack hits like a freight train, but the huge punches and massive volume shifts combine with fine detail and subtle low-level dynamics to deliver every part of the epic track’s evolution with the required balance of brutality and beauty.

Tonal balance is superb, too, with the hi-hat tinkling cheekily against the funky bassline of the unexpectedly groovy finale, and Vessel’s rich vocals projected cleanly.

This balance and blend of abilities make the iPhone equally adept with all genres of music, and as we switch from metal to folk, pop, classical and beyond, we’re not once disappointed by the delivery.

Of course, all of this is also true of the iPhone 17 Pro, and it’s true that the differences between the headphone presentations of the two phones are tiny. There is, though, a little additional precision to the leading edges of notes from the new model over the last, which was itself a touch punchier than the model before it. We really are talking minimal margins here, though.

Verdict

The iPhone 18 Pro is an outstanding portable movie and music player, with a superb picture, excellent sound and some surprisingly worthwhile improvements over its predecessor.

The picture remains the real star. The 18 Pro delivers the same exceptional contrast, detail and clarity as the 17 Pro, but its slightly cooler balance gives bright, punchy material such as F1: The Movie even more impact. It's not quite as successful with warmer, more deliberately rich material, but both phones produce an exceptional picture, and the 18 Pro has the edge overall.

Sound is similarly excellent, particularly through headphones, where the 18 Pro delivers superb clarity, dynamics and tonal balance. The built-in speakers are remarkably capable for their size, too, with impressive spatial precision and a slightly more refined presentation than the 17 Pro.

The key thing is that none of these improvements is transformative. If you already own an iPhone 17 Pro, there's no compelling AV reason to upgrade, particularly given the price increase.

For someone buying a new phone, though, the equation is different. The iPhone 18 Pro is a stunning portable AV device in its own right, while its more powerful chip, longer battery life and significantly upgraded camera give it plenty of advantages beyond movies and music.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the iPhone 17 Pro

Also consider the iPhone 17

Read our Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra review

Best smartphones: the best phones for music and movies

Rega’s experiment with its first ‘Rega Special’ Edition resulted in the superb, talented Planar 3 RS Edition (a prestigious Product of the Year winner, no less), and now it has given the RS treatment to the next rung on its turntable ladder. Considering the Planar 6/Nd7 package is a five-star, multiple Award winner, and the Planar 8 is also a five-star, former Award winner, a product that Frankensteins the best bits of these two models together is surely a recipe for success.

Can this more premium Planar 6 RS Edition win us over in the same way its sibling did? It doesn’t take long for us to answer that question.

Price

The Planar 6 RS with Nd9 moving magnet cartridge is cannily priced at £2000 / $3195 / AU$4199. This puts it right in between the standard Planar 6 with Nd7 MM cartridge at £1655 / $2595 / AU$3499, and the Rega Planar 8 with Nd9 at £2554 / $4200 / AU$5399. We tested the Planar 8 with the older Apheta 2 MC cartridge back in 2018, and the current package with the newer Apheta 3 MC costs £3000 / $4945 / AU$6299 in total.

The Nd9 cartridge included here as standard is the brand’s top-end moving magnet cartridge and costs £695 / $1095 / AU$1499 on its own, and features a boron cantilever and fine line nude diamond stylus profile that is based on the brand’s reference high-end Aphelion 2 MC cartridge (£3640 / $5545 / AU$7499). The Nd9 isn’t available as a factory-fitted option with the standard Planar 6, so adding it on separately will exceed the value of the 6 RS.

For those who prefer a moving coil cartridge, Rega offers a Planar 6 RS Edition bundle that includes the Ania MC fitted and Fono MC phono stage for the same price as the Nd9 package. It’s pretty compelling value no matter which option you choose.

Build & design

Rega’s use of the ultra-lightweight Tancast 8 polyurethane foam material in the plinth is what sets its premium models (Planar 6, 8, 10, Naia) apart from the MDF plinths in the sub-£1000 Planar 1, 2 and 3 models.

Rega’s defining engineering philosophy is that adding mass to a turntable absorbs energy and this saps the life out of the music, alongside transmitting unwanted resonances that negatively affect the sound – hence its continued pursuit of materials that are very light but also deliver exceptional stiffness.

The Planar 6 RS Edition uses the same Tancast 8 foam core sandwiched between two layers of very thin but stiff HPL (High Pressure Laminate) construction as the Planar 6 and 8, which offers a rigid but extremely low mass base for the turntable. Even after all this time, we’re surprised by just how light the turntable is when taking it out of the box.

Like the Planar 3 RS, the Planar 6 RS has a brushed metallic finish that not only looks stunning, but also acts as another ultra-thin skin around the plinth. As a way of visually differentiating the two RS models, this metal skin is a lighter finish on the Planar 6 RS and wraps all around the edges of the plinth, whereas the darker Planar 3 RS has mirrored black edges.

The Rega Planar 6 RS Edition is a lovely looking piece of hi-fi. Its minimal, belt-drive design is further accentuated by the sleek finish, while every element on the turntable – from the tonearm to the sub-platter to the screen-printed logo – is built to an impressively high standard.

That the Planar 6 RS sticks with the more conventional rectangular plinth design and full-size hinged dust cover is surely another reason why it has been so popular since it was announced earlier this year. It’s ideal for those who want the benefits of the Planar 8’s advanced technology, but aren’t enamoured with the skeletal plinth design or find its moulded dust cover impractical.

The Planar 6 RS adopts the hand-assembled RB880 tonearm found in the Planar 8, and this – along with the step-up Nd9 cartridge – is a big part of the 6 RS’s performance upgrade. The RB880 tonearm is a step up from the RB330 found on the standard P6, and is further refined to reduce resonances throughout the one-piece tube.

It features an improved aluminium and stainless steel vertical bearing assembly, with zero-tolerance bearings that are adjusted to less than a 1000th of a millimetre for near-frictionless movement. In use, there is no undue play and the movement is incredibly smooth.

Additionally, the 6 RS Edition features a twin motor pulley with two drive belts, which help deliver more accurate and stable speed control. It’s another design point taken from the premium Planar 8.

Other elements remain from the standard Planar 6, which include the nicely machined aluminium sub-platter, the dual-layer glass platter, and the double-brace system that strengthens the area between the tonearm mounting and the main hub bearing. This is a clever way of adding extra rigidity without adding too much unwanted mass to the turntable.

As with every deck from Planar 6 upwards, the 6 RS Edition’s low-noise 24v AC motor is powered by an outboard Neo Mk2 power supply unit, which offers electronic speed switching (33⅓ and 45 RPM) and is hand-tuned to match the motor on the turntable it is paired with. So if you’ll be auditioning the Planar 6 RS against the standard P6, make sure both models are used with their matching PSUs.

With the Nd9 factory-fitted, setting up the Rega turntable isn’t complicated at all. Simply balance the arm using the stainless steel counterweight, set the tracking weight and bias to the cartridge’s recommendations (1.75g in this case), and plug the captive phono leads into a capable stereo amplifier, and you’re good to go.

Sound

We plug the Planar 6 RS into our reference Naim Nait XS 3 integrated, and switch between the Epos ES-7N standmounts and PMC Prodigy 5 floorstanders during our testing. The Naim is discontinued now, so we would suggest Rega’s own Elicit Mk5 amplifier and the Fyne F502S or PMC Prophecy 1 speakers as a good pairing for the 6 RS Edition’s talents.

It doesn’t take us long to hear the step up in performance from the standard Planar 6. The recognisable Rega sonic characteristics are there – agile timing, superb dynamic ability, and a lovely balance between authority and subtlety.

We spin some of our favourite test records – Holst’s wide-ranging The Planets, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged live set, the ambient soundscapes of Four Tet, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – and find that the Planar 6 RS Edition simply elevates all those recognisable sonic aspects even further.

The upgrades on the Planar 6 RS all pull together to deliver a sound that is more stable and composed, and even more expressive and delicate. The turntable offers a quieter background for detail from the vinyl grooves to flourish, and it’s a more three-dimensional sound, too.

The positioning of instruments in Holst’s chaotic, intense Mars is more definite within the sweeping, broader soundstage, with the edges of notes relayed with a greater degree of authority and precision. The sweeter, delicate notes of Venus are just that – the higher tones of the flute, clarinet and violin sound subtle and textured alongside the delicate shine, with a fluidity that holds our attention even in the movement’s quieter moments.

That meaty bassline in The Chain is deep, punchy and pulled taut; the Rega’s tremendous agility combines with a greater amount of low-level dynamic finesse so that it sounds even more tuneful and impactful. The 6 RS Edition does a fine job of keeping all the strands of the chorus organised and balanced – no single element jostles for the limelight over another.

With Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged record, we find the 6 RS better conveys the space of the room the musicians are playing in compared with the standard model, while Kurt Cobain’s voice sounds even more raw and revealing. Dynamically, there’s simply more going on – guitar strums are more emphatic, silences are deeper, and the way his voice reaches hair-raising intensity during the closing track sounds more visceral and organic.

Switch back to the standard Planar 6, and we still find it delivers an agile, fluid and dynamically exciting performance, with plenty of fine detail. The 6 RS Edition simply locks everything into place with a greater sense of composure and confidence. Voices are more intimate and have more presence; the switch from a quiet moment to a big crescendo is more dramatic; and we are drawn into the music with greater emotion, no matter the genre.

Verdict

As the Planar 3 RS Edition bridged the gap between the standard Planar 3 and the step-up Planar 6, this model is a similar stepping stone between the P6 and the more premium Planar 8, and offers excellent value for the combination of its advanced technologies.

The Rega Planar 6 RS Edition is a beautifully and cleverly made turntable, and its stylish looks and great sound will be a siren call to any vinyl fans who can afford to level up to this price.

Review published: 8th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Rega Planar 6/Nd7

Also consider the Rega Planar 8

Best turntables: top record players tested by our expert reviewers

The Xperia 10 VIII – that’s “mark eight”, not “vee-eye-eye-eye” – is the latest budget smartphone in Sony’s now just two-model lineup (the other model is the flagship Xperia 1), and it retains a lot of the features we applauded in its Award-winning predecessors.

However, with tough competition from Apple’s new affordable iPhone series, is the Sony Xperia 10 still a prime device for budget-conscious AV fans who need a handset that excels for movies and music?

Price

At just £549, the Xperia 10 VIII hugely undercuts every other phone we’ve reviewed this year. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra (£1279 / $1300 / AU$1799), Apple iPhone 17 Pro (£1099 / $1099 / AU$1999) and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 (£1699 / $1899 / AU$2699) all massively outprice the Xperia 10 VIII. Of course, those models all have more premium features, specs, and build quality to justify this.

Instead, the Xperia 10 VIII is aligned with other budget handsets on the market, such as the Apple iPhone 17e (£599 / $599 / AU$999), Samsung Galaxy A57 5G (£529 / $549 / AU$749) and Google Pixel 10a (£499 / $499 / AU$849). While we haven’t tested those models, we have reviewed last year’s iPhone 16e, and can therefore use it as a benchmark device.

You’ll notice that we haven’t listed pricing for the US or Australia, and that’s because this handset isn’t available in either country. Those familiar with Xperia devices will know that Sony hasn’t sold its smartphones in these regions for quite some time.

Design

Sony’s budget Xperia smartphone series has been unapologetically constructed almost entirely from plastic for many years now, and the Xperia 10 VIII is no exception.

It sports the same rather smart redesigned look introduced with last year’s Xperia 10 VII, with a horizontal rounded camera bar that spans the width of the device bearing the two cameras and the Sony branding.

The smooth frosted plastic back feels pleasant to the touch, but it picks up and proudly displays fingerprints and smudges a little too much for our liking, especially in the Frosted Grey finish of our review sample. The 10 VIII is also available in Frozen White – which we have seen and has a really appealing subtle blue-ish hue – and Misty Lilac.

The device is surrounded by a plastic frame, which bears a few ports and buttons of note. On the bottom you’ll find a USB-C charging and data port; on the right is a volume rocker, dedicated camera shutter button, and combination power and lock button with an integrated fingerprint scanner; and on the left edge is the SIM tray, which also features a spot for a micro SD card.

That final feature is especially appreciated, as we rarely see it on other handsets these days, and those with large owned media libraries who wish to load music and movies directly onto the device will be able to do so.

However, the best feature can be found on the top edge of the device; yes, you guessed it, it’s a headphone jack. This unicorn of the smartphone world is still alive and well on Sony smartphones, and while the Xperia 10 VIII doesn’t feature the premium components derived from Sony’s Walkman division that can be found on the flagship Xperia 1 VIII, it’s still a sight for sore eyes for audiophiles such as ourselves.

The Xperia 10 VIII’s display is covered by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 coating, which should make it more resistant to scratches and cracks – we’re hesitant to launch our review sample toward a concrete floor, however, so we’ll have to trust Sony on this one.

Features

The main attraction of the Xperia 10 VIII is the 6.1-inch Full HD+ OLED display. It features a 1080 x 2340 resolution, a nippy 120Hz refresh rate, and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9.

Once upon a time, Sony handsets shipped with 21:9 displays that made portable movie watching a dream, as typical movies would fill the screen from corner to corner. Those days are, unfortunately, behind us now. That said, the more conventional aspect ratio has its benefits, namely when it comes to app optimisation and 16:9 video playback.

Interestingly, Sony is touting a significant boost in brightness this year – 50 per cent to be exact. While it hasn’t given an exact brightness figure in nits, this display should be more versatile when it comes to outdoor viewing in bright sunlight, and we expect it to handle HDR video better too.

Speaking of which, this budget smartphone can play back video in HDR, but this is your run-of-the-mill HDR10 format rather than HDR10+ (which is supported on Samsung Galaxy phones and iPhones) or Dolby Vision (which is also commonly found on iPhones).

Sony is proudly presenting the front-firing stereo speakers as a leading feature of the Xperia VIII. Flanking the display at the top and bottom of the device, these speakers are reportedly 15 per cent louder than those of last year’s model, and bass is an impressive 30 per cent deeper, too, according to Sony.

There’s also the headphone jack to be mindful of for wired audio, and wireless audio is supported via Bluetooth 5.4. Sony’s LDAC codec is on board for wireless high-resolution audio, alongside Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive codec for supported headphones. Sony’s 360 Reality Audio and DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) Ultimate also feature.

Moving away from the AV features, the Xperia 10 VIII sports Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor. Interestingly, this appears to be the same chipset as last year’s Xperia 10 VII. It’s backed up by 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which can be expanded via microSD, as mentioned.

Running the show is Android 16, with Sony’s minimal skin running on top. While Sony opts to keep most things stock, it’s missing a few creature comforts from other phones, such as a dedicated weather widget and app drawer customisation, and it can look a bit barebones and dated compared with other mobile operating systems.

As is the case with almost every modern Android phone, you’ll find Google Gemini and a range of AI features within the camera app.

That said, Sony is also only promising “up to four” operating system upgrades and “up to six years” of security updates, while its rivals are offering around seven years of OS updates in comparison.

Sony certainly wins back some ground with its battery life claims, though. The 10 VIII has a 5000mAh cell crammed inside – that’s the same size as the much more expensive Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – and it can reportedly last for two days on a single charge. Sony has also implemented an optimised charging system which will reportedly ensure that it keeps a healthy capacity for up to four years.

Rounding things out with the cameras, the Xperia 10 VIII sports three in total: a 50MP main sensor, a 13MP ultrawide camera, and an 8MP front-facing selfie camera. While megapixels don’t tell the full story, our testing proves that these cameras are fine for day-to-day shooting, but are easily outclassed by the step-up models on the market.

Picture quality

Sony’s budget Xperia smartphones have, in the past, caught us off guard with picture performances that are much better than their price tags suggest, and the Xperia 10 VIII continues the trend.

We’ve loaded a range of streaming apps onto the phone, including HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV to assess the picture quality, and we have the iPhone 16e on hand as a reference device.

Before we get stuck properly into testing, we have a controversial piece of advice when it comes to our preferred display settings.

Sony offers a Custom picture preset that it says is better for video content, as it tweaks the display to provide warmer colours and target a more “Filmmaker Mode-like” experience. Somewhat surprisingly, we prefer to leave this off and stick to the default settings, as our testing reveals that it dulls and flattens the picture in the pursuit of a more authentic experience.

Sony has squeezed an impressively cinematic image from this budget handset. It’s crisp, impressively bright, and balanced, especially during the introduction of F1: The Movie on Apple TV. Highlights and colours pop without looking overpronounced, and the image has a sense of depth and solidity that enhances realism.

Switching to Blade Runner 2049 on Prime Video, the Sony presents the opening sequence with a sharp, detailed and balanced image that instantly draws us in. Detail levels are solid across the board, and the horizon seems to stretch on endlessly in an aerial shot of the solar panel farm.

Motion is impressively consistent too, with a difficult panning shot and a tracking shot of Officer K’s drone scoping out Sapper Morton’s protein farm both handled well by the Sony. We do notice some subtle banding in the fog throughout this scene, but it’s certainly not offensive.

What is most striking, however, is how the Xperia 10 VIII utilises its higher brightness capabilities. The picture really pops, especially with animated content such as Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, also on Prime Video.

Compared head to head with the iPhone, the Xperia 10 VIII’s punchier, sharper and brighter image ensures that the Sony outpaces its Apple rival in the picture department.

Sound quality

Sony has already scored bonus points by including a headphone jack on the Xperia 10 VIII, but it’s only useful if the phone can meet our expectations when it comes to sound quality.

The good news is that the 10 VIII excels here too, offering a crisp, clean and balanced sound that makes it an impressive portable music player for the money. The opening guitar plucks of Taylor Swift’s Babylon sound impressively natural, and the ensuing vocals sound full and textured.

Switching to Retrograde by James Blake, the Sony sounds suitably spacious and open, while also remaining organised and timing well. As the track swells to introduce an array of electronic elements at the mid-point, the Sony remains consistent and ensures each effect has room to breathe.

The Sony misses the mark slightly on delivering a big dynamic punch here, which dampens the dramatic effect of this shift, and bass could have more weight and punch, but Sony’s focus on sonic subtleties should be commended.

Comparatively, the iPhone delivers a touch more warmth and cohesion, but you’ll need to step up to the pricier iPhone 17 for a real leap in audio performance.

Unplugging our headphones to try the Xperia’s reportedly upgraded speakers, we find Sony’s claims of upgraded bass ring true. With Blade Runner 2049, there is some genuine impact to the thuds of Sapper Morton slamming Officer K into, and subsequently through, a wall.

Furthermore, the speakers benefit from being front-firing, mostly due to them being harder to block when holding the phone in a landscape orientation.

At the end of the day though, while these are decent stereo speakers in terms of clarity and detail, they are smartphone speakers – the sound generally doesn’t carry much weight, and it’s not particularly spacious.

Given the price of the handset, we deem the speakers to be plenty good enough for a spot of out-loud movie watching; just be sure to hook up a Bluetooth speaker for music.

Verdict

Sony’s impressive affordable Android smartphone range remains a solid choice for budget-conscious AV fans who need their smartphone to do justice to movies and music, and that pocket-sized OLED display is an ideal option for on-the-go cinephiles.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Apple iPhone 16e

Also consider the Apple iPhone 17

Best smartphones: the best phones for music and movies

Happily, nature abhors a vacuum, and so into the yawning chasm left by the outgoing A&norma SR35 comes the PD5, Astell & Kern’s latest portable music player designed to deliver hi-res audio in the palm of your hand.

The price of the Astell & Kern PD5 has gone up – from £799 / $799 / AU$1299 to £899 / $1049 / AU$1399 – meaning that the new kid on the block is going to have to work that much harder to prove itself worthy of consideration.

Given its stellar reputation in this category, if anyone can do it, it’s Astell & Kern.

Build & design

From the outside, the Astell & Kern PD5 is a definite departure from the player which preceded it.

The newer model is a little taller than its predecessor, with a 12cm height that edges towards a full-grown iPhone 15, but it’s still easy to carry in one hand and place in your pocket. At the top of the unit are standard 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced headphone connections alongside a power button, while a trio of vertically arranged play/pause and track-skipping buttons adorn the left side.

A pleasingly tactile control wheel sits alone on the opposite side for adjusting your volume by satisfyingly incremental clicks.

So far, so standard for Astell & Kern, but place the PD5 next to the outgoing SR35 and the differences are clear. Gone is the old model’s slanted screen – which sat at a slight angle against the main chassis to give the player a sharp, almost Art Deco look – replaced by a display that now sits straight within the outer frame.

The new model feels different in hand, too. Whereas the SR35 felt satisfyingly substantial, the PD5, despite weighing a touch more, feels somehow less dense and not quite as premium. Still, it is nice that there are no longer any sharp edges that might snag on our clothes. It is also fair to say that the new look is cleaner and less fussy.

The new portable player’s 4.1-inch display takes up most of the unit, save for a block of empty space at the bottom end. It’s a good display, too, showing text information and album artwork with pleasing sharpness and clarity. Our only issues arose when we took our PD5 outside and, even in the gloomy British autumn, we sometimes struggled to see what was playing thanks to an excessively reflective screen.

Unlike some rivals, the Astell & Kern player features a stripped-down version of Android OS that keeps the focus on your music library and doesn’t have any unnecessary additional bloatware. The PD5 is reasonably effective in its overall operation, although it’s not quite as slick and fast as a modern smartphone, such as when typing on its keyboard, and we wish Astell & Kern would address this in future models as it’s something we noticed in the previous SR35, too.

Overall, the PD5’s interface is nicely laid out and easy to navigate across the simple menus, giving you easy access to your library of hi-res tunes, streaming apps and device settings thanks to its logical, uncluttered layout.

Features

Despite its primary function as a portable music player, the PD5’s extensive feature suite grants it impressive flexibility.

The PD5 gives you the option to choose how many of the eight Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chips work at any time, so you can either choose four of them to work in parallel, or the full quota. The sonic dividends are bountiful if you choose all eight – the sound is far punchier and more expressive when fully unleashed – but doing so will significantly slash the device’s battery life.

The new Astell & Kern will get to around 28 hours of playback in standard ‘Quad’ mode, but this will drop to around 15 hours with all eight DACs employed. If you get low on juice, it takes around 2.5 hours to charge your device to full capacity.

The A&K PD5’s file support is extensive, supporting hi-res tracks up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256, and the unit’s internal 64GB storage capacity can be expanded by up to 1.5TB using a microSD card for large libraries.

For those wanting wireless compatibility, the higher-quality aptX HD, LDAC and LHDC Bluetooth codecs are available too. We imagine that, if you’re paying this kind of money for a dedicated hi-res player, you’re likely to spend most of your time listening via wired headphones for the higher-quality sound they tend to provide, but the PD5’s stable, solid Bluetooth performance is welcome all the same for those that want the extra convenience.

Four digital filter options are available, ranging from a default ‘Low Latency Fast’ option to the punchy character of ‘Phase Compensated Fast’. They’re fun to play around with and are all distinguishable from one another, but we settle on the natural, reasonably neutral balance of ‘Low Latency Slow’ during the majority of our testing.

For further tinkering with your sound, a 10-band equaliser is provided, or you can go really fancy and use the advanced EQ settings to plot your desired frequency response across a coordinate plane graph.

Dual-band wi-fi (2.4/5GHz) grants solid network stability, and you can download popular streaming service apps such as Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Deezer and Apple Music from the Google Play Store.

The PD5 can even be used as a dedicated desktop DAC for your laptop. Simply connect the player to your laptop via a USB-C cable, select DAC mode from the drop-down menu, and the PD5 will process audio via its internal Octa-DAC architecture.

Away from the confines of your desk, a new switchable feature called EnviroTune analyses your surroundings and optimises the sound for the level of ambient noise detected, with the aim of keeping your music clear and consistent no matter your environment.

The technology works as it should, with playback retaining its core character without our being able to sense any synthetic processing working away in the background.

Sound

£899 / $1049 / AU$1399 is a considerable sum to pay for a portable music player.

As such, we use a variety of headphones during our testing period. We dig out the budget-friendly Røde NTH-100 (£149 / $149 / AU$249) as our starter pair of wired headphones, as well as the more premium and revealing Beyerdynamic T1 (3rd Gen) (£899 / $999 / AU$1599) and, for testing the unit’s balanced connection, the audiophile-centric Sony MDR-Z1R (£1700 / $2100).

For open-backed listening, we also use the Grado SR325x (£247 / $295 / AU$425) and the Award-winning Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro X (£189 / $199 / AU$399).

No combination leaves us feeling disappointed. Overcoming the marker laid down by the superb A&norma SR35 was never going to be easy, but the new PD5 is a clear step up from the model it now replaces. Yes, that price increase is tough to take, but our testing soon reveals that the newer model justifies its extra outlay by making significant strides in out-and-out sonic ability.

It’s unquestionably clearer and more detailed than its predecessor, serving up an expansive, uncluttered soundscape in which instrumental textures are sharply drawn. Listening to a 16-bit/44kHz FLAC recording of Agnes Obel’s Fuel To Fire reveals the strides Astell & Kern has made in revealing greater textural detail as the new player starkly reveals the full lifespan of each piano stroke as it lands, resonates and then decays back into inky silence.

The PD5 showcases further talents with regard to its class-leading organisational abilities. Regardless of genre, our music has an expressive, three-dimensional cohesiveness that makes tracks such as Radiohead’s Reckoner sound enthralling and wonderfully immersive, and the A&K picks apart the dense cacophony of Slipknot’s Left Behind to provide each varied instrument its own space to shine.

Astell & Kern’s hi-res player has a wonderfully natural way with dynamics, favouring a controlled yet expressive approach that shines on tunes such as Massive Attack’s Atlas Air or a DSD64 recording of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. Nothing here sounds forced or mechanical – instead, changes in volume move as naturally as sands shifting on a windswept dune.

The PD5 is happy revealing the capabilities of any of the headphones we choose to pair it with, but you can also choose to integrate it into a fully fledged stereo system, something we try out by connecting the player via the 4.4mm balanced output to our reference system of Burmester 088/911 Mk III pre/power amplifier and ATC SCM50 speakers.

Acting as the system’s dedicated DAC and music streaming source, the Astell & Kern player does surprisingly well slotting into such a high-end set-up, with Fuel To Fire retaining much of the delicacy and agility we enjoyed when listening via wired headphones. This flexibility further justifies the portable player’s high price, and its performance is good enough that you could potentially use it in a more modest, price-appropriate hi-fi system without needing to invest in separate DACs or streamers.

Even if you’re not planning on using your premium portable player as part of a hi-fi set-up, you can give your laptop a boost by connecting it via USB-C and engaging the PD5’s desktop DAC mode. Once more, the player’s talents shine through, confidently outstripping the respective built-in DACs of our Lenovo ThinkPad and MacBook Pro 2026 laptops for instrumental detail, expressiveness and overall clarity.

We even give the PD5 a chance to flex its Bluetooth powers by streaming a 24-bit/96kHz FLAC rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain to a pair of Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 wireless over-ears, and it happily obliges. While Bluetooth isn’t the most transparent means of transmission, it’s hard not to marvel at just how much of that expressive, natural character is retained within the snap of the drums or the layered wails of Nicks, Buckingham and McVie.

Whatever the context, the PD5 proves its worth. No matter the headphones with which we pair it or the system into which it integrates, its obvious talents continue to shine through.

Verdict

Despite the hefty price tag, the PD5 remains a great buy. If you’re looking for an exceptionally detailed, refined and dynamic sound that brings your hi-res music library to life – along with plenty of extra functionality – this Astell & Kern portable music player is the one to pick.

Review published: 7th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 4

MORE:

Also consider the FiiO M11S

I used an affordable portable music player for two weeks: here are 3 things I liked and 3 that I didn't

Best portable MP3 players: our expert picks of the top hi-res music players

Six years on, Wharfedale has revised the range with the new Diamond 12i series. While the 12.3i floorstanders have set the bar high with a five-star review, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new range in our AV testing space.

Thankfully, the wait is over, as we now have the Wharfedale Diamond 12.1i HCP system hooked up to our reference AV amplifier, primed for testing.

This package combines two pairs of Diamond 12.1i standmount speakers with the 12.1Ci centre channel, and the same SW10 subwoofer found on the existing Diamond 12 home cinema packages.

Wharfedale has highlighted some minor tweaks to the tuning of the speakers and a few new finishes, so it’s not a radical departure from the existing Award-winning systems, but that might not be a bad thing.

Price

At £999 in the UK, the Diamond 12.1i HCP is conveniently sold as a complete package at various hi-fi and AV retailers. Buying this set as a full package also nets you a decent discount, as the total cost of these speakers bought separately is £1126.

The package doesn’t appear to be sold as a pre-assembled bundle in Australia, but buying the separate components comes to a total of AU$3300. Breaking that down, that’s AU$700 per pair of Diamond 12.1i (you’ll need two pairs), AU$700 for the 12.1Ci, and AU$1200 for the SW 10 subwoofer.

Unfortunately, it’s currently bad news for our American friends, as the centre channel doesn’t currently seem to be available across the pond. While the 12.1i speakers and SW 10 subwoofer are on the market, the crucial 12.1Ci is the missing piece to this 5.1 puzzle.

Impressively, Wharfedale has managed to dodge a price rise here in the UK, as the 12.1i HCP has launched at the same price as its 12.1 HCP predecessor. That said, the previous system launched at AU$2423, so that’s a substantial price increase Down Under.

It’s important to note that you’ll need to factor in the price of stands for this package, as the front and surround speakers are standmounts. For those who prefer floorstanders, you can swap the fronts for the 12.3i speakers, but we have a separate review of that system coming soon.

Build

The 12.1i HCP looks practically identical to the outgoing 12.1 HCP, with the main components – SW 10 notwithstanding, as it is literally the same subwoofer – all bearing strong resemblances to their 2020 counterparts.

In fact, this system has the same dimensions as its predecessor. The 12.1i measures 31 x 18 x 28cm (hwd), the 12.1Ci measures 18 x 48 x 28cm (hwd), and the SW 10 is 42 x 34 x 38cm (hwd).

The biggest difference is that Wharfedale has swapped the two-tone design, which paired a glossy baffle with a wood-grain vinyl finish on the sides, for a smoother finish on two of the available colours; those being All-black and Stone Grey. For fans of the original look, the Walnut finish pairs a wooden surround with a contrasting matte black baffle.

Our review unit sports the Stone Grey finish, which has divided opinion among the team. While some praise the minimalist, clean look that helps it blend into more living rooms, others feel the flat grey looks a bit unfinished and plain. Looks are, at the end of the day, subjective, and we appreciate that there are multiple colours to choose from.

The 12.1i front and surround speakers feature a two-way bass reflex design, whereas the centre channel sports a two-way closed box enclosure. The cabinets are constructed from wood fibre board of varying thickness, and they are assembled in a way that minimises sound interference from the cabinet itself in the pursuit of greater sonic purity.

These components also feature Wharfedale’s Intelligent Spot Bracing. This sees a wooden brace connect opposing walls in such a way that minimises resonance.

Features

Wharfedale has paid special attention to how these revised speakers present low frequencies.

This comes in the form of a new bass port, which has been redesigned with upgraded internal damping and tuned to support “improved bass clarity and control”. In theory, the 12.1i and 12.1Ci should deliver more consistent, spacious bass with smoother transitions between midrange and low-end frequencies regardless of placement.

The drive units across the system are essentially unchanged from the previous generation, although Wharfedale highlights tighter production tolerances which should result in more consistent performance.

The 12.1i retain the 13cm mid/bass driver, which is constructed from Wharfedale’s Klarity material. This is a blend of polypropylene and mica, which the company says “provides excellent stiffness and low distortion”. Each mid/bass driver also features a precise magnet system with an aluminium compensation ring, which should facilitate a cleaner sound with less distortion.

High frequencies are handled by a 25mm woven polyester dome with a high-loss damping coating, which is paired with a subtle waveguide for enhanced dispersion. Wharfedale claims that this tweeter arrangement can produce “clear, natural high frequencies with excellent off-axis performance”.

Wharfedale keeps things simple with the 12.1Ci, as it retains the same drivers as the 12.1i, albeit in a slightly different configuration. It sandwiches the same tweeter between two 13cm mid/bass drivers; using the same drivers across the package should, in theory, result in greater sonic cohesion between the components.

The subwoofer rounds out the system and, as we’ve already established, it’s the same sub that accompanied the previous edition of this speaker package. The SW 10 features a 25cm front-firing long-throw driver and a claimed peak power output of 350W. You’ll find Stereo Line In (2 x RCA Phono) and Mono (LFE) Line In (RCA Phono) inputs on the rear.

Interestingly, the biggest difference in this iteration is that the speakers are now single-wired. The previous generation 12.1 speakers sported two sets of terminals for bi-wiring.

Sound

Wharfedale’s highly-commended 12.1 HCP system won five consecutive What Hi-Fi? Awards thanks to its stellar blend of value and sound performance; the latter being the most important. We’re therefore pleased to confirm that the 12.1i HCP excels in this area too.

We’ve hooked the system up to our reference Denon AVC-A1H home cinema amplifier – overkill for this package, we know, but for testing purposes this AV amp will allow us to directly pinpoint the strengths of this system – and attached our Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player.

Starting with Sinners, we’re immediately drawn into the conversation between Stack and Mary thanks to the 12.1Ci’s excellent handling of dialogue. There’s plenty of low-level dynamic variation and detail to be found here, which ensures the tense exchange carries plenty of emotional charge.

The ensuing medley that swoops and swirls throughout the bar sounds impressively musical and dynamic, aided by superb cohesion between all elements of the system. There are no noticeable gaps between the channels, which sells the effect of the music flowing around the room convincingly.

At first, we feel as though the front left and right speakers sound slightly lean, but moving them closer to the wall restores a touch of richness and warmth that mitigates this apparent leanness.

Moving on to Blade Runner 2049, we use the infamously tricky chapter two sequence to test bass. Aside from the same slight fuzz on two specific sound effects that has tripped up the majority of subwoofers we’ve tested of late, the SW 10 provides impressively deep and even bass.

This low-end builds consistently throughout the sequence too, underpinned by a sense of tonal variation that helps to enhance the drama and tension of the scene.

Following on from this, we’re impressed by how this package can capture the atmospheric effects of the dystopian Los Angeles streets as Officer K returns to his apartment block.

Despite this being a strictly 5.1 package – Wharfedale does sell the 12.3Di height speakers if you wish to expand the system – the 12.1i HCP manages to convey the height and spaciousness of the scene, including the overhead projected advertisements, to an impressive degree. The sound is dispersed without sacrificing accuracy or detail.

Rounding out our testing with Dune: Part One, we find that the worm attack sequence affirms our assessment of the package. Weight, scale, spaciousness and detail are all balanced delicately, with superb dynamics underpinning the whole experience. Voices remain wonderfully natural, and the thumping drums throughout the sequence are punchy and deep.

We struggle to find any real flaws in the sound, especially at this price.

Verdict

The Wharfedale Diamond 12.1i HCP delivers a superbly immersive, detailed and grown-up sound. Its excellent sonic cohesion across the front and surround channels, mixed with an established and talented subwoofer, makes for yet another successful recipe from the brand.

Given Wharfedale's track record this may not come as a surprise, but we can still celebrate how truly fantastic this surround sound package is.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 HCP

Also consider the Wharfedale Diamond 12.3 HCP

Best surround sound systems: home cinema speakers and soundbars put to the test

For the 2026 C8L, though, TCL has introduced both its groundbreaking new Super Quantum Dot technology and a significant increase in dimming zones, applied to a new-gen version of the already excellent WHVA LCD panel designs introduced last year.

Price

Given that the C8L is the most premium TCL TV you can buy without trampolining up in price to the ‘technology showcase’ X11L and RM9L models, it generally looks like good value, both in terms of how it lines up against rival premium screens and TCL’s step-down C7L.

Ironically, given that it’s the version we’re looking at here, the one exception to this is the 65-inch set. At £1899 in the UK, it costs a whopping £700 more than the 65-inch C7L at the time of writing, while the price gaps at other sizes are much smaller.

As we’ll see, the 65C8L is still good enough to just about hold its own over the 65C7L, but its unusually large price gap is still something we have to mention.

The 65C8L’s price holds up better against those of rival backlit sets. Sony’s 65-inch Bravia 9 II costs £3499, for instance, while Hisense’s 65-inch UR9 costs £1999 and Samsung’s 65-inch R95H Micro RGB TV costs £3000.

Perhaps a bigger concern is that a 65-inch LG C6 OLED can now be bought for under £2000.

In Australia, the 65-inch C8L will set you back AU$2295, while in the US, where the set is called the QM8L, heavy discounting has already taken the price down to a very appealing $1700.

Design

The C8L isn’t the most instantly glamorous premium TV around. It’s slightly chunky around the back by modern standards, and sits somehow rather heavily on its centrally attached desktop bass. The depth is excused, though, by the fact that it provides room for both a premium direct LED lighting engine and up-firing speakers built into the screen’s top edge.

The stand, meanwhile, benefits from an appealing metallic finish and a neck attachment that lets you hide cabling behind a clip-off/on cover.

The set’s rear tapers back steeply from the screen’s outer edges, too, helping to hide its depth from normal viewing angles, while the frame around the screen is both remarkably slim and features a crisp metallic finish.

All in all, once the TV is in place, its design lets you focus on the pictures it’s producing rather than the technology producing them. Which always counts as a win with us.

The C8L ships with two remote controls. Most people will settle into using the smart metallic silver one with its stripped-back button count and built-in voice mic, but the long, thin full-number button alternative is also easy on the eye and comfortable to hold if, for some reason, you prefer all those extra buttons.

Features

The 65-inch C8L has some impressive numbers to share, starting with a huge claimed peak brightness of 5000 nits, a high local dimming zone count of 2040, and support for almost 100 per cent of the AV world’s most extreme BT.2020 colour spectrum. This is enough in itself to establish the C8L as a cut above the LCD TV norm, but it’s really just the start of this TV’s initial charms.

It also uses, for instance, TCL’s new Super Quantum Dots. These represent a major update on traditional Quantum Dots, with five different layers being squeezed into their tiny form rather than the previous two. This is claimed to result in increased efficiency, stability, brightness, colour range and colour accuracy.

These new SQDs have been integrated into the second-generation version of TCL’s new WHVA LCD panel, which introduces a whole host of advantages, including more efficient and accurate Mini LED lighting for enhanced contrast and brightness, reduced blooming from the local dimming system, extra image clarity courtesy of a reduced ‘throw distance’ from the backlighting to the screen and a faster transient response from the LEDs, plus enhanced shadow-detail handling to stop dark scenes looking hollow or flat.

As the name suggests, WHVA screens are based on VA technology, which is known for giving better contrast than the rival IPS panel technology. The W bit, though, also indicates that this premium take on VA tech from TCL is designed to support wider viewing angles than VA panels customarily do.

TCL has also introduced a mild anti-reflection filter to the C8L, though we might as well say right away that this doesn’t operate on nearly the same reflection-removing level as those on the latest top-end TVs from Samsung and Sony.

The C8L’s hardware attractions are controlled by a new version of TCL’s TSR AiPQ processor specifically optimised for the new SQD WHVA panel.

Gamers, meanwhile, can look forward to input lag of just 10.1ms, 4K/144Hz support, VRR (including in the AMD FreeSync Premium Pro format), support for refresh rates at HD resolution right up to 288Hz via HDMI’s Direct Line Gate system, and ALLM switching when a game source is detected.

All four of the C8L’s HDMI ports can handle 4K/120Hz signals, while other connections comprise a single USB 3.0 port, an optical digital audio output, an Ethernet port and RF inputs for both satellite and (Freeview HD) aerial connections.

Wireless connectivity is also available, of course, in wi-fi, Bluetooth and AirPlay 2 flavours, while the TV’s use of Google TV for its smart operating system adds built-in Chromecast.

On the subject of Google TV, TCL has ensured that, as well as all the key global video streaming services the platform usually supports, the C8L’s interface also carries the key UK terrestrial broadcaster catch-up apps that Google TV doesn’t typically offer.

The C8L supports all four of the main high dynamic range formats, too: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. So it will play the best version available of any HDR content you feed it.

Last but not least on the C8L’s lengthy list of attractions is its audio system. Designed with Bang & Olufsen, no less, it features 2.1.2 channels, including two up-firing speakers (to aid Dolby Atmos delivery) and dedicated bass drivers. There’s no direct forward-facing ‘soundbar’ along the bottom edge as you get with TCL’s flagship X11L series, though.

Picture quality

Adding more dimming zones and, especially, Super Quantum Dots to the C8L has had a transformative effect on its picture performance compared with its 2025 predecessor.

As we did with last year’s TCL C7K and C8K series, we look at the C8L alongside its step-down sibling – but this time there is no repeat of the peculiar colour inconsistency issue with the C8K, which could sometimes cause some of its colours to actually look less vibrant and natural than those of the cheaper model. On the contrary, the C8L’s colours are even punchier in the TV’s excellent Standard preset than those of the C7L – despite the C7L itself being streets ahead of most of its similarly priced rivals in the colour department.

This doesn’t mean that the C8L’s colours look overblown or inconsistent, though. TCL has seemingly taken great care to ensure that any amplification of colours its TV is delivering in its relatively vibrant presets maintains the tonal balance and overall ‘feel’ of the source content remarkably well.

The C8L’s SQD and processing capabilities ensure, too, that colours retain full saturation even in the brightest HDR picture areas, rather than brighter colours fading away as can happen with lesser TVs. Nor do the brightest, most heavily saturated HDR colour areas become cartoonish thanks to any loss of subtle shading details.

This colour blend finesse feeds into an impressively three-dimensional look to pictures, regardless of whether you’re using the TV’s Standard or as-the-director-intended Filmmaker Mode preset, as well as an outstandingly crisp, detailed look to native 4K images where you feel like you’re appreciating the full and accurate weight of every single pixel.

This sense of depth and detail isn’t just down to the C8L’s new colour engine, though. Its Mini LED plus advanced local dimming backlight system also plays a huge part in the feeling of precision and, in the Filmmaker Mode’s case, accuracy, by being able to deliver not just extreme brightness highlights and remarkably inky black colours, but every imaginable shade in between. That includes the faintest dark colour and grey details; nothing gets lost in the darkness here.

Subtle shadow details are delivered without looking noisy or exaggerated, too, revealing a level of local light control and backlight intelligence that’s still very rare in the LCD TV world.

Given how well the C8L handles the subtlest of dark scene details, it comes as little surprise to find that it also exhibits scarcely any backlight blooming at all around even the most starkly stand-out bright highlights. That’s despite those bright highlights not obviously being dimmed down when they appear against even black backdrops, and the screen’s general brightness being consistently spectacular for a fairly mainstream TV.

The C8L’s intense brightness can be felt in highlights of both Standard and Filmmaker Mode images, and it makes all bright or mid-bright scenes look breathtakingly intense and vivid in Standard mode without the results looking forced.

That isn’t to imply, though, that the Filmmaker Mode looks in any way drab. It is, of course, less bright than the Standard preset, especially with SDR content, in keeping with the relatively dim brightness values used by most of today’s content mastering studios. But Filmmaker Mode actually looks more dynamic with both SDR and HDR than such modes usually do, purely as a result of the screen’s hardware strengths and software support helping to deliver the picture attributes Filmmaker Modes demand.

With motion processing set to Low, the C8L delivers 24fps content with good sharpness, while keeping it free of excessive hardware judder, soap opera effect or general unwanted processing side effects, and the WHVA panel definitely helps the screen retain richer colours and better contrast from wide viewing angles than your average LCD TV.

The C8L’s picture heroics aren’t limited to video playback, either. It’s also an excitingly crisp, bold and responsive gaming display that you can’t help but become immersed in. Even if you’re playing the scary Silent Hill: Townfall and might want to be a bit less immersed…

The C8L’s pictures in both its Standard and Filmmaker Modes combine punchiness with naturalism, consistency and nuance so well that it’s hard to find anything serious to complain about.

However, while viewing angles are good in most ways, blooming becomes much more obvious from angles of around 30 degrees and more. The screen is also quite reflective of bright light sources in your room, even if it suppresses more general ambient light quite well.

The noise reduction features are all a bit over-aggressive and basically unnecessary (so turn them off), and the Natural Cinema motion processing mode that sounds like it should be the best option for film fans… isn’t.

Finally, we can’t help but think that the rather complicated way TCL has integrated its new ‘Eco’ power-saving features into the TV’s menus in its out-of-the-box mode might result in more than a few C8L buyers leaving their new television hobbled with greatly reduced brightness and colour. Hopefully anyone who’s read this review, at least, will take the necessary steps to make sure this unfortunate situation doesn’t happen to them.

Sound quality

The C8L continues to benefit (mostly) from TCL’s working relationship with Bang & Olufsen when it comes to its premium TVs’ sound systems.

The 2.1.2-channel sound system does a particularly good job of crafting a soundstage that extends further beyond the screen’s outer frame than most TVs manage, creating an open, immersive sense of space for movies into which the TV then places specific effects with good positional accuracy.

These effects are very clean and crisp, too, even at loud volumes, which gives the overall tone of the sound an almost hi-fi quality. That’s testament, no doubt, to the physical quality of the B&O speaker design.

There’s plenty of clean and expansive power to go with the detail and large soundstage, too, and bass is handled tastefully, for want of a better word, staying clean, even when Hollywood really hammers the low-frequency knob.

As with last year’s C8K, though, the soundstage presentation can sometimes lose a little coherency as the wrong elements in a mix get too much emphasis, and the sound generally feels like it’s happening more behind the screen than in the room with you, costing it some immediacy and directness.

Dense soundtrack moments ebb in and out at times too, and, finally, while bass is clean, it doesn’t hit quite the sort of depth we feel that it perhaps should be able to with such large low-frequency drivers available to it.

Overall, the C8L’s sound is good by prevailing TV standards, and improves on its predecessor, but it somehow still doesn’t feel like it’s getting the optimal impact from all of its undoubtedly premium audio parts.

Verdict

While the 65-inch model doesn’t represent quite such excellent value as other screen sizes in the C8L range, the addition of Super Quantum Dots and a clearly much improved backlight system still delivers a hard-to-resist upgrade from last year’s mildly disappointing C8K.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Hisense UR9

Also consider the Samsung R95H

Read our Sony Bravia 7 II review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

Naturally, going “small” means accepting a compromise on screen size and, therefore, cinematic scale. But does a smaller TV necessarily mean a less immersive viewing experience? The 48-inch LG C6 sets out to answer that question with a resounding no.

Considering we are huge fans of the 65-inch LG C6, which we reviewed back in April, this might not come as a surprise. That said, we’ve always said that picture and sound performance can vary greatly across different sizes, so the five-star performance of the 65-inch model isn’t necessarily indicative of the 48- and 42-inch versions.

Fortunately, the 48-inch C6 comes surprisingly close to matching its larger sibling, retaining much of the picture and sound performance that made the 65-inch model so impressive.

Price

The LG OLED48C6, to give it its proper title, launched at £1400 / $1600 / AU$2400 earlier this year, but frequent price drops in the UK and US have cut that down to around £1200 / $1200. Similar price drops haven’t yet appeared Down Under, unfortunately.

Competition at this level is rife, as we’re seeing more “small” OLEDs hit the market than ever before. LG itself currently offers its step-down B6 in this size for £999 / $800 / AU$1995, and a 48-inch version of the G6 is also on the market in the UK for £1399.

LG’s C-series models tend to stick around for quite some time, too, which means remaining stock of the five-star 48-inch LG C5 can still be snapped up for around £999.

LG’s archrival, Samsung, also offers its C6 equivalent, the S90H, for £1199 / $1300 / AU$1760. It presents an almost identical feature set at an almost identical price in the UK and US.

Last year’s Award-winning 48-inch OLED, the Panasonic Z90B, also remains on sale for £1199, making it a very competitive option.

Design

LG’s tried-and-true C-series design soldiers on for yet another year, and it carries forth the various pros and cons we’ve found with previous generations stretching back to 2022’s 48-inch C2.

The good news is that this is a superbly slim TV at just 4.6cm in thickness when you take into consideration the “backpack” that houses the electronics and connections. At its slimmest, the TV measures just 47mm, giving it a premium and stylish look, and the central pedestal stand means it can be placed on a narrow piece of furniture.

However, that stand still protrudes outwards in a slightly awkward way if you plan on pairing this TV with a soundbar. The smaller 42-inch C6 sports a pair of dual blade-style feet that you can squeeze a compact soundbar between.

LG has also bundled in the same Magic Remote that we’ve seen across the previous few generations of this TV. It keeps the ThinQ AI button in place of the source select – dare we say one of our least favourite changes in recent memory – and the buttons aren’t backlit; however, the scroll wheel and Nintendo Wii-style motion pointer control system are both novelties that can make interacting with the TV slightly more engaging.

Features

We’ll get straight into the panel tech, as LG could be taking an unconventional approach this year. Traditionally, the C-series has been staunchly WOLED, meaning it hasn’t adopted LG Display’s brightness-boosting Primary RGB Tandem OLED or Micro Lens Array display technology.

That changes with the C6, though. The company has essentially confirmed that the 77- and 83-inch versions sport RGB Tandem OLED panels by stating that they are ‘Brightness Booster Pro’ models rather than standard ‘Brightness Booster’ sets as per the rest of the sizes.

Rumours suggest, though, that the 48-inch C6, despite being a ‘Brightness Booster’ model, does in fact feature a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel. We have attempted to get clarification from LG Display, but have been met with the usual “we don’t talk about panel tech" line.

Our approach is to focus on performance with real-world content rather than get bogged down in product components, but our testing suggests this could indeed be a Primary RGB Tandem OLED TV.

Moving on from the display, the C6 is powered by the Alpha 11 AI Processor 4K Gen3, which keeps the webOS smart platform running smoothly while also handling picture and sound processing. LG says that its latest processor utilises a new 12-bit processing pipeline, which brings extra colour and brightness precision to the table.

On top of this is Dual AI Super Resolution, which essentially runs lower-resolution content through an AI-backed picture upscaling process twice: the first time to sharpen edges, and the second to refine texture and detail. This should sharpen up non-4K content (think Blu-rays, DVDs and streaming), resulting in a more natural look.

AI HDR Remaster is also featured. This analyses content on a frame-by-frame basis to enhance contrast, sharpness and colour. SDR content takes on a more HDR-like appearance, and HDR content will take on a “more vibrant and realistic” look.

AI Picture Pro is also on board, which uses content recognition algorithms to adapt the TV’s settings to reduce noise, optimise contrast, manage colour saturation, and sharpen faces and text. AI Sound works in a similar way, as it uses content recognition to adapt the sound settings and performance to best suit what you’re watching. The remote even features an AI button that allows users to navigate the TV and troubleshoot issues using voice commands.

The AI features don’t stop there, though, as you’ll find a bountiful feast of AI-enhanced picture and sound modes on board too. AI Picture Wizard and AI Sound Wizard allow users to select from a range of preset image and sound samples to find their ideal personalised set-up without having to dig too deep into the picture menus.

That said, we find Filmmaker Mode (in the TV’s picture settings) delivers the best results.

Moving away from the near-endless list of AI features, the C6 supports a solid set of HDR formats, including HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision. Samsung's HDR10+ isn’t supported, as per LG’s usual stance.

The Dolby support extends to audio too, as the C6 features Dolby Atmos through its built-in 2.2-channel 40W sound system, and through connected audio devices via HDMI eARC.

Speaking of HDMI, the C6 sports four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 sockets, all of which are capable of handling signals up to 4K/165Hz with VRR and ALLM. For those without a console, the C6 supports cloud gaming up to 4K/120Hz with HDR through the likes of Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox. LG touts this feature as a world-first.

webOS is also a well-equipped, if frustratingly advertisement-heavy operating system (you can turn sponsored content off in the settings, thankfully), and LG has made a few tweaks this year to make things run even smoother.

Recent inputs are easier to access; there’s a new customisable My Page menu with widgets that turns the TV into a smart display when not in use, and a new “Continue Watching” rail also adorns the home page.

App support is also practically flawless, with all of the expected domestic and international apps supported and working as expected, with quick loading times to boot.

Picture quality

As we alluded to, the 48-inch C6 bears many of the positive picture markings of its 65-inch counterpart, despite it being significantly scaled down.

We’ve plugged our trusty Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player into the C6 and selected a handful of reference 4K discs from our library, including Civil War, Pan, Blade Runner 2049 and F1: The Movie.

While selecting Filmmaker Mode from the picture menu gets us most of the way to picture excellence, we opt to enable Cinematic Movement in the TruMotion settings to eliminate the touch of judder inherent in 24fps content. Cinema Home is also a worthwhile preset to explore, for those who don’t mind sacrificing some accuracy for a punchier picture.

With these settings dialled in, it’s hard to argue that the 48-inch C6 OLED doesn’t have all of what it takes to be a truly special compact OLED TV. The combination of deep blacks, excellent contrast control and punchy highlights creates a striking image with excellent depth and solidity, as evidenced in the final battle sequence of Civil War.

Rockets and flares light up the deep black sky with bursts of brightness, and the buildings of Washington DC are rendered with a superb sense of realism and detail. Throughout the sequence, we find that the C6 balances shadow depth and detail with impressive finesse too.

Onto a more colourful sequence from Pan, the scene in which a floating pirate ship sails past some floating orbs of water, we find that the C6 is capable of delivering rich, punchy greens and blues while also retaining the natural skin tones of the children on the ship. As the ship approaches the floating island of Neverland, the concentrated brightness of the sun burns with intensity while also retaining a clearly visible circular outline.

Motion also remains a highlight. We noted that motion looked “impressively smooth and controlled without introducing obvious artefacts or drifting into the dreaded soap-opera effect” with Cinematic Motion applied on the 65-inch version of this TV, and the same can be said for the 48-inch model.

The opening sequence of Blade Runner 2049 demonstrates this nicely; a tricky panning shot, a tracking shot of a hovering drone, and a shot of Sapper Morton stepping backwards are all handled smoothly yet naturally on the C6, despite these specific shots tripping other TVs up.

Rounding out our testing with F1: The Movie, the OLED48C6 truly shines. Colourful race car liveries pop yet never look garish or overcooked, and fireworks burst with vibrancy without appearing overblown. There is no apparent stuttering or juddering as the Porsche and BMW tussle for first place, and the C6 looks wonderfully sharp without verging into over-etched territory.

Sound quality

As was the case with the 65-inch version of this TV, the 48-inch C6 seems to be a sonic step forward for LG. While this TV doesn’t perform miracles, it’s certainly an upgrade over the 48-inch C5, which we criticised for sounding “distinctly flat” and lacking definition.

The C6, on the other hand, sounds crisper, weightier and more spacious. The atmospheric effects of the dystopian Los Angeles streets are presented with a solid sense of width and detail, and while the TV doesn’t reach for the ceiling with its Dolby Atmos height effects, there is a sense of spaciousness to the audio that accompanies the floating holographic adverts beamed onto Officer K’s apartment block in Blade Runner 2049.

Most crucially, the C6 projects voices slightly more, and there is a touch more warmth and tonality, which makes listening to dialogue more engaging. Bass is also mostly well controlled, although there isn’t much in the way of depth or tonal variation.

Now, we won’t deny that even a basic soundbar will run circles around the C6’s built-in speakers, and a Dolby Atmos soundbar will provide much more authentic height effects – the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) or Beam Ultra would make a perfect accompaniment, for example – but the improvement over the last generation model is worth commending.

That is, if you steer clear of the AI Sound setting. This continues to sound oddly synthetic, and while there is the option to tailor the sound to your liking, we find that avoiding it altogether provides a more natural and balanced presentation.

Verdict

LG’s 48-inch C6 is arguably the brand’s most interesting OLED TV in recent memory. While that might sound strange when the brand is selling a TV that is slimmer than an iPhone and powered by a magical wireless box, the company’s small mid-range OLED is a true dark horse.

If our theory is correct, it’s likely the cheapest way to acquire an RGB Tandem OLED TV, and if it’s not, then we’d really like to know how LG has pumped the brightness and vibrancy up to this extent.

Regardless, it’s fully featured, talented in the picture and sound departments, and it proves that you don’t need to sacrifice a considerable chunk of your living room to achieve a cinematically satisfying experience.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the LG C5 48-inch

Also consider the LG C6 65-inch

Read our Panasonic Z90B 48-inch

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

But you can see why Sony chose this particular pair. The original WH-1000XM4 were hugely popular, so much so that they’re the first and only pair of wireless headphones to currently be featured in the What Hi-Fi? Hall of Fame.

They’re also one of the few models you regularly see when you’re in the wild, which shows the general public were quite fond of them too.

Nostalgia is all well and good, and we’re excited to have them back, but is this new version of a six-year-old model still competitive? Let’s find out.

Price

Thankfully, Sony’s seen sense when it comes to pricing the WH-1000XM4C. £219 / $300 / AU$450 keeps them away from flagship rivals from Bose, Sennheiser and Technics and positions them as an ‘entry-level’ proposition for Sony’s premium range of wireless headphones.

There’s a big enough gap between the new model and the step-up WH-1000XM6, which launched for £400 / $450 / AU$699 last year. Don’t forget Sony also now has a top-of-the-range offering, the 1000X The Collexion, which cost £550 / $650 / AU$900 and went on sale in May 2026.

Ironically, the biggest competition for the WH-1000XM4C at the time of writing is Sony’s very own WH-1000XM5, which we first tested at £380 / $399 / AU$550 back in 2022. This older flagship pair, which succeeded the XM4, can currently be found for almost half price. This puts them in the same ballpark as the new WH-1000XM4C and they will probably stay there until end-of-life, which Sony has told us is likely to be around February 2027.

Design & build

To all intents and purposes, the design and build of the WH-1000XM4C are virtually identical to that of the original model. During testing, we have a pair of the original XM4 on hand, just so we can compare the two, which gives us an excuse for a quick game of spot the difference.

The changes are subtle, with the Sony logo now more of a silver colour than rose gold. You also get the letters ‘L’ and ‘R’ stamped on the inner mesh of each earcup so you immediately know which way round they need to be. The model name has been removed from the bottom edge of the headband, and the ‘custom’ button has been renamed ‘NC/Ambient’ which better reflects its function.

The button positioning hasn’t changed, so you’ll still find this and the power/pairing button towards the lower edge of the left earcup. The USB-C charging socket is on the right cup.

The key difference is internal, but not where you might think. The driver is the same 40mm unit that was used in the original XM4.

It’s the battery that has seen the biggest change. Or should that be smallest? Sony has added a smaller battery which is now removable and means the headphones now comply with the EU battery regulation (EU) 2023/1542.

This new regulation comes into force in February 2027 and stipulates that portable batteries need to be able to be removed by the end user. This wasn’t possible with the original XM4 model. And before you ask, yes, the smaller battery does mean you get shorter battery life, but more on that later.

Generally speaking, though, the headphones look and feel virtually identical. According to the specs, there’s only one gram difference in terms of weight, with the new model being a tiny bit lighter, but you’re not going to notice this either in-hand or, more importantly, on your head.

These headphones feel just as sturdy as we remember them. The black finish of our review sample has an identical matte texture, which is smooth and premium-feeling. The plastic buttons feel the same quality, as does the padding on both the earpads and headband.

We find the WH-1000XM4C comfortable for both short and long listening sessions, which is just what you want for headphones of this type, especially if they’re going to be your main travel buddy. They don’t grip your head as strongly as their pricier WH-1000XM6 siblings, but it’s still very good for daily use.

The WH-1000XM4C are hinged and fold up properly, which is great news if you prefer this kind of portability over the store-flat design of the WH-1000XM5. They come with a sturdy carry case (the design of which has been tweaked ever so slightly) which includes a 3.5mm headphone cable inside for wired listening.

Sony has introduced a new lavender finish for the XM4C, which goes with the standard platinum silver (which Sony claims is a little lighter than before) and black options. There’s no midnight blue variant, which is a finish Sony introduced for XM4 during its life cycle.

Features

As we touched on previously, the introduction of a smaller battery has affected the battery life of the WH-1000XM4C compared to the original model. It’s down from 30 hours to 27 hours with ANC on, although we don’t think it's likely to put too many buyers off.

The headphones feature Sony’s DSEE Extreme engine, which has been around since the original XM4 and aims to upscale compressed music to near hi-res quality. It also adds a splash of artificial intelligence technology (called Edge-AI), which claims to analyse and give a more accurate presentation of the music being played.

The WH-1000XM4C get Bluetooth 6.0 support and offer Multipoint Bluetooth, but there’s still no aptX or aptX HD support. This isn’t a major surprise as Sony’s headphones tend to steer clear of these codecs, instead favouring their own LDAC option for higher-quality streaming from compatible sources.

The usability features at your disposal with the original model make a return, such as Speak-To-Chat and Quick Attention. The former enables their transparency mode by just speaking, while the latter lowers the volume of your music when you cover the right earcup so you can quickly hear your surroundings.

They’re both nice to have but not imperative to the user experience.

Noise-cancelling & call quality

The headphones are once again powered by the same HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1, which featured on the XM4 (which has since been superseded in newer models like XM5 and XM6) and call upon Sony’s Personal NC Optimiser to maximise the noise cancelling performance.

Give the NC/Ambient button a long press to kick the Optimiser into gear, and the Sonys will run a quick auto-calibration program by firing a couple of test tones in the direction of your ears before the algorithm works out the best ANC for your listening environment.

And we can report that the noise cancelling from the WH-1000XM4C is very competitive. We certainly have no real issues using them out and about, and whether they’re given the task of subduing a coffee machine and chatter in a busy cafe, or the drone and rumble of a bus engine, the Sonys do a very good job.

Yes, the ANC systems of more expensive wireless headphones are more finessed when push comes to shove, but you can’t really argue with what you’re getting for the money here.

With phone calls, it’s a similar story. Our voices come through with a good level of clarity and expression. Exterior noise doesn’t intrude too much, and we don’t sound robotic, distorted or muffled, which can happen with poorer-performing mic systems. We actually think the XM4C do a slightly better job of suppressing wind noise than their predecessors.

Sound

It doesn’t take long for us to remember why we were such huge fans of the original Sony WH-1000XM4. It was the impressive and infectious sense of musicality that got under our skin, and the WH-1000XM4C delivers it in spades.

We start with a blast of electronic dance music in the form of Turn On the Lights Again by Fred Again… and Swedish House Mafia, and it’s not long before our head is bobbing along in agreement with the headphones and their infectious sense of timing.

They’re a hugely enjoyable and entertaining listen. There’s something about the way they combine dynamics, detail and rhythm that keeps you entertained from the first second to the last.

The deep, wallowing bass notes that surface as the track progresses impress with their depth, but they’re dextrous and neatly defined.

Sprinkle in an open, precise vocal and some punchy, projectile electronica, and we soon find ourselves caught in a musical trance.

We take that energy and add a huge dollop of attitude by playing Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name, and the WH-1000XM4C deliver more of the same.

We are talking powerful, solid drum thwacks, tight guitar strings and an expressive vocal all sat on a quiet background. The opening salvo of the track delivers explosive drum play, a tidily delivered guitar riff and a couple of clear, nicely defined taps on a cowbell.

The XM4C sound as balanced as you could hope for from a pair of wireless headphones at this level. You can access a ten-band equaliser through Sony’s Sound Connect app should you want to play around with their sonic balance, but we really don’t think it’s necessary.

Compared to the original XM4, the WH-1000XM4C do sound better – Sony has tightened the bass ever so slightly, sharpening and cleaning the edges, and you’re also getting a slightly more open sound.

But this hasn’t been done at the expense of cohesiveness or bass weight: there’s still plenty of heft in reserve, but we think it’s better controlled this time around.

They’re just so fun and musical, whatever your sonic taste. We switch to the slow-burning Day One track from the Interstellar OST, and there’s a real delicacy to the piano playing at the start of the track. The low-level dynamics from each keystroke really shine through.

Background noise is kept to a minimum, and when the rest of the orchestra starts to bleed into the picture, you can hear the Sonys step in to extract an impressive amount of detail. Edges of notes are nicely defined, and it’s a convincing presentation.

When the track starts to swell from below and stretch up high courtesy of the strings and organ, the headphones move on the same trajectory, delivering a rocketship’s worth of dynamics.

Verdict

A 1000X model is normally introduced as a flagship proposition from Sony, so seeing the WH-1000XM4C arrive in 2026 as an ‘entry-level’ premium model takes a little getting used to, but listen to them and it all makes sense.

If you don’t want to stretch into that upper tier of wireless headphones where Sennheiser, Bose and even Sony themselves sit, the WH-1000XM4C are going to be more than enough headphone for most people.

They’re a great blend of performance, features and comfort at a competitive price. An easy recommendation at this level.

Review published: 5th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Comfort 5

MORE:

Also consider the Sony WH-1000XM5

For a cheaper pair, read our Sony WH-CH730N review

Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

Even with competitive pricing and specifications, plenty of soundbars fail to make much of a splash in the expansive home cinema ocean.

But will Samsung’s new model suffer the same fate? The brand is quite confident about its soundbar, stating that the HW-QS90H delivers “cinema-quality sound from one sleek soundbar”.

Those are bold words, but the brand has a strong history of offering immersive sound, as exemplified by the five-star HW-Q990H premium soundbar package. Can the newest entrant deliver on its promises?

Price

The HW-QS90H is widely available for £799 / $899 (around AU$1500).

That puts it in the same ballpark as the Award-winning Sonos Arc Ultra, which you can find for £849 / $899 / AU$1585. Immediately, this is tough competition for the Samsung bar, as the Arc Ultra scored highly for its impressive level of detail, clarity and precision.

The QS90H also has its sights set on the five-star Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9, which we liked for its solidity and dynamics. It is available for around £999 in the UK, although it comes in at a higher price of $1499 / AU$1799 in the US and Australia, respectively.

Design

If you have lived with a Samsung soundbar before, you will certainly feel at home with the QS90H. It mirrors the look of the HW-Q990H system’s bar, sporting a similar grey plastic grille on the top, while a perforated surface wraps around the side.

While it’s neat and practical, it's fair to say that the QS90H’s design looks a little bit too familiar. Samsung’s soundbar range could do with a glow up.

Still, the bar feels well-built and premium, and its inconspicuous design blends reasonably well into our test room.

The bar is 125cm long, which is almost the same width as the 65-inch TV with which we are testing it. It would still look perfectly acceptable with a 50- or 55-inch screen.

At 7cm tall, the QS90H will fit in front of the majority of TVs without blocking your view, but just make sure you have enough space under the TV if you are not wall-mounting.

Features

The Samsung bar offers flexible positioning. It can be placed flat on top of a media unit for a traditional soundbar set-up, or you can turn it 180 degrees and mount the base of the unit against the wall.

An onboard gyroscope determines which orientation it's in and adjusts which drivers are activated for their required task. For example, the front-facing and upward-firing drivers switch roles depending on positioning.

The QS90H boasts 13 drivers in total. These are configured in a 7.1.2-channel arrangement. Samsung states that there are nine wide-range drivers inside the bar, which are supported by four dedicated woofers.

The QS90H is compatible with a handful of Samsung-specific features, including Q Symphony, which pairs the bar with your Samsung TV's built-in speakers, and Eclipsa Audio, which is the company's own immersive spatial audio format – though it's currently limited to YouTube videos rather than movies and TV shows.

On the subject of immersive audio, the QS90H does, of course, support Dolby Atmos, with the dedicated up-firing drivers mentioned above allowing height effects to be beamed overhead rather than virtualised. On top of that, DTS:X is on board, which isn’t the case with the rival Sonos Arc Ultra.

Bluetooth 5.3 and wi-fi are also available. In terms of physical connectivity, there is one dedicated HDMI input as well as an HDMI eARC port, inside a cable cove around the back.

HDMI video passthrough is limited to 60Hz, not 120Hz, which will be a drawback for hardcore gamers who demand 4K/120Hz performance and lack spare HDMI 2.1 sockets on their TV.

You can connect the soundbar to the SmartThings app to customise your listening experience. That lets you turn on Smartfit Sound Pro, which uses the soundbar’s built-in microphones to automatically calibrate the sound to your space.

A plethora of AI features are present, too, including Active Voice Amplifier Pro, which enhances dialogue clarity in louder environments.

Of course, there is also the option to adjust the volume, output, and access advanced EQ controls through the app. It’s all pretty painless to navigate, and it connects to our various devices quickly.

If you don’t want to be looking at your phone too much while changing the settings, you can use the included remote control.

Sound

When we boot up the Samsung QS90H, we are met with a big, expansive sound that fills our test room.

Playing Top Gun: Maverick in Dolby Atmos (in the bar’s Surround mode), the thrum of jets zooming across the screen is delivered with an impressive level of width that feels like it wraps around us. The bar tracks the movement of the plane around the soundfield pretty well, resulting in a good sense of precision that adds to the overall sense of scale.

The sense of height is impressive as well, and the jets can be felt almost above the listening position – it sounds almost as if there’s a speaker in the ceiling.

Moving to Baby Driver (also in Dolby Atmos), dialogue is crisp and clean. When the titular Baby is chatting up his crush Debora at the diner, though, the soundbar lacks the dynamic finesse needed to make dialogue sound as realistic as rivals, and it comparatively struggles to capture the subtleties of their expression.

We turn on the Voice Enhancement feature, which brings vocals forward to make them clearer, but this causes the sound to feel less natural. We opt to keep it off.

The opening scene of Baby Driver is given an injection of energy from the soundbar’s bass delivery. The low end goes pretty deep, which means you can feel the revving of engines in your feet.

While the bass is strong, though, it is not the most refined. The Sonos Arc Ultra delivers its bass with greater subtlety. The Bass Enhancement feature makes the lower frequencies more prominent in the mix, but we leave it off as it results in a more overwhelming and off-balance overall sound.

There’s a fair amount of detail in the scene, as the squeak of windscreen wipers and the pressing of pedals are clear without being distracting.

The soundbar can reach pretty high volume levels. But when pushed hard, it becomes uncomfortably harsh and edgy. This is not a problem at most sensible listening levels; just don’t crank it up to its maximum limit.

We turn to music by connecting to Qobuz via Bluetooth, and switch to Standard mode to make the presentation more direct.

Listening to At Least I’m Hot by Renee Rapp, the bass gives the track a strong foundation and immediately gets our toes tapping. Rapp’s vocals sound a touch harsh at the loudest moments, though, and compared with the Sonos Arc Ultra, the delivery does not sound quite as emotive and musical.

While the Sonos bar cannot go as deep as the Samsung model, it counters with a more expressive and cohesive overall sound that hangs together more effectively.

Verdict

The Samsung QS90H is a solid performer that will provide a big jump in quality for people currently relying on their TV's built-in speakers.

It’s not as refined or dynamically expressive as the rival Arc Ultra, but it still delivers an engaging and expansive sound experience that is well worth considering, especially if you find it discounted.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Design 5
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Arc Ultra

Also consider the Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 9

Read our Samsung HW-Q990H

Best Dolby Atmos soundbars: our reviewers' five recommendations

The Award-winning WH-CH720N may not have been Sony’s most premium over-ear wireless headphones, but these budget cans proved that great sound and stellar noise-cancelling were available at a sensible, affordable price. For pure sound-for-pound value, few contemporaries came close.

Following such excellence is like walking on stage after Jimi Hendrix has just played his iconic Woodstock set, or donning the famous Number 10 jersey after Lionel Messi bade farewell to that peerless Barcelona side. That is the task of the WH-CH730N, Sony’s successors to the excellent CH720N and the brand’s most affordable headphones to feature active noise cancellation.

Thankfully, the new Sony WH-CH730N appear to be up to the task. With a new look, an expanded feature set and a fine-tuned sound, they appear to have everything that it takes to pick up the gauntlet laid down by their predecessors and really run with it.

Price

We have some bad news for our US readers: the WH-CH730N are more expensive than their predecessors. The WH-CH720N launched at $129, whereas the WH-CH730N have arrived at $180, making them around $50 more if you’re in the States.

Don’t be too glum, as it’s not all bad news. If you live in Australia, the WH-CH730N are actually cheaper than before, dropping from AU$250 to AU$230, while UK readers can rest easy knowing that the new cans are priced at £100, the same initial RRP as their forebears.

At this level, the WH-CH730N are reasonably short on competition. The excellent Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT remain a quality pick at £129 / $129 / AU$255, but they don’t offer active noise cancellation (ANC). If you want to go cheaper, the new budget WH-CH530 on-ears are now available at £50 / $70 / AU$100, but also don’t have ANC, while the step-up Sony WH-1000XM4C have launched at £219 / $300 / AU$450.

Build & comfort

This is where we thought the WH-CH720N could stand to be improved, and lo and behold, this appears to be where Sony has been putting in the hard yards.

The new cans’ more premium look and feel belies their modest outlay, with their predecessors' basic plastic ear cups replaced by larger, more oval alternatives that have a greater air of quality about them. The on-cup button controls still feel a little cheap and plasticky, but they do their respective jobs just fine, and that’s what really matters at this kind of money.

Better still, the new budget Sonys are more ergonomic to live with thanks to their new folding capabilities, a talent that was lacking in the rigid WH-CH720N. We’ve spent time taking the WH-CH730N out and about on our travels – on a train to the office, in a bag on the way to work, on dog walks – and we haven’t perceived any glaring points of weakness or concern.

Even those hinges, which swivel from side to side and now up and inwards, feel like they could repeat such motions for many years before giving up the ghost.

Comfort-wise, we’re in good hands. Both the headband and ear cushions are reasonably forgiving and well padded for headphones of this type and price, while a reasonably slim profile and light overall weight of just 207g means they’re not much of a burden during extended wear. The clamping force is nicely judged, too, with our sample pair clinging nicely to our skull as we take them for a brisk walk with Juno the What Hi-Fi? hound in tow.

The WH-CH730N are a little heavier than before, yet not to the extent that your head suddenly feels like Atlas straining to hold up the heavens. Plus, their ear cushions are now fuller and plusher, which aids comfort and improves passive noise isolation.

Internally, not much has changed from one generation to the next. The CH730N retain the same 30mm dynamic drive units as the last-gen model, with Sony promising improved sonic tuning to squeeze out even more performance from an Award-winning formula.

Features

Modest price, monster battery life.

The WH-CH730N boast a huge 50 hours of battery life when ANC is in play, which extends to a gigantic 75 hours with noise cancelling switched off – which certainly surpasses the previous generation’s figures. Better still, a three-minute quick charge will grant around an hour of playback, a useful facility if you’ve run out of juice and need to get your headphones back in action in a hurry.

Despite their modest outlay, the new over-ears also pack the kind of extra – dare we say premium – features to make a money-conscious buyer feel positively spoiled. Bluetooth Multipoint lets you stay connected and switch between two devices on the fly, whereas Sony's ever-helpful DSEE sound upscaling algorithm cleans up low-quality, heavily compressed audio files.

There’s even support for 360 Reality Audio, Sony’s own take on spatial sound, from supported streaming services such as Amazon Music Unlimited, a feature we wouldn’t expect to find for a pair of over-ears at this kind of money. Add active noise cancelling into the mix, and you’ve got a set of headphones that do a lot for not much cash.

The only thing that might raise a few eyebrows is the absence of any higher-quality codecs, such as aptX HD or LDAC, but given the budget price at which we’re operating, the omission is understandable.

Delve into the comprehensive Sony SoundConnect app, and you’ll find even more tricks and treats to enjoy. Aside from an intuitive 10-band equaliser and ANC mode toggling, you can set up a shortcut to the likes of Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music via a ‘Quick Access’ button, or use a ‘Battery Care’ setting to extend your headphones’ lifespan by stopping charging before the battery gets completely full.

ANC & call quality

Sony has claimed clearer voice calls for the WH-CH730N thanks to its updated AI noise reduction algorithm, which seeks to enhance human speech while dampening the clamour of the outside world.

The new headphones’ noise cancelling has been improved, too, with a refined V1 processor and ‘Dual Noise Sensor' technology working alongside an array of four beamforming microphones and thicker, more isolating ear cushions to keep environmental noise at bay.

As far as noise cancelling goes, we’re granted a satisfactory experience. Naturally, the flagship WH-1000XM6 cans are more powerful, but the WH-CH730N keep the general background hum of life – distant chatter, buzzing light fittings, passing traffic – nicely subdued.

The barrier they provide, however, isn’t impenetrable, and while this is a good sound-per-pound performance, blind spots arise. Sit in an office with a few chattering co-workers, and you’ll soon realise that, while nearby voices are softened, speech is still often discernible.

If you don’t want the full details of your colleagues’ plans to redecorate their downstairs bathroom or their kids’ upcoming school play, it might be worth saving up for a more premium and capable ANC pair.

What about voice calls? In this regard, Sony’s wallet-friendly noise cancellers are excellent, with human speech conveyed in a clear, natural and emotive manner. We get a firm sense of the headphones pushing voices to the fore, all while effectively minimising intrusive background noise as we conduct our testing next to a busy road.

Sound

For a few brief, sickening moments, we fear that Sony has taken a good thing and ruined it. Out of the box, the new WH-CH730N don’t seem to have the energy, presence or clarity of their Award-winning predecessors, and that’s enough to make a grown man shed salt tears.

Thankfully, our fears are soon allayed. The new-gen headphones’ default tuning is a little muffled and bass-heavy, but once we dive into the Sony app and switch them to the ‘Clear’ equaliser setting, things quickly sound far more open and revealing. We’d urge you to do the same, and while you’re there, make sure DSEE upscaling is up and running, because for us at least, it wasn’t switched on right off the bat.

After making the aforementioned tweaks, and giving them plenty of running-in time to really loosen up, our consternation turns to elation as it becomes clear that Sony has done it again – the WH-CH730N are stellar cans and then some.

Let’s be clear that this is evolution rather than wholesale reinvention, with the WH-CH730N taking everything we liked about the WH-C720N and refining it to superb effect. The newer headphones are clearer, more natural-sounding and a little more full-bodied than before, offering a presentation that expertly rides the line between punch and precision.

Like the brand’s best offerings, the WH-CH730N just seem to tune straight into the emotional intent of each song they play and then reveal it with enthusiastic élan. From artist to artist and track to track, Sony’s budget noise cancellers sound effortlessly involving regardless of what is played through them.

Feeling sad? The WH-CH730N bring a rich, sombre melancholy to Johnny Cash’s Hurt. Need a pick-me-up? Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal is as sharp and snappy as Jacko’s pristine white suit. Want to headbang until your nose bleeds? Trivium’s Like Light To The Flies pulses with thrilling intent.

Admittedly, these are headphones that slightly prioritise entertainment over out-and-out insight, but at this level, that’s both understandable and expected. That said, instrumental textures are still conveyed with power and depth, with the Sonys capably filling in the gaps to prevent music from sounding blocky or unsubtle.

Best of all, Sony’s budget belters have a double-sided trump card. Dynamically, they’re hugely expressive, while rhythmic patterns are revealed with all of the agility of a Border Collie at Crufts. Put the two together, and Tool’s progressive Forty Six & 2 becomes a three-dimensional powerhouse as the WH-CH730N convey every subtle dynamic variation while tracking interlocking bass and guitar strands with zealous precision.

Verdict

These Sony headphones are a delight. If your budget doesn’t stretch to the upper echelons of the market’s premium players but you still want decent noise cancelling and an expressive, deeply engaging sound, these are great-value headphones.

The Sony CH730N retain the same articulate, entertaining character that we so admired in their highly recommendable predecessors and elevate it to new heights, while still keeping it at a price that is acceptable to many. For a budget pair, they come highly recommended.

Review published: 2nd October

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT

Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

More than three decades on, the current PMC MB2 SE mirrors that early monitor’s formula right down to its brutal appearance, formidable cabinet size and drive unit array. Of course, PMC hasn’t been idle over those decades, with the current design featuring improved ingredients across the board that take in everything the brand has learnt over the years.

Design & build

Technically, the PMC MB2 SE is a standmount design, but at 87cm tall it is not that much shorter than many of the floorstanders that pass through our test room. Make no mistake, this is a huge speaker, measuring 38cm wide and over half a metre deep.

A single MB2 SE is as visually obtrusive as a washing machine, and you need two of them for stereo, of course. Those with modestly-sized listening rooms need not apply.

The MB2 SE is a three-way design. It combines a 27mm Sonolex soft-dome tweeter, a 75mm doped-linen dome midrange, and a rather distinctive 31cm Radial doped-paper bass driver, with crossover points set at 3.8kHz and 380Hz. Connection is made via three sets of chunky binding posts.

Those spokes in front of the bass cone aren’t just there to look impressive. They serve to dissipate heat generated in the motor system when working at high volume levels with bass-heavy source material.

We suspect such considerations are unnecessary for normal domestic use. But it is nice to know the speakers can cope if you go nuts with the volume level during a spirited listening session.

The use of transmission-line bass loading has been baked into PMC’s products from the beginning, so it is no surprise to see the technique used here. The company has long promoted this configuration to be the most effective way to achieve clean, low-distortion bass output from a box speaker.

The rear-firing output from the MB2 SE’s bass unit travels down a folded, carefully damped path inside the cabinet. As this signal passes through, most of the sound gets absorbed, leaving only the lowest frequencies to emerge from the substantial vent at the top of the front baffle.

Importantly, this low-frequency sound is in phase with the bass unit’s forward output, and if properly tuned, fills in below the point where the woofer starts to tail off. The transmission line inside the MB2 SE has an effective length of 3m.

A further advantage of such a design is that it adds internal bracing inside the enclosure, making the structure impressively rigid. The MB2 SE is beautifully made and finished to a high standard, just as its hefty price tag demands.

It is available in four lovely real wood finishes: the Grand Walnut of our review samples, Amarone, Natural Oak and Jet Black. But rather like a gorilla dressed in a tuxedo, none of these come close to hiding the design’s studio heritage. We can’t imagine anyone calling it a stylish design, but we still warm to the MB2 SE’s brutal yet entirely functional appearance.

Any speaker at this level positively demands top-class partnering equipment. Our sources are Naim’s ND 555/555 PS DR music streamer and Technics SL-1000R/Kiseki Purpleheart MC record player feeding a Burmester 088/911 Mk III pre/power amplifier.

We also try PMC’s Cor integrated amplifier to see how the speakers cope with more modest but still capable amplification. Our speaker benchmarks are ATC’s SCM50 speakers and a pair of Marten Audio Parker Duo Diamond standmounts.

It will come as no surprise to find that such a big speaker shines brightest when given plenty of space to breathe. Our main test room is 3 x 7 x 5m (hwd) in size, which is reasonable by general standards but probably at the lower end of acceptability for these monitors.

We end up with them around a metre into the room, and slightly angled in so that the tweeter axis crosses a little behind us when we are seated in the main listening position.

Sound

Set up in this way, these PMC speakers deliver an expansive soundstage with instruments and environmental acoustic clues nicely focused. There is a pleasing resolution of depth information and an impressive degree of image stability when the music gains in complexity, or the volume level rises.

It is fair to say that the soundstage doesn’t quite float free of those substantial cabinets in the manner that smaller alternatives such as the Marten speakers manage, but it is still good enough to avoid complaint.

Given their size, it is fair to expect that these PMC speakers can go loud and deliver deep bass, and they do. We play an old favourite, Setting Sun by the Chemical Brothers, and the MB2 SE have a ball. They play loud, way louder than we would ever need, yet remain wonderfully refined and composed when doing so. They don’t harden up or become edgy when pushed.

It all adds up to a lovely sense of ease, where the listener can relax knowing that the speakers can cope with whatever is thrown at them.

Then there is the bass. The MB2 SE are a great advert for transmission lines. If engineered poorly, such designs can sound uneven and ponderous, but PMC’s experience has delivered a performance that ticks all the boxes as far as low-end performance is concerned.

As we run through our array of bass-torture tracks from Hans Zimmer’s soundtracks for Interstellar, The Dark Knight and Inception to Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol.1, we can’t help but sit back in awe at what these speakers can do.

They dig impressively deep, yet combine that with a blend of power, finesse and tunefulness that is rare. There is a degree of authority on offer that is a match for anything we have had in our test rooms.

The speakers’ excellent bass gives a firm foundation for the rest of the frequency range. Voices come through with impressive clarity and definition. These PMC speakers are as insightful as they come through the midrange, but unlike many such high-resolution designs, they don’t filter out the natural warmth and body of voices. As we listen to Sade’s Diamond Life, we can’t help but admire the speakers’ skill in resolving vocal textures and the dynamic nuances that communicate emotion.

Orchestral crescendos and other larger-scale dynamic shifts are handled with equal finesse. Once again, we note the speakers’ composure and the apparent ease with which they go from loud to quiet and back again.

As a bonus, we are happy to note that the MB2 SE sound good at quiet volumes too, with the bass staying present and balanced with the rest of the frequency range to a surprising degree. If you are looking for ideal late-night speakers, consider these.

Verdict

The PMC MB2 SE are surprisingly capable all-rounders. Their size and driver array correctly foreshadow their sonic muscularity, whether we are talking about loudness capability or bass extension.

However, we weren’t expecting them to be so refined and insightful. Sure, they are hugely transparent and will uncover shortcomings in both the partnering electronics and source material with ease. However, they never forget to put the music first.

If you have the space and system to do them justice, these are speakers you really have to hear. We are utterly charmed by them.

Review published: 1st October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Compatibility 4

MORE:

Read our review of the ATC SCM 100A

Also consider the Wilson Benesch A.C.T. 3Zero

Read our YG Acoustics Carmel 3

Best bookshelf speakers: top standmounts for every budget tested

To see if they can repeat that success in the tough premium over-ears category, Technics has imbued its new flagship wireless headphones – the EAH-A1000 – with a refined design and plenty of new driver technology inspired by its hi-fi speakers and five-star earbuds. Has it done the job?

Price

The Technics EAH-A1000 launches at £399 / $449 / AU$699, which puts it right in the midst of some fiercely competitive territory. The class leaders in this bracket include the five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 at £400 / $500 / AU$1000, while the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 can be found for £349 / $450 / AU$699.

Bowers & Wilkins’ Px7 S3 and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) are also available at the same kind of money, so consumers aren’t short of high-quality choices at this premium end, where mainstream players mingle.

Design & comfort

These are a rather lovely pair of headphones. Where the predecessor EAH-A800 looked quite blocky, the EAH-A1000 has a much sleeker, more elegant look. The metal accents and refined contours on the headphones make them look and feel quite luxurious, as does the generous padding on both the headband and ear cups.

The headband is easy to adjust, and the inside of the ear cups is quite roomy, with plush memory foam ear cushions that hug your head quite snugly, but without any undue pressure. Technics has paid quite a lot of attention to the design and comfort of the A1000, with care taken over the metal ‘flow arm’ slider and hinges, and the angle of the ear cups so that there is an even pressure across the head when wearing them.

The headphones feel robust but also quite lightweight, and we find them to be a comfortable fit across the review team’s head sizes, even for those who wear glasses. Compared with the relatively slim profile of the Sony XM6 or Sonos Ace Ultra, the larger ear cups of the A1000 do stick out a fair bit, but overall they’re so nice and comfortable to wear that we don’t mind once they’re on our head.

The headphones fold up into a ball, too, which makes them easy to carry in a bag. They’re available in black or the nice silver/white colour of our review sample; Technics calls this colour ‘Platinum Greige’, but we’re going to ignore that.

Instead of any touch controls, Technics offers physical controls that are easy to use on the right ear cup. There are buttons for power and Bluetooth pairing, another one for changing the noise mode, and a multi-function slider control for changing volume, playing and pausing music, and summoning voice assistants.

They all work instantly with our commands, although we feel the slider control’s action could be more definite and feel more precise. It feels a little like a loose tooth on our sample, which mars the otherwise classy experience of using the A100.

Features

We must commend how swiftly the A1000 pairs with our source devices, with the connection remaining stable throughout our testing and reconnecting to our iPhone 16 without a hitch. Like their EAH-AZ100 earbuds counterparts, the A1000 over-ears feature three-way multi-point Bluetooth, which means you can be connected to three sources simultaneously and switch between them seamlessly – rivals are still limited to two devices only.

The A1000 supports the LDAC codec, allowing for higher-quality streams from compatible smartphones or portable music players such as the Sony NW-A306 and Astell & Kern SR35. Be warned that using the higher bandwidth LDAC disables certain features (such as the aforementioned three-way connection) and has a knock-on effect on battery life.

When listening using the standard AAC/SBC codecs, as we do for the majority of our testing with an iPhone 16, the battery life is an impressive 45 hours with ANC turned on. Turned off, this extends to a massive 90 hours. Those numbers are strong – they easily surpass the 30 hours offered by the Sony WH-1000XM6 and rivals from Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, although the Sennheiser HDB 630 still takes the lead at 60 hours with ANC turned on. We barely had to recharge the A1000 during our time with them, but a 15-minute charge does handily give you four hours of juice.

You can listen to the Technics EAH-A1000 using a wired USB-C connection, too – just note that the headphones need to be powered on to listen in this mode. You get two cables included in the hard carry case: a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable, and a USB-C to USB-C lead for audio and charging.

We must commend how swiftly the A1000 pairs with our source devices, with the connection remaining stable throughout our testing and reconnecting to our iPhone 16 without a hitch. Like their EAH-AZ100 earbuds counterparts, the A1000 over-ears feature three-way multi-point Bluetooth, which means you can be connected to three sources simultaneously and switch between them seamlessly – rivals are still limited to two devices only.

The A1000 supports the LDAC codec, allowing for higher-quality streams from compatible smartphones or portable music players such as the Sony NW-A306 and Astell & Kern SR35. Be warned that using the higher bandwidth LDAC disables certain features (such as the aforementioned three-way connection) and has a knock-on effect on battery life.

When listening using the standard AAC/SBC codecs, as we do for the majority of our testing with an iPhone 16, the battery life is an impressive 45 hours with ANC turned on. Turned off, this extends to a massive 90 hours. Those numbers are strong – they easily surpass the 30 hours offered by the Sony WH-1000XM6 and rivals from Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, although the Sennheiser HDB 630 still takes the lead at 60 hours with ANC turned on. We barely had to recharge the A1000 during our time with them, but a 15-minute charge does handily give you four hours of juice.

You can listen to the Technics EAH-A1000 using a wired USB-C connection, too – just note that the headphones need to be powered on to listen in this mode. You get two cables included in the hard carry case: a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable, and a USB-C to USB-C lead for audio and charging.

ANC & call quality

The EAH-A1000’s adaptive ANC performance uses four mics per side to adjust the noise levels according to your surrounding environment. In the app, you can choose the level of ANC on a scale of 0 to 100, or leave it in adaptive mode – curiously, we find that the adaptive mode does a better job of reducing rumbling traffic noise than full ANC.

The A1000’s noise-cancelling does a fine job of damping down surrounding noises – from train engines to traffic noises – enough that we can concentrate on our music. We spent a long-haul flight from Tokyo to London with the Technics headphones acting as a good buffer between our music and the plane’s engines (the plush cushioning helps here too), although frequent flyers might want even deeper, low-frequency rumbles to be silenced.

However, we are more aware of the sudden whoosh of passing cars and of background chatter here than on rivals, with the Sony XM6 dealing with such midrange and high-frequency noises more effectively. You can also feel the pressure of Technics’ ANC technology working hard when in adaptive ANC mode, which some may not like compared with Sony’s more natural, less-processed effect.

The customisable Ambient/transparency mode keeps you aware of your surroundings in a way that doesn’t feel too artificially amplified, while a further ‘attention’ mode enhances voices, so you never miss train announcements. The latter’s effect is more obviously processed, and we think the standard Ambient mode does the job well enough.

Call quality is a high point on the A1000, with our voices coming through clearly and with next-to-no background noise seeping through. We stand on a busy road during rush hour, and the caller on the other end can’t hear any traffic noise distracting from our voice. The Sony XM6 rival makes our voice sound fuller and more natural, but they also allow more background noise to cut through.

Sound

The biggest update Technics has made in its new flagship over-ear headphones is to do with the newly developed driver technologies. The Magnetic Fluid Driver technology worked so well for the AZ100 earbuds, it’s being used here again, albeit modified for the larger 40mm drivers in the A1000 over-ears. This aims to keep the movement of the driver consistent and reduce unwanted vibrations, without adding unnecessary mass.

The diaphragm is made of a lightweight yet rigid pure carbon fibre material, which, coupled with the driver’s cone shape and the SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge taken from Technics’ hi-fi speakers, aims to deliver a fast, accurate response with reduced distortion.

A redesigned acoustic control chamber further helps to manage airflow, with Technics promising a more natural soundfield for its “high precision music reproduction” to flourish.

Put it all together, and we’re met with a sound that is clear, spacious and very detailed.

Play Fallin’ by Alicia Keys, and her vocals soar in an open and roomy soundstage. The rough and raw edges of her singing come through with clarity and refinement, and the top notes have plenty of headroom to shine. Switch to Limit To Your Love by James Blake, and there is a satisfying amount of depth and solidity underpinning both his voice and the deep, plunging bass. The A1000’s presentation is full-bodied, with ample detail to voices and instruments giving them an immediacy that holds your attention.

Every instrument in The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five is fairly easy to place, with the robust, tuneful saxophone appropriately taking the spotlight, while the sharper hi-hats and snares in the background hit with crispness but don’t intrude unduly upon the composition. The overall sound is clean and clear – Technics has done a fine job at keeping distortion levels low, which means we don’t mind listening at louder volumes, either.

There is a sweetness and smoothness to the sound. This characteristic doesn’t attempt to gloss over any cracks or try to smother any harder edges; it simply makes for a refined balance that is appealing to listen to from the get-go.

While not obviously lacking in energy, we do wish the A1000 had a bit more verve and attack when required. The rival Sony XM6 and Sennheiser HDB 630 headphones counter with a more propulsive, driven sense of rhythm that sounds more musically coherent, with low-level dynamics handled with a bit more agility. The start and stop of notes could be more precisely defined on the Technics, with bass notes, while deep and fulsome, sounding just a touch soft around the edges.

They are simply more comfortable staying on the polite, gentler side of the fence rather than getting their hands dirty.

Despite this, the A1000’s sense of organisation and level of detail retrieval is admirable, and they don’t ever lose composure when confronted with more complex or busy recordings. They make the difference between a hi-res and low-res recording clear, but handle those lower-quality recordings with the same refined brush – it’s a quality that means we’re happy to listen to the headphones for hours on end.

Verdict

Technics’ EAH-A1000 are a fine pair of headphones. Their comfortable, elegant design and that refined, smooth presentation have plenty of appeal. There are many who will fall for the A1000’s charms, and we wouldn’t find much cause to deter them. At this level, however, the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Sennheiser HDB 630 rivals deliver just that bit more rhythmic precision and dynamic subtlety, leading to a more involving listening experience.

There’s plenty that Technics has done right with its new flagship over-ears. If they could combine just a bit more grit and punch alongside that sweet, open presentation, they could be on to a winner next time.

Review published: 29th September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony WH-1000XM6

Also consider the Sennheiser HDB 630

"This is the headphone we set out to create from the very beginning" – a closer look at the development of the new driver technology inside the premium Technics EAH-A1000 wireless headphones

Best wireless headphones: reviewed and rated by our in-house experts

We marvelled back then at how such a small device could transform your computer into a full hi-fi system, and we haven’t stopped being impressed with subsequent DragonFly models (Black, Red, Cobalt) – all of which received enthusiastic five stars and have woven their way into many of the review team’s desktop hi-fi arsenal.

The new AudioQuest DragonFly Copper claims to be the brand’s most powerful and efficient DragonFly yet. Has it struck gold again?

Price

Costing £229 / $250, the DragonFly Copper launches at a lower price than the previous Cobalt did at £269 / $300 back in 2019. The DragonFly Cobalt was a multiple What Hi-Fi? Award winner for many years until it was discontinued, and in its latter years its price dropped down to around £179 / $200.

There are some strong contenders at either side of the Copper’s price. At the cheaper end you’ll find iFi’s Go Link Max (£79 / $79) and hip-dac 3 (£199 / $199), while the Award-winning Chord Mojo 2 (at £395 / $650) remains the steadfast option for those who can pay more.

Build & design

We’re delighted that the DragonFly Copper has stuck to its winning plug-and-play design. It’s tiny and easily portable. It is identical in size and shape to the older Cobalt, with only the shiny ‘copper’ finish differentiating the two on the outside.

At one end is a 3.5mm output for plugging in your wired headphones, while on the other is a USB-A connector for connecting to your computer. Using it couldn’t be easier. As before, a USB-A to USB-C adaptor (called DragonTail) is included in the box, so you can use the DragonFly Copper with smartphones and a broader range of laptops.

There’s no volume control, buttons or menu here. The only adornment on this tiny DAC is the dragonfly logo that lights up and changes colour according to the sampling rate of the music file being played: green for 44.1kHz, blue for 48kHz, yellow for 88.2kHz and light blue for 96kHz. It glows red when in standby mode.

Despite the variety of ultra-portable DACs that are available on the market, we think the DragonFly Copper remains a wonderfully unfussy and practical design for instantly boosting the sound from your laptop (or smartphone), and elegant in its simplicity.

Its size means you can keep it anywhere – alongside your keys in your bag, in the mug that holds all your pens, or leave it attached to your laptop without it taking up any meaningful space. Its simplicity means absolutely anyone, even a novice or technophobe, can use it without any barrier.

Our only minor complaint about the otherwise classy and solid build is that this new finish shows up fingerprints quite easily.

So what’s changed? Inside is a new 32-bit ESS Sabre DAC/headphone amp, while better parts and materials are used to help improve performance. The Copper promises twice the output power of any previous DragonFly, while power consumption is reduced by about 25 per cent, all while improving supply-chain efficiency.

We are promised lower noise and distortion than before, and that copper-plated casing isn’t just about looks – it is also designed for improved RF (radio frequency) noise dissipation.

Features

The DragonFly aims to handle all kinds of popular file types, from MP3s to WAVs to FLACs. You’ll have noticed by the LED colours that the maximum native file resolution is supported up to 24-bit/96kHz PCM. The Copper will accept 24-bit/192kHz files, but they will be processed at its resolution limit.

This is versatile enough for most people’s desktop music libraries, but there are now rival portable DACs even at this level that can support native 192kHz playback – so why this limit?

For AudioQuest, it was simply more important that the DragonFly Copper worked with every device you plugged it into. So to avoid any potential issues with device compatibility, the Copper uses the base USB Audio Class 1/USB 1.1 standard, which, while having a 24-bit/96kHz cap, ensures that it will have no issues when used with any audio-capable USB port. That means regardless of whether you’re using iOS, Android, Mac, Linux or Windows, new or old, the DragonFly Copper will/should work with all.

Additionally, in such a small package as the DragonFly, AudioQuest found that running at higher sampling frequencies increases noise levels, which tends to have an adverse effect on sound quality. While in a larger DAC this could be solved by separating the digital and analogue sections and shielding parts from the increased noise generated by the higher sampling rate, AudioQuest tells us this wasn’t possible in such a tiny form factor.

For AudioQuest, chasing the higher spec introduced trade-offs that it wasn’t happy with. If your digital library is full of these rarer higher file rates (and DSD files), you will want to consider alternatives, but we think the DragonFly Copper, for this price and its intended use, will be more than adequate for most people.

Sound

We plug the DragonFly Copper into both a Lenovo Windows laptop and a MacBook Pro running Audirvana software, and play a variety of local tracks – hi-res FLACs, CD-ripped WAVs and even some lowly MP3s – as well as our favourite Tidal playlists. We also use a wide variety of headphones throughout our testing, which include the Beyerdynamic 990 Pro X, Grado SR325x, Shure SRH1540 and Sennheiser HD 600.

Does the DragonFly Copper improve your laptop’s music compared with simply plugging wired headphones straight into your laptop’s 3.5mm port? 100 per cent. The change in performance is immediate: every song sounds more powerful and dynamic, and musical elements are more precisely and confidently placed in a larger, more spacious soundstage. Layers of detail and texture are unearthed, with voices and instruments sounding full-bodied and substantial, while timing is spot-on.

Playing Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain (in 24-bit/96kHz), we find the leading edges to be crisply drawn, basslines and drum kicks are pulled taut and land with snappy impact, and there’s a good amount of tactility and shine to the guitar strums. Rhythmically, it all dovetails together to sound cohesive in the roomy soundstage. There’s drive and momentum in the repeated chorus – you can hear the fierceness in Stevie Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s warring vocals – and the drop in near-silence before that iconic bassline hits is appropriately dramatic.

With the DragonFly Copper deployed, that bassline is weighty and satisfying, while still tuneful and fast enough to keep the melody propelling forward.

Play The Curse by Agnes Obel, and the Copper makes it all sound fluid, atmospheric and involving. The breathy layers of her ethereal voice fill up the spacious soundscape convincingly while also sounding intimate; the difference in pressure of the fingers plucking the strings and the movement of the bow across the strings is more apparent.

Compared to previous DragonFly DACs, the Copper sounds cleaner and less noisy, and that darker background allows for more subtlety and depth to the sound, while big dynamic shifts are handled with punch and a greater degree of gradation.

No matter what genre or file type we play – a 24-bit/192kHz FLAC of Tom Waits’ Closing Time album or MP3s of indie-folk demos or a CD-quality Khruangbin album – the Copper handles every kind of recording to the best of its very admirable ability, allowing the songs to flourish in the spotlight.

The grimy, sludgy, distorted guitars in Deftones’ Change (In The House Of Flies) come through with a satisfying amount of muscle and heavy angst, while Michael Giacchino’s orchestral Star Trek (2009) compositions sound rousing and inspiring. The differences in tonal quality between the big thunderous drums and the reedy woodwinds are relayed with a good amount of skill, and the variations between the quietest moment and a sudden loud moment are handled with authority and nuance in equal measure.

The Copper doesn’t shy away from laying bare low-fi or messy recordings, either. The noisy, shriller recording of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea isn’t scrubbed clean, with those glaring, higher notes coming through with all their shininess intact, but without sounding horribly bright or hard.

Through it all, the DragonFly Copper ensures that everything still sounds organised and has solid footing. Rhythmically, it is quite excellent for its price and type, and so no matter the genre, it holds its own and leaves us hooked to the music, toes tapping and attention rapt.

It’s a similar story when we plug the Copper into an iPhone 16 and Samsung Galaxy S24, although as it draws power from the connected source, it sounds less powerful and less subtle through a smartphone compared with a laptop.

We would also recommend choosing your wired headphones carefully as the DragonFly Copper is more than capable of driving even premium options, and is flexible enough to showcase each headphones’ specific sonic character, too.

The differences between the Copper and Cobalt are pretty much how we found the differences between the Cobalt and the Red. The newer model is crisper, cleaner and more punctual, with a tighter bass and greater finesse, leaving the older model sounding a touch fuller and fuzzier. Both DACs are excellent performers that make music sound exciting and involving; the Copper is simply a more attention-grabbing performer, while the Cobalt now feels like a comfortable old friend.

Give it some good running-in time, and the new Copper will settle in just as nicely.

Verdict

We were briefly worried that AudioQuest wouldn’t be making any more DragonFlys once the Cobalt DAC’s stock started winding down. We are very glad that it has, as the new DragonFly Copper is a terrific, tiny, simple device that is incredibly effective at making your desktop-bound music sound a hundred times better.

For its size and price, it’s quite astonishing just how good it is. Highly recommend.

Review published: 28th September 2026

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 3

MORE:

Read our review of the iFi Go Link Max

Also consider the Chord Mojo 2

Best DACs: USB, desktop and portable digital-to-analogue converters

To give the Korean AV giant some credit, it joined Hisense to be among the first manufacturers to release a TV sporting the latest backlit panels last year, although its model was only available in a ginormous 115-inches.

Much like its Chinese adversary, Samsung has scaled down the panel technology this year, which brings us neatly to the R95H we have before us today.

This is the brand’s flagship "Micro RGB" (we’ll explain that shortly) TV for 2026, and it’s essentially a backlit counterpart to the superb S99H OLED.

As most tech-obsessed people are aware, Samsung spent years refusing to produce OLED TVs (and even campaigning against them) before doing a full one-eighty, embracing the tech, and going on to produce some of the finest OLED TVs around.

In fact, its OLED models are now so good that this alternative, backlit flagship TV really struggles to make a case for itself.

Price

The 65-inch Samsung R95H – MRE65R95H in the UK, MRN65R95H in the US, and MRA65R95H in Australia – launched at an eyebrow-raising price of £3299 / $3200 / AU$5299.

Given Samsung’s track record of aggressively discounting its TVs throughout the year, it's unlikely you will need to pay that much for it if you're a little patient. In fact, we've already seen the TV dip below £3000 in the UK.

Fascinatingly, the company's S99H OLED launched in the UK and Australia with an identical price tag of £3299 / AU$5299, while it was slightly higher in the US, at $3400.

This is intentional: Samsung hasn’t been shy about how it’s positioning its premium TVs this year, saying that customers can choose from two sides at the top end, with the S99H and R95H being two sides of essentially the same coin.

The R95H also has other RGB Mini LED TVs to contend with, of course, most obviously the Sony Bravia 9 II (which is more expensive at £3499 / $3600 / AU$5999) and Hisense UR9 (a cheaper alternative at £2999 / $2000 / AU$3999).

The battle to be crowned the king of this freshly waged RGB war is heating up, but it also may be futile, as we’ve tested three (four, including this Samsung) and none has held a candle to our favourite OLED models.

Design

Samsung knows how to build TVs that look good and feel high-quality, and the R95H is no exception.

Despite being a backlit TV, it's surprisingly slender at just 3cm thick and the uniform flat back should make it an easy TV to wall-mount.

This slim design is paired with super-slim bezels and a central pedestal that sports a reflective panel to give the illusion of a floating screen. The effect is a touch more rudimentary than Sony’s clever lenticular solution on the Bravia 9 II and Bravia 7 II, but the thought process is essentially the same.

What we really must commend Samsung on is how easy this TV is to assemble. The stand slots together with ease, and it clicks onto the main chassis of the TV akin to an oversized LEGO set – all of that with no screwdriver required.

As such, setting this TV up (in its tabletop orientation, that is) takes very little time and effort, although it's worth noting that the stand can only be set up at one soundbar-friendly height.

The only element of the design and build that we don’t approve of is the bundled remotes. It's the same simple smart remote and button-heavy handset duo that has come with Samsung TVs for years, and at this price we really think that Samsung could include a nicer-built remote with backlit buttons.

We do like the USB-C charging port and solar panel, though; anything to avoid fussing with batteries.

Features

Samsung’s 'kitchen sink' approach to loading its TVs full of features continues with the R95H, but the most interesting feature is the new panel technology – so we’ll start there.

Each competing brand has put its own spin on the naming of its take on RGB Mini LED tech, with Samsung opting for "Micro RGB".

As the name suggests, Samsung claims that its LEDs are smaller than those used by its competitors – under 100 microns to be exact. For those without a microscope and a tiny ruler, that’s roughly the width of a human hair.

This has allowed Samsung to increase the density of the LEDs, essentially meaning that the R95H should have more distinct red, blue and green LEDs packed into the backlight.

In theory, this should greatly improve contrast and local dimming capabilities, but, interestingly, we counted 1344 dimming zones on our 65-inch R95H sample, which is fewer than the 1530 we counted in the 65-inch Sony Bravia 9 II.

Panel tech aside, the R95H is packed with features. HLG, HDR10, HDR10+, HDR10+ Advanced, HDR10+ Gaming and HLG are all on board, for starters, and this suite of HDR formats is being bundled under what Samsung is calling its Micro RGB HDR Pro system.

Samsung’s stance against Dolby Vision remains, as it prioritises its own HDR10+ system instead. Thankfully, Dolby Atmos support is on board, and the company’s Eclipsa Audio format is also now supported – though it’s only available via YouTube at the time of our review.

The R95H's Tizen OS software platform and picture processing are powered by Samsung’s new Micro RGB AI Engine Pro. This encompasses a plethora of picture processing features, including Real Depth Enhancer (contrast enhancement), AI Motion Enhancer Pro, Micro RGB Colour Booster Pro, Auto HDR Remastering Pro, Ultimate Micro Dimming Pro, and 4K AI Upscaling Pro.

Samsung’s Tizen system is also home to a wide array of smart apps, both global and terrestrial. We find coverage across movie, gaming, and lifestyle apps to be stellar, with no noticeable omissions.

Speaking of gaming, Samsung remains dedicated to serving gamers only the finest selection of features, with four HDMI 2.1 sockets all capable of handling gameplay up to 4K/165Hz with VRR and ALLM. The inclusion of Xbox, Amazon Luna, NVIDIA GeForce Now and many more gaming apps also allows you to stream games directly to the TV – just add a Bluetooth controller.

Samsung has also implemented a handful of AI platforms (including Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot), and Art Mode is available for displaying a range of artwork from galleries around the world while your TV is in ambient mode.

The 65-inch model that we’re testing sports a 70W 4.2.2-channel sound system, which is compatible with Samsung’s Active Voice Amplifier Pro, Adaptive Sound Pro, 360 Audio and Object Tracking Sound+ features.

If you have a Samsung soundbar, you can also pair the TV’s sound system with it using Q-Symphony, though we advise caution with this feature. Generally speaking, your soundbar will sound better without the heavily compromised speakers of your TV getting in on the action, but do experiment with your specific TV and soundbar combination to establish what sounds best to you.

Picture quality

The R95H has to prove itself a worthy alternative to the five-star S99H, which we have set up as a direct comparison for our testing. Our S99H is 55-inches, so we do have to account for a slight difference in pixel density, which will impact sharpness and contrast to a degree; however, we expect the 65-inch S99H to perform very closely to its 55-inch counterpart.

We’ve hooked our Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player up to both TVs, and raided our 4K disc library to put the R95H through its paces.

We should start by saying that the R95H has some positive attributes by backlit TV standards. Black levels are very impressive, with letterboxing bars and shadows in darker content (think Blade Runner 2049 and The Batman) looking suitably solid and deep.

Black levels remain mostly uncompromised by blooming; our go-to stress test scene from Oppenheimer highlights this, with spotlights lighting up the testing site at night featuring a small halo that looks like an intended glow rather than unwanted blooming.

Colours are also handled well, with slightly more subtlety than the already excellent S99H, particularly in foliage and skin tones. Ultimately, we feel that a truly perfect colour balance sits somewhere between the subtle delivery of the R95H and the more vibrant S99H, but of the two, we find that the R95H looks slightly truer to our eyes.

We also find that in its most dynamic settings – either Standard or Vivid – the R95H can seriously push brightness limits. We find that it outshines the S99H in these modes, but that’s somewhat of a hollow victory considering we recommend avoiding these picture presets.

Unfortunately, Samsung’s flagship Micro RGB falls noticeably behind its OLED counterpart in nearly every other picture aspect.

In our preferred Movie and Filmmaker Mode presets, which are designed to prioritise authenticity over bombast, the R95H struggles to compete. Those Oppenheimer spotlights look dull against the dark night, especially compared with the punchy pinpoint highlights produced by the S99H, and that unfortunately carries forth to the rest of the image.

Switching to the 4K restoration of The Matrix to see if we can push the R95H to outshine its OLED alternative (it’s mastered to 2000 nits), we find that the sequence of Morbius explaining how the simulated world works to Neo on an all-white backdrop is simply more dazzling on the S99H. A panning shot introducing the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar ship also highlights some unpleasantly smeary motion from the R95H, too.

There is also a sense of flatness and dullness to this TV that is genuinely surprising to see. The R95H lacks the three-dimensionality found on the S99H, and we find that the QD-OLED is almost constantly drawing our eyes away from the Micro RGB throughout our testing.

Civil War’s forest fire sequence really sums up the shortcomings of the TV quite efficiently. Simply put, black depths, the intensity and brightness of the flames, and the sharpness and depth of the image are all clearly superior on the OLED.

Crucially, though, this isn't purely a backlit TV being beaten by an OLED, which is something we've seen time and time again, particularly this year: while the Sony Bravia 9 II also struggles against its Bravia 8 II OLED sibling and the S99H, it gets closer than Samsung's R95H does, delivering a picture with more three-dimensionality and a better balance of punch and authenticity.

Sound quality

The R95H also feels like a step back when it comes to sound. Revving up Blade Runner 2049’s tricky chapter two sequence, the TV instantly spirals into distortion, with warbly and mushy bass dominating the scene. This is at odds with the S99H, which holds back on piling on weighty bass in favour of a more controlled delivery.

That unruly bass is emphasised by a recessed midrange, which creates an unbalanced delivery throughout this sequence, with dialogue and several effects lacking the attention they deserve.

Thankfully, the R95H makes up some ground in less bass-heavy sequences. As Officer K heads back home after a stressful day of being slammed through a wall by Dave Bautista’s Sapper Morton, we find that the TV can produce a big, broad and spacious sound. The city's audio advertisements are presented with a solid sense of height, and the general bustle of the street is well preserved.

The conversation between K and Joi in the apartment is delivered with clarity and a semblance of low-level dynamics that ensures the voices aren’t completely devoid of character and emotional inflexion, too.

However, the R95H brings back a critical issue we’ve found with other Samsung sets recently: it’s just too quiet. Even cranked up to maximum volume, we find it easy to speak over this TV without raising our voices, and this is only partly rectified by applying the Amplify sound mode, which boosts volume at the expense of some dynamic compression.

Verdict

We’re not entirely sure what wrong turn Samsung has taken here. The brand stunned us with the S99H, which is a true flagship TV that justifies its price thanks to its sublime picture performance, excellent feature set and improved sound.

While the R95H retains that unquestionably superb feature set, it’s a considerable step backwards in the other two crucial categories. Impressive black depths for a backlit TV can’t make up for the flattened picture and heavy-handed approach to sound.

Some will point to the R95H's peak brightness potential as an important factor, but with the best new OLED TVs – most notably Samsung's own S99H – now capable of going vastly brighter than almost any room and the vast majority of content requires, we simply don't see that as a fundamental issue.

And, what's more, the R95H isn't even the best TV of its type – that crown currently rests on the head of the Sony Bravia 9 II.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 3
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Samsung S99H

Also consider the Sony Bravia 8 II

Read our Sony Bravia 9 II review

Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and budget Mini LED sets tried and tested

Into this fray steps the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 earbuds, the sequel to the headphone brand’s impressive – but not quite chart-topping – Momentum True Wireless 4 from 2024. The usual promises of acoustic upgrades and bolstered feature sets abound, but the Momentum TW 5 don’t just have to top what came before – they also need to compete with the vast array of high-class alternatives all vying for consumer attention.

Quite appropriately given its product naming conventions, Sennheiser does have one thing on its side: momentum. The recent over-ear HDB 630 and Momentum 5 Wireless have deservedly gained five-star plaudits, and if Sennheiser can translate that success to the earbuds market, then it might have found the key to standing out in this brimming, bustling crowd.

Price

The Momentum True Wireless 5 are undoubtedly premium earbuds. At £250 / $300 / AU$480, they sit alongside the five-star Technics EAH-AZ100 (£259 / $299 / AU$499) and the more recent Sony WF-1000XM6 (£250 / $330 / AU$500) in terms of their standard RRP.

That being said, more established alternatives are starting to drop in price as time wears on. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) started life at £299 / $299 / AU$450, but have sunk to around £229 / $249 / AU$349 at the time of writing.

Build & comfort

On the surface, Sennheiser has given its Momentum True Wireless 5 earbuds a subtle makeover to distinguish them from their five-star predecessors.

For a start, the buds’ shape has been tweaked, with Sennheiser opting for a rounder, more bean-like form tapering to a narrow nozzle on which a pair of silicone ear-tips sit. That’s a visible change from the more squared-off nature of the Momentum True Wireless 4, although in terms of size and weight, there’s not much of a noticeable difference.

The case has been updated, too, though whether you consider the new design an upgrade or a step backwards will likely depend on taste. The new case is taller and slimmer than its squatter, squarer predecessor, with Sennheiser ditching the textured fabric covering in favour of subtly speckled plastic.

Sennheiser claims that its new buds’ more rounded configuration and slightly tweaked ear tip shape have enhanced their comfort and security, although from our testing, there isn’t a huge difference from one generation to the next. That’s no disaster – the Momentum True Wireless 5 fit nicely without discomfort over long hours, just like their predecessors did.

Naturally, this depends on who you are and what you’re doing. For everyday use, we don’t have many instances of the flagship buds falling out entirely, though more strenuous activities – running, using an exercise bike, etc – may loosen the seal. The Momentum TW 5 don’t have the handy in-ear stability bands of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), so if you’ve got one eye on sporting endeavours, the Bose may be worth considering instead.

If you are struggling to find your perfect fit, Sennheiser does provide a simple ear-tip fit test via its companion app. The buds are furnished with a healthy array of ear-tip sizes – extra small, small, medium and large – though if we were being all Goldilocks about it, we’d maybe have liked an extra large option.

The Momentum True Wireless 5 also carry an IP54 rating for protection against dust and splashes of water, a certification which sees them get one over on the IPX4 ratings of their Sony WF-1000XM6, Technics EAH-AZ100 and Bose QC Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) rivals. From sweaty workouts to a brief trip out in the rain, we find that our test pair make good on their durability claims.

Touch capacitive sensors are located at the rounded tip of each bud, and during our test time, the Momentum TW 5’s touch controls are responsive to our commands. You can also customise your buds’ extensive touch functionalities via the accompanying app or, if you prefer, simply turn them off altogether.

Features

New features for the Momentum True Wireless 5 include spatial audio with Dolby Atmos support, which works well to create that more immersive audio signature on supported tracks such as Pearl Jam’s Future Days and Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. Head tracking is also convincingly rendered, keeping the audio fixed to a central point as we turn from side to side.

Battery life has been upped, with the TW 5 boasting 12 hours from the earbuds on a single charge, and a very impressive 40 hours in total with the charging case – this is with ANC turned off. Those figures will drop when ANC is back in play, however, to roughly six hours on the buds and a total of around 25 hours with the case.

Those numbers are still admirable, but not unbeatable. The Technics EAH-AZ100, for instance, will grant up to 10 hours on a single charge with ANC on and a total of 28 hours with the case, whereas the Sony WF-1000XM6 grant six hours from the earbuds and 24 hours in total under the same circumstances.

Away from battery figures, Sennheiser has one eye on sustainability, meaning that, with a standard screwdriver, you can open the earbuds and replace the batteries yourself. Sennheiser also offers a battery protection mode which limits the maximum charge level to roughly 80% in a bid to prolong the cells’ overall lifespan.

The Momentum TW 5 boast Bluetooth 6.0 for more efficient, low-latency transmission, while aptX Adaptive codec support is also on the menu.

On the subject of Bluetooth, we use the buds’ Multipoint capabilities to switch quickly and easily between two connected devices: our Lenovo work laptop and an iPhone 15. If you have a Google device, you can use Fast Pair for a near-instant connection, while Windows Swift Pair performs the same function for Windows sources.

Most of the aforementioned features can be accessed or toggled on or off via the in-depth and well-laid-out Sennheiser SmartPlus app. From its ample potential for customisation – be it changing your buds’ sonic tuning or dialling up/down your ANC levels – to its myriad helpful hints, it’s a strong app for getting the most out of your earbuds.

ANC & call quality

The Momentum True Wireless 5 pack in eight sensors in total, combining six microphones and two bone conduction voice sensors backed by AI-optimised voice processing for handling hands-free calls. The microphone plates and acoustic chamber are also configured to reduce the extent to which wind and general bluster intrude on your voice calls when you’re out and about.

When we test their active noise cancelling capabilities by standing in a busy street, we discover that voice calls are competently handled. The Sennheisers do well to dampen the clamour of whooshing cars and swirling winds, yet voices can sound a little muffled when compared with the natural clarity of the Sony WF-1000XM6.

Noise cancelling reaches a similarly decent level. The newly shaped eartips have been designed for better passive attenuation, working with each bud’s four-mic array to deliver impressive levels of sonic exclusion.

Noise cancelling feels powerful yet not overdone, and while the Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) remain the gold standard if you’re looking for that all-encompassing vacuum effect, Sennheiser’s effort is a strong one if you prefer a more natural ANC experience.

We take the Momentum True Wireless 5 out and about in town, on the train and into the office, and find it tricky to expose any glaring blind spots. The shrillest highs and most booming lows will penetrate, but for softening or excluding most external sounds, from general chatter to humming air conditioning, they confidently make the grade.

Sound

To help them compete with the likes of Sony, Bose, and Technics, Sennheiser’s premium contenders come equipped with the brand’s signature 7mm TrueResponse dynamic drivers, designed to deliver both "remarkable detail" and "exceptional precision, clarity and dynamics".

Sonically, those promises ring true. The Sennheisers sparkle like a freshly waxed floor, with a sound so clean and unblemished that you’d be happy to eat your proverbial dinner off it. This is the same kind of balance we heard from the brand’s recent Momentum 5 Wireless over-ears, translated to its flagship wireless earbuds with remarkable precision.

Through the Sennheisers, Massive Attack’s Paradise Circus becomes a rich tapestry of interwoven textures as the flagship buds confidently track clacking drums, scattered hand claps and glassy synths. The Momentum True Wireless 4 were refined and detailed, but for instrumental insight and overall clarity, this latest generation puts them firmly in the shade.

Sennheiser’s recent Momentum 5 over-ears excelled in the midrange, a quality which has translated over to their in-ear counterparts. Listening to Paradise Circus spotlights this talent in the middle frequencies as the Momentum True Wireless 5 keenly unveil the breathy whispers of Hope Sandoval’s enchanting performance.

The Sennheisers have the instrumental chops to trouble the class leaders, but they’re also happy stepping away from the stage and wielding their baton at the front of the orchestra. Organisation and control come naturally to the premium buds, so that tricky compositions such as John Williams’ epic Duel Of The Fates and Ludwig Göransson’s eerie, panic attack-inducing Troy sound convincingly three-dimensional as opposed to flat or jumbled.

The Momentum True Wireless 5 take a precise approach to their presentation, but that’s not to say that they’re all facts and no feelings. The rival Sony WF-1000XM6 sound more textured and expressive, but the Sennheisers’ natural dynamic handling deserves adulation, evidenced by how they capture the mounting dread and terror of Troy’s inexorable crescendo.

Rhythms, too, are handled well. Again, the WF-1000XM6 are more expressive in how they keep the underlying pulse of Radiohead’s Burn The Witch ticking away, but the Sennheisers’ agile, nimble sound means that the track’s relentless sense of attack isn’t lost for a moment.

The flagship buds certainly draw the ear to their sparklingly clear midrange, but there's plenty of weight and precision in the bass, too. Switching on the ‘Bass’ boost toggle via the Sennheiser app will put more weight into the deeper frequencies, but it will come slightly at the expense of some low-end tautness, and isn't something we found was necessary during our testing.

They can also sound more etched than the Sony WF-1000XM6, especially at the highest of high frequencies. The Sony Award-winners sound more natural at those tricky upper reaches, whereas the True Wireless 5 can occasionally come across as slightly hard-edged when replicating crisp cymbal strikes or edgy, screeching strings.

We don’t find this to be a dealbreaker during our testing – and the effects can be negated via the in-app equaliser – but it’s worth noting if you find that particular sonic aspect usually grates on your ears.

Verdict

Sennheiser’s recent success in the over-ear headphones category has translated seamlessly to its latest pair of flagship wireless earbuds. If spaciousness, detail and precision are at the top of your sonic wishlist, the Momentum True Wireless 5 are a Christmas gift come early.

Review published: 24th September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony WF-1000XM6

Also consider the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)

Read our Technics EAH-AZ100

Best wireless earbuds: 7 sensational pairs reviewed and rated by our experts

The Sonos Beam Ultra has a similar challenge. It sits directly between two Award-winning soundbars from the US-based brand, the Beam (Gen 2) and Arc Ultra, so we have high expectations for the new model.

But rather than buckling under the pressure, this new middle child proves to be a near-perfect blend of the two.

Price

The Sonos Beam Ultra will set you back £699 / $699 / AU$1099. As we said, that puts it directly between the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) (£449 / $449 / AU$649) and the Arc Ultra (£999 / $999 / AU$1799), both of which have scored What Hi-Fi? Awards and five-star reviews.

Despite pre-announcement expectations, the Beam Ultra isn’t a replacement for the Beam (Gen 2), which is staying in the Sonos soundbar range. That feels like a good move to us, as it leaves a more affordable Dolby Atmos soundbar (albeit without dedicated up-firing drivers) in the range.

Design

The Beam Ultra feels lightweight yet well-built and sturdy. Despite it being a little longer than the Beam (Gen 2), the new model comes in at the same weight of 2.8kg. It’s slightly thinner as well, meaning it fits nicely under our 55-inch TV screen in the test room. You can also mount the bar on your wall if you prefer.

The soundbar comes in two colour options: black and white. That’s the same as the rest of Sonos’s soundbar models, and the matte finish looks quite stylish, although the black model we have in our room quickly shows fingerprints after handling.

The Beam Ultra features perforated grilles on the top. On the lip of the bar, you will find a press-button to activate Bluetooth, as well as touch controls for volume and play/pause.

Features

Those perforated grilles on the top are there to allow the two up-firing drivers on either end of the bar to work their magic. That’s an upgrade on the Beam (Gen 2), which relies on virtualisation for Dolby Atmos rather than physical drivers.

In fact, the Beam Ultra has nine drivers in total – four more than the Beam (Gen 2). These are arranged in what Sonos says is a 7.1.2-channel configuration.

Sonos states that the centre channel has been redesigned to feature a coaxial transducer, which embeds a tweeter into a woofer. With this new arrangement, the brand says the Beam Ultra makes “movies sound wider” and “dialogue sound clearer”.

While the new bar supports Dolby Atmos, DTS:X is still not on the cards. That’s not a big surprise considering this has been the case with all of Sonos’s products, but it could be a drawback for those wanting fully comprehensive surround sound options.

There’s just a single HDMI eARC port on the back of the bar. The lack of dedicated HDMI inputs and passthrough functionality is no surprise (no previous Sonos products have had it either), but it's still a shame for those who are already running out of HDMI sockets on their TV.

There is also a USB-C port, which the Beam (Gen 2) doesn’t have. This works in conjunction with the optional Line-In Adapter, which features a 3.5mm aux input, via which you can connect pretty much any audio source, such as a turntable or CD player. Alternatively, you can opt for Sonos’s Combo Adapter, which features both the 3.5mm input and an Ethernet socket for wired networking.

Unlike some rivals, but very much like previous Sonos soundbars, the Beam Ultra doesn’t come with a remote control. For everyday use with your TV, the only controls you really need are volume up, down and mute, all of which are handled by your TV’s remote.

For more advanced operation and initial set-up, the newly updated Sonos27 app is on hand. This is where you can link your various music streaming services for playback via the Beam Ultra, and access EQ settings.

The latter includes sliders to adjust height, bass and treble levels, but in our experience, the automatic Trueplay calibration renders these fine adjustments unnecessary.

As with the Arc Ultra, Trueplay is provided in two flavours: Quick and Advanced. With the Quick Tuning option, the soundbar tunes its sound by measuring its output via its own microphones. It takes seconds and is very effective.

If you want the very best sound for your room, though, it’s worth using the Advanced Tuning option, which involves measuring the output from the soundbar using an iOS device. It takes slightly longer and involves moving around your room to get measurements from all corners, but it can improve frequency response and spatial accuracy, particularly if your room is large or unusually shaped.

In addition to the aforementioned EQ options, there is a Loudness setting, which is on by default and is designed to boost bass and treble, particularly when listening at lower volumes, where these frequencies can become less prominent. In practice, though, we find that the effect is noticeable at most volumes, adding a little extra heft to the sound. We prefer to leave it on, but your mileage may vary, so it’s worth experimenting with the toggle yourself.

The Sonos app also contains a Night Sound setting, which can be used to reduce bass and dynamics for those times when you don’t want to disturb your housemates or neighbours.

As well as being able to control your music via the Sonos app, as with previous Sonos soundbar models, music can be sent directly from apps such as Spotify and Tidal. Bluetooth 5.3 is on board, too.

There is the option to switch from listening out loud to enjoying movies or music privately by linking the soundbar to a pair of Sonos Ace or new Ace Ultra headphones

Like Sonos's other soundbars, the Beam Ultra can also be upgraded with a pair of wireless speakers (such as Era 100s) as surrounds, and you can add a Sonos subwoofer to the mix.

Sonos has even released an update that allows the brand's portable speakers – the Move 2 and Play – to be used as surrounds.

Sound quality

Right from the off, it’s clear that the Beam Ultra’s added up-firing drivers deliver the upgrade we were looking for over the Beam (Gen 2).

When watching Blade Runner 2049 in Dolby Atmos, flickering digital adverts pop up as Officer K marches across the street, and each accompanying sound effect is portrayed with precision. It’s impressive how the bar places these effects so exactly, almost above the listening position, especially considering its compact footprint.

Whether it's the spritely voice of announcements or the thrum of the street sweeper, each sound is delivered with an excellent amount of detail while being tied into a cohesive overall audio experience.

Later, when Officer K returns home to Joi, the spatial placement of the two voices is excellently portrayed. This makes it clear that K is at the forefront of the scene, whereas his digital companion is in the background. You could watch the scene with your eyes closed and still get an excellent sense of where each character is.

There is also an expansive sense of width and height. In No Time To Die, as an onslaught of helicopters moves in from above in pursuit of Bond, the overhead effects go much higher than our TV screen. Then, when a phalanx of cars zooms across an open field, the sound extends to the corners of our test room and makes for an even more enveloping experience than the Beam (Gen 2) can provide.

The Beam Ultra’s muscular bass lends the sound of the helicopters a meaty thrum. Each rotation of the chopper’s blades has a strong leading edge, which makes it feel powerful and punchy. While it is not the deepest bass we have heard at this level, its precision, rhythm, tonality and control are ample compensation.

Switching to our 4K Blu-ray of Bumblebee demonstrates the Beam Ultra’s talent for dialogue, which is tonally accurate and brilliantly expressive. John Cena’s baritone voice is easy to differentiate from his whining colleague’s higher vocals, and even in scenes in which lots of characters are talking over each other and loud background effects, the dialogue remains clear and characterful.

If you still need a little more dialogue clarity, perhaps because of hearing limitations, Sonos’s AI Enhancement feature is on hand to prioritise voices over effects, with several levels of boost available.

Our only slight criticism of the Beam Ultra’s movie performance is that it doesn’t project sound out into the room and towards the listening position quite as much as some rivals. That can make certain elements, most notably voices, sound a little less direct and engaging than they otherwise might. Interestingly, the Beam (Gen 2) is a little more direct-sounding, perhaps primarily as a result of it having only forward-firing drivers.

In every other respect, though, the Beam Ultra is a clear upgrade on its smaller, cheaper sibling, delivering a bigger, weightier, more expansive and more detailed performance.

As you would hope from a Sonos soundbar, the Beam Ultra is a cut above its rivals when it comes to music, too. Listening to Divinize by Rosalia via Qobuz, the singer’s expressive vocals and the detail in the instruments make for an immediately engaging experience.

The bass is refined and provides a strong foundation for the track, with the fluttering low-frequency notes delivered with a powerful kick at the beginning of each beat to drive the song forward.

In Childish Gambino’s This Is America via Qobuz, each element – whether that’s the layered choral vocals or the drum machine – is excellently organised, resulting in an open, cohesive overall sound. Then, the gradual diminuendo at the end of the track is handled with delicacy and nuance to bring the song to a careful close.

This transparent, emotive performance puts the Beam Ultra at the top of its class with music as well as with movies.

Verdict

The Beam Ultra is a significant step up from the Beam (Gen 2), delivering a bigger, weightier and more expansive performance thanks to its additional up-firing drivers and upgraded speaker configuration.

The Arc Ultra still remains a step beyond the Beam Ultra, particularly in terms of authority and sophistication. But given the Beam Ultra's more compact dimensions and lower price, that is neither a surprise nor a criticism.

Instead, the Beam Ultra occupies a useful middle ground in Sonos' soundbar range: it delivers a substantial upgrade over the Beam (Gen 2) while retaining much of the compactness and simplicity that makes that model so appealing.

More importantly, set aside the inevitable comparisons with its super-accomplished siblings, and the Beam Ultra is an exceptional soundbar in its own right. Sonos has struck Dolby Atmos gold yet again.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Design 5
• Features 4

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As we wrote at the time, the “Ace's safe sound is put to the sword by several rival headphones that are more exciting, more detailed, dynamic and expressive across the board. Both their ANC and call quality can be bettered, too”.

These are the issues that the Ace’s follow-up, the new Ace Ultra, must rectify if Sonos is to become a major player in consumer audio’s most contested arena. Sonos has pledged “rich, detailed audio” from the Ace Ultra, aiming to make up ground against a plethora of premium wireless alternatives, all backed by seamless integration within the expanded Sonos ecosystem.

A tempting proposition for Sonos lovers, but has the brand learned its lessons from the original Ace?

Price

Sonos’ sophomore over-ears will set you back £399 / $449 / AU$699 at launch, putting them up against two strong contenders at this price: the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 (£400 / $450 / AU$699) and the excellent five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 (£400 / $500 / AU$1000).

The original Ace launched at £449 / $449 / AU$699, but their price has since dropped to a more modest £299 / $299 / AU$449. To be clear, Sonos says it will keep the Ace on sale alongside the new step-up model, rather than pitching the Ace Ultra as a direct replacement.

Build & comfort

While we weren’t necessarily that keen on how the original Sonos Ace sounded, we found it hard to fault their design, praising the cans’ minimalist aesthetic, comfortable fit and premium feel.

Happily, those qualities have translated across to the new Ace Ultra. Sonos’ second effort hasn’t deviated much from the original over-ear’s clean, understated design language, with the Ace Ultra sporting a pair of clean, smooth plastic earcups adorned with a shining Sonos logo and complemented by exposed metal arms.

The minimalist aesthetic won’t suit all tastes, but in terms of how the headphones actually feel, it’s hard to complain. The plastic is solid and durable, the metal hinges shine with a polished presence, and the buttons and toggles are responsive and reasonably tactile during operation.

That said, we would ideally like the Ace Ultra to fold away as the Sony WH-1000XM6 do, rather than simply having the earcups swivel horizontally on their hinges, but that won’t be a dealbreaker for most.

Elsewhere, the Ace Ultras’ soft ear cushions and padded adjustable headband make them a pleasure to live with. The earpads have been upgraded for the Ace Ultra, with the new ‘Rebound’ memory foam cushions, designed not only to improve comfort levels but aid passive noise reduction – we found they offer a plusher, more forgiving fit.

They’re capable of keeping their cool, too, and even as wearing sessions turn from minutes to hours, the Sonos over-ears resist the urge to heat our ears and turn our listening from serene to sweat-inducing.

As before, the ear pads attach magnetically, meaning you can remove them easily and buy replacements from the Sonos store for around £40 / $40 if they begin to wear out over time. You can also replace the headphones’ battery yourself, adding to the headphones’ impressive sustainability credentials.

How about controls? Where the likes of the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless and Sony WH-1000XM6 have implemented predominantly haptic on-unit systems, Sonos has stuck to its guns and gone for tactile buttons on the side of each of the Ace Ultras’ earcups.

A physical toggle for quickly adjusting your noise-cancelling mode is located at the base of the right earcup, while a ‘content key’ lets you control volume, pause music, and even answer calls by either sliding the toggle up and down or pressing down in the centre. In terms of its basic ergonomics, it’s a simple toggle to use, and our only issue would be that it can sometimes force your hand into a slightly odd position when performing certain commands.

While the Ace Ultra might look similar to the original Ace on the outside, scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a fresh set of Sonos-designed 40mm dynamic drive units. The new drivers incorporate a dual-ring magnet motor structure, designed to significantly reduce distortion and deliver a clearer, more detail-rich sound alongside a punchier, fuller bass signature.

Given the lack of overall clarity and bass punch we bemoaned in the original Ace, it’s pleasing to see Sonos attempting to rectify such issues when it comes to the Ace Ultra’s internal hardware. We’ll get to that below.

Features

As with all of its products – even a pair of headphones – much of the Ace Ultra’s appeal comes from their willingness to play ball with the extended Sonos ecosystem. Even if the Ace Ultra don’t end up scaling the loftiest of lofty heights sound-wise, we understand that much of their appeal comes from their intra-brand compatibility.

This includes using Sonos’ 'headphone linking' feature, allowing you to transfer sound to the Ace Ultra from most current Sonos products working under the Sonos 27 operating system, including the Arc Ultra, Ray, Beam (Gen 2) and new Beam Ultra soundbars, and the Sonos Five, Era 100, Era 300, Move 2, Play and Roam 2 wireless speakers.

We give the feature a whirl using the Beam (Gen 2) soundbar that’s currently housed in our test room. Using the Sonos app to get everything working under the same network, we’re able to swap audio from Blade Runner 2049 from the Beam onto the headphones by pressing and holding the Ace Ultra’s content key for around five seconds. To get sound back onto the soundbar, we simply press and hold the button again, and the second-gen Beam takes over audio duties once more.

Sonos’ TrueCinema calibration tech also returns, which uses spatial software to tailor your headphones’ acoustics to your room, granting a more cinematic experience when watching Dolby Atmos-soundtracked movies. The headphones then ‘externalise’ the audio out of your head while the tech creates a more balanced reproduction that matches the real-world dimensions and characteristics of your listening room.

TrueCinema is quick to set up via the app – for us it takes around two minutes – and once we have it switched on, we notice that Blade Runner 2049 sounds impressively cinematic thanks to the headphones’ purposeful placement of spoken dialogue, whooshing spaceships and humming engines.

Away from fancy linking capabilities, the Ace Ultra boast a very healthy 35-hour battery life with noise cancelling activated, a figure that’s up from the 30 hours of the original Ace and five more hours than the Sony WH-1000XM6 can manage under the same conditions. As before, you also get three hours of playback from a three-minute boost.

The higher-quality aptX Lossless Bluetooth codec is supported for streaming files up to 16-bit/44.1kHz, while native support for 16-bit/48kHz resolution is available via the wired USB connection. Both USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to 3.5mm cables are included in the box.

Alongside TrueCinema, the Ace Ultra support Dolby Atmos spatial audio content with head tracking from platforms such as Tidal, Amazon Music and Apple, though there’s no toggle in the app to actively switch it on and off.

Listening to a Dolby mix via Tidal, the bass drum kicks at the outset of Billie Jean do sound a little deeper and more recessed, while the snares seem to echo within a more spacious backdrop, but the differences are relatively subtle when comparing against a standard stereo recording. David Bowie’s Heroes seems to work more effectively, with the Ace Ultra working to make those arcing guitar effects soar far higher than they usually would.

The effects of head tracking are far more noticeable, with the headphones able to quickly and smoothly transfer audio from earcup to earcup to simulate the effect of having your music playing from a fixed point.

ANC & call quality

We weren’t exactly bowled over with how the original Ace handled noise cancelling, so we’re happy to report that Sonos has made marked improvements to the new Ace Ultra in this regard.

The new over-ears offer standard full ANC alongside a more transparent ‘Aware Mode’. Within Aware Mode, you can also choose to toggle a Voice Boost setting which, as the name suggests, spotlights external voices to keep you aware of, say, announcements on public transport.

Sonos has pledged that the new headphones are twice as effective at blocking unwanted noise compared with the original Ace, with the Ace Ultra housing 10 microphones – up from eight – backed by an adaptive ANC system that continuously monitors your surroundings to deliver the best experience possible.

Such efforts have paid dividends. The Ace Ultra have dramatically closed the gap between their Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) rivals, so that the general hum and rush of the outside world is impressively damped down – if not completely removed – when donning the Ace Ultra.

Piercing highs and sonic boom lows will still penetrate your serene bubble, but this is a vastly improved experience, and the Ace Ultra do a far better job of making the clamour and clutter of environmental noise feel more subdued.

Nearby voices and general chatter are still audible, but rarely to the extent that they feel bothersome or overly intrusive. For quelling the general hum and pulse of the world as it turns, though, the Ace Ultra are up to scratch, and certainly a good deal better than the original Ace.

Call quality is capably handled, too, but it doesn’t quite keep pace with the headphones’ improved noise cancelling. Taking our Sonos test pair out for a call next to a busy main road reveals the headphones’ capacity to make voices sound clear and well spotlighted, but they let in a good deal more environmental noise than the more isolating Sony WH-1000XM6.

Sound

This is more like it.

While the original Ace’s rather lacklustre sound was something of a damp squib, the new Ace Ultra are a firm step in the right direction. Sonos hasn’t arrived at the enlightened echelons of sonic Nirvana just yet, but it has imprinted a few eager footsteps on the path to better audio.

While the original Ace sounded timid, almost apologetic in their presentation, the Ace Ultra benefit from a much-needed dose of self-belief. These headphones sound far more self-assured than their de facto predecessors, with a rich, full-bodied sound that brings a muscular, confident presence to the tunes we feed them.

That newfound punch and power comes to the fore during a listen to Björk’s Army Of Me which, through the Ace Ultra, pulsates with a raw and assertive energy befitting the track’s original intent. The premium cans grant that massive drum beat perceptible heft, while Björk’s insistent calls that “if you complain once more / you’ll meet an army of me” have the weight and urgency to have us rethinking our current life choices.

This isn’t the subtlest presentation you’ll ever hear – and certainly not as insightful or layered as the breathtakingly detailed Sennheiser HDB 630 – but the fullness of the Ace Ultras’ delivery is undeniably satisfying, like a big old burger shovelled down after a rowdy night on the town.

Instrumental textures are weighty and assured, and while the HDB 630 fill in the gaps in between with more delicacy and precision, the Sonos have enough textural insight to feel adequately well-rounded. To return to our burger analogy, you can discern the taste of sharp pickles and tangy onions as opposed to nothing but fat, meaty beef.

That bottom bun isn’t too soggy, either, by which we mean the Sonos over-ears do well to keep their bass reproduction in check. The Ace Ultra aren’t short on lower-end clout, yet they do well to prevent those bass frequencies from sounding rumbly or lacking definition.

A wired connection helps to further firm up the bass just a tad, with a physical tether giving the Sonos over-ears a slightly lighter, clearer presentation than via Bluetooth. It isn’t night and day by any means, but it feels as though the Ace Ultra are painting with a finer, lighter brush when listening with the provided cables.

Wired or wireless, though, the Ace Ultra aren’t quite the finished article. Rhythmically, they’re not the most agile premium headphones we’ve ever clamped over our ears, nor are they the most precise. Leading edges of notes don’t cut through with the razor-sharp precision of the Sennheiser HDB 630 or Sony WH-1000XM6, robbing Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground of its peppy potential when played via the Ace Ultra.

Dynamically, there’s also room for improvement, and while we can’t fault the headphones’ power, everything tends to sound a little one-size-fits-all. Listening to Hans Zimmer’s Jack Sparrow from the Pirates Of The Caribbean soundtrack highlights this comparative deficiency, as those raucous, swooping strings aren’t quite communicated with the jaunty abandon as befits the track’s off-kilter namesake.

Again, the class leaders from Sennheiser and Sony are simply more expressive and engaging in this regard, delighting in how they reproduce every arcing rise and swooping fall of the strings as they swell and break throughout the Pirates score. The Ace Ultra are the gentle lapping of waves on a shore – their rivals, by contrast, are like a cresting musical tsunami.

Verdict

The Sonos Ace Ultra are a significant improvement on the original three-star Ace. They haven’t reached that fifth star yet, but thanks to their powerful sound, improved noise cancelling and compatibility with the wider Sonos ecosystem, this is a far more compelling demonstration that Sonos could one day contend with the best of Sony, Sennheiser and Bowers & Wilkins.

If you’re a devotee needing a pair of wireless headphones to go with your Sonos soundbars and wireless speakers, we wouldn’t dissuade you from adding the Ace Ultra to your collection.

Review published: 22nd September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony WH-1000XM6

Also consider the Sennheiser HDB 630

Best wireless headphones reviewed and rated by our in-house experts