Amazon's Spring Deal Days sale is in full swing and that means there are plenty of savings to be found. I've dug deep into the deals to find the best ones worth talking about.

And right now, when it comes to a pair of five-star Technics wireless earbuds, there's an excellent saving waiting for you to scoop it up.

For just $245 at Amazon, the Technics EAH-AZ100 can be yours with a lovely $54 saving. And I've checked – you won't find a discount as good as this anywhere else.

This price is just on the Silver model, but you'll only have to part ways with a little more cash if you've got your eye on a different color.

The five-star Technics EAH-AZ100 earbuds may sit at a higher price point than a lot of wireless 'buds on the market, but we felt that their sonic talents justified the added expense (and gave them a What Hi-Fi? Award to prove it).

With superb detail, expressive and engaging sound, and excellent noise-cancelling, these earbuds finally broke Technics' previous four-star run in our expert reviews.

Stepping it up in design, the EAH-AZ100 are smaller, lighter and overall more comfortable than any of the Technics buds we've reviewed before. And with five pairs of ear tip sizes in the box, we found it was easy to get the right fit and seal.

Plus, with fully customisable touch controls that let you control audio modes, playback and volume in any way you want, they're pretty handy in terms of features, too.

Packed out with features, we'll start with the noise cancelling, which is excellent, though not quite as good as the class-leading Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen).

They are still plenty powerful enough to damp down noise around you and the Adaptive option automatically adjusts noise-cancelling based on your environment, or you can dial the intensity up or down yourself.

You also get a strong and stable Bluetooth connection with support for SBC, AAC, LDAC and the LC3 codec. And there's a competitive 10 hours of battery life with ANC enabled, boosting to 28 hours with the case.

To top it all off, there's the industry's first three-way Bluetooth Multipoint for connecting to multiple devices at once, and support for Auracast transmission.

But, how do they sound? Well, the audio is aided heavily by a new 10mm Magnetic Fluid Driver that delivers clearer sound and improvements across the frequencies, as exhibited previously in the premium EAH-TZ700 wired earphones.

Our expert testers said: "Altogether, this results in the clearer, more precise and more impactful sound we hear in the AZ100, while still keeping things balanced and even.

"The AZ100 are fairly transparent too; we play Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain in 24-bit/96kHz FLAC quality from the Astell & Kern SR35 using the LDAC codec, and we immediately get an uptick in muscularity, detail, solidity and even more space between instruments."

With Bose-bothering ANC performance and Sony-bothering sound performance, the Technics EAH-AZ100 are a top-tier pair of earbuds.

And right now, you can save over $50, picking them up for just $245 at Amazon. But as a Spring Deal Days offer – this price won't hang around for long.

MORE:

Read our full Technics EAH-AZ100 review

Sony WF-1000XM6 vs Technics EAH-AZ100: which flagship wireless earbuds are better?

Technics EAH-AZ100 vs Sony WF-1000XM5: which premium wireless earbuds are better?

The revival of Michi back in 2019 after a 26-year hiatus has seen some impressive results for Rotel’s high-end sub-brand.

We have spent quality time with a couple of members of the Michi family since its return, including the Q5 CD player (£5499 / $7499) and the X3 stereo amplifier (£4700 / $5300), both of which made quite the impression on our review team.

Such has been its success that Rotel now wants to bring Michi to more potential customers, plugging a gap between where its standard two-channel electronics ends and the sub-brand begins.

Step forward the new Rotel Michi Prestige Series, which combines two products at launch: the X430 (£4499 / €4999 / $4999) stereo amplifier and the Q430 CD player (£3599 / €3999 / $3999).

I was recently invited to the company’s Chinese headquarters and factory for a first look, where I was also able to hear the pair in action – and on first acquaintance at least, the initial signs are very promising.

Build

Having seen them being put together on the factory floor and up close in Rotel’s demo room, both units have the look and feel of Michi products – they’re obviously part of the same family.

Both aluminium chassis look and feel nicely put together, the all-black design is nicely understated and, combined with the solid glass front panels on the X430 and Q430, seeing the two side-by-side they're an impressive-looking pairing.

Rotel has gone from a top-loading CD player design on its Q5 to a loading drawer on the Q430, but the mechanism seemed smooth sliding in and out, while the knurled volume dial on the X430 felt solid to the touch with a smooth resistance when twisting.

Features

The X430 boasts a solid array of features and includes a high-grade ESS Technology ES9039Q2M DAC.

If you want the amplifier to take care of the audio from your TV, there’s an HDMI ARC socket while you also have a solid array of more traditional connectivity options, including three pairs of analogue inputs and a balanced input.

There’s also a moving magnet phono stage for a compatible record player (it would have been nice to have a moving coil option too, though), three optical digital inputs and a trio of coaxial digital inputs.

Play a lot of music from a laptop? You can use the amp’s USB-C input, which is compatible with DSD, PCM and DoP files.

Should you want to stream the odd track from a smartphone or tablet, there’s also aptX Bluetooth connectivity.

Finishing off the spec sheet, you have twin subwoofer outputs and two pairs of terminals for driving two different pairs of speakers.

The glass front panel includes a customisable full-colour TFT display, which includes the option of choosing between a Spectrum or VU meter view. During my time with the amp there was a slight bug in the software whilst in VU meter mode so it was hard to make a call on the quality of the display.

The Michi Q430 CD player also features a TFT display, which can show album artwork in addition to normal track information. You’ll also find an illuminated power button (it should be white, but the test sample I saw had a green ring) and control buttons for operating the player on the front of the unit.

It uses an eight-channel 32-bit ESS Sabre ES9028PRO DAC, optimised for stereo playback.

In terms of connectivity, you have both balanced XLR and RCA outputs to choose from, but Rotel’s added extra flexibility by including a coaxial digital output. This means you could opt to use it as a CD transport if your system happens to feature a suitably high-end DAC.

Both machines feature a power transformer built by Rotel in-house and also use custom-engineered capacitors and ultra-low-noise power supplies to improve performance.

Sound

The X430 has a claimed power output of 210W per channel into an 8-ohm load, and in my demo with the speakers, it was powering a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 802D floorstanders. On the sideline, waiting to step in if needed, were a pair of refined-looking Sonus Faber Amati towers.

Now I have to insert a couple of caveats here: I was listening to the Michi pairing in a room whose acoustics were completely new to me, and Rotel did inform us that both machines, although very close, weren’t finished production samples.

With that out of the way, I started with Hey Now by London Grammar and the first impression I got was one of spaciousness as instruments and vocals float into the soundstage at the start of the track. Even with a rack of electronics placed between the speakers, I got the impression the image was spread quite wide but with good focus and positioning.

When the bass kicked in, it seemed to sound very muscular and powerful. Fired out from the Bowers & Wilkins speakers, each note hit hard and with weight, but the pair also seemed to show precision and poise. Low frequencies didn’t appear to sound flabby or ill-defined.

Next up was Lose Control by Teddy Swimms, another track that the Michi system seemed keen to express. His soulful voice appeared to have plenty of detail and texture – Swimms has a very emotive, expressive vocal delivery and the Rotel pairing appeared to enjoy communicating it and delivering with serious intent but without shouting at you.

It’s not the biggest test of timing, but the track seemed to start and stop in the right places, that powerful, muscular bass coming to the fore again, but without overpowering the rest of the track.

I switched over to something with a more classical vibe, Holst's The Planets suite, and the system did a good job of handling the rollercoaster-esque dynamic shifts in Mars, from the dark brooding buildup at the start, to the crescendo of string and wind instruments further along the track.

The Michi pairing didn’t seem to hold anything back and delivered a controlled, poised performance, painting each of the different orchestra strands with even brush strokes.

Initial verdict

Is the new Michi Prestige Series a hit? We’ll have to wait until we can test the X430 and Q430 in isolation in our test rooms to be able to give you our proper verdict.

However, initial signs are very promising. If they produce the goods under our test conditions, the lack of competition around their particular price points could make them an attractive option if you can’t stretch to the Michi Reference Series.

MORE:

Rotel’s Michi Prestige Series hi-fi electronics kicks off with a stereo amplifier and CD player

Our pick of the best stereo amplifiers and best CD players for all budgets

How to build the perfect hi-fi system

The best 25 CD players of What Hi-Fi?'s lifetime

I was lucky enough to interview Dominique Poupart recently, at the launch of Moon’s new 371 streaming amplifier. He is the Product Director at Sim Audio (Moon’s parent company), the person who dictates the types of products the company makes and the various technologies included. Given that he has decades of experience in the industry, it makes for an interesting conversation.

During the interview, I asked him why Moon’s range of high-end streamers, digital-to-analogue converters and CD players doesn’t offer users a choice of digital filter settings. Here is his answer:

“We don’t do that, because people will always fiddle with it, wondering what's the best filter for their taste, instead of listening to music. We prefer to make the selection ourselves because we have to make thousands of decisions when we develop a product, and this should be one of them. If we make that selection, we can optimise everything around it.”

That answer struck a chord with me.

I’ve long felt uneasy about the quantity and value of the various digital filter choices and sound tweaks in many of the digital products we review. You’ll find them offered in nearly every digital product category, from DACs and streamers to amplifiers and wireless headphones.

Over time, I’ve come to think that among the multitude of adjustments, there are generally just one or two worthwhile options, probably those that tie in with the original vision the engineers had. The rest are just filler, added because the marketing department demands it, or the DAC/DSP chip already includes the functionality, making it easy to implement.

Such features serve to give the impression of choice, of allowing the listener to fine-tune to taste; but the reality is that most just detract from the unit’s performance in one way or another, or don’t make enough of a difference to be worthwhile.

One recent example is Eversolo’s fully loaded DMP-A10 music streamer, which offers seven digital-filter settings, a 15-band graphic equaliser, and a 10-band parametric option. The user can even control the path that an analogue input signal takes.

But I don’t want to make such choices; that’s something the engineers should do.

Of course, no one is forced to play with all the options. But, to paraphrase Dominque Poupart, it's hard to resist the urge to mess about rather than just listen; there is always the nagging feeling that the sound could be better if you just tweak a bit more.

It takes away from the enjoyment of listening to the music for me.

Of course, it’s not just Eversolo. High-end digital royalty such as dCS isn’t shy about offering plenty of customisation. Our review of the Rossini Apex DAC speaks of six standard filter settings, including two that behave differently depending on the file resolution. There are another five options for DSD streams and one specifically for MQA playback.

It doesn’t stop there; you even get to choose between a trio of software options for running the dCS’s innovative Ring DAC circuitry. What’s the point when the company has already done the comparisons and knows which one sounds better? To confirm, the new software was indeed superior.

After all that, it would be remiss of me not to mention that the dCS Rossini Apex is an exceptional performer and, once I’d worked through the various settings, certainly one of the best sounding digital-to-analogue converters I’ve experienced.

However, I just wanted to enjoy my music, and it felt like the DAC was putting hurdles in my way.

Like most other manufacturers, dCS and Eversolo, I’m sure, know exactly which settings allow their products to deliver the best sound. In some cases, these are likely to be the default options, but that’s not always true, either. One engineer (not anyone from either of these brands) confided that the default settings on his products are those that measure best rather than deliver, in his view, the best sound.

I could go on, but when even normally conservative hi-fi companies such as Arcam and Cyrus start offering numerous digital-filter choices on their amplifiers, streamers and CD players, it is clear that the industry feels there is a demand for such tweaking.

Maybe there is, or maybe a vocal minority of hi-fi enthusiasts has hijacked the agenda.

Regardless, I don’t think a Michelin-star chef would take too kindly to people adding a dollop of ketchup to their prize dish, so why are hi-fi manufacturers so keen to allow their customers to do the sonic equivalent to their otherwise painstakingly honed designs?

MORE:

What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 winners revealed!

What does the future hold for Bluesound and NAD? We talk to Lenbrook's CTO to find out

Integrated vs pre/power amplification: the pros, cons and which is best for you

To make it into our best wireless earbuds guide, a product will need five stars. That makes sense. But what if you'd like a high-performing set of buds without the premium price tag?

That's where you'd do well with four-star earbuds that are also on sale, and that's the case with the JBL Tour Pro 3 earbuds. Right now you can pick them up for only £199.99 at Peter Tyson.

This is a return to a record-low price, with the buds serving up solid, precise sound and a host of high-end features that make them a guaranteed win for most people. And at a smidge under £200, it'll be hard to say no.

Though we gave them a four-star rating when we originally reviewed them in November 2024, feeling they weren't quite as impressive as their then-rivals, the five-star Sony WF-1000XM5, with the discount, they're well worth considering.

The flagship JBL Tour Pro 3 uses a hybrid dual-driver system in each earbud, with improved drive units promising greater clarity and depth alongside more powerful bass reproduction and vivid vocal detail.

For going the extra sonic mile, the Tour Pro 3 offers support for the hi-res LDAC codec with compatible source devices. Read more about it in our JBL Tour Pro 3 review.

Central to the new JBLs' identity is that distinctive smart case, first seen in the Tour Pro 2 earbuds and making its return for the third-gen model.

Not only does the case feature a 30 per cent larger screen and more customisation and useful control options than ever before, but it also acts as a wireless audio transmitter from USB or analogue sources such as in-flight entertainment systems—similar to B&W's Pi8 and Pi6 earbuds.

The Tour Pro 3 grant standard active noise cancelling (ANC) as well as JBL's customisable True Adaptive Noise Cancellation technology, which measures and monitors environmental changes and then adapts your ANC experience accordingly.

Battery-wise, the swanky new earbuds offer an impressive 44 potential hours of playtime (11 hours from the buds plus 33 hours from the case), although naturally that drops when ANC is switched on.

The features don't stop there. JBL's take on spatial audio with head tracking is onboard; voice-tracking algorithms promise exceptional clarity when making hands-free calls, while Auracast capabilities let you share your audio with other Auracast-compatible devices (such as the JBL Xtreme 4).

The JBL app offers full EQ customisation, ANC-mode toggling, an ear-tip fit test, and a handy find my earbuds function, plus a whole raft of customisation options for your smart charging case. Want a picture of your precious pup as your case's wallpaper? This is the place to do it.

If you've been waiting for these earbuds to drop in price or are simply looking to invest in some of the best wireless buds around, then now is the time to act.

MORE:

Read the JBL Tour Pro 3 review

13 of the best classic funk and soul tracks to test your system

These are the best wireless earbuds on the market right now

Looking to invest in some impressive five-star wireless headphones? Have we got a deal for you.

For just £224 at Sevenoaks, you can secure yourself a pair of the five-star B&W Px7 S2e noise-cancelling headphones at just a fraction of their usual retail price.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are excellent Sony WH-1000XM5 alternatives, but they've always been slightly more expensive.

While they've been pipped to the post for a spot amongst the best over-ear headphones we've ever reviewed, this discounted price now makes them an incredibly competitive offering.

It's the lowest price we've ever seen for these spectacular cans with a £155 saving and one you should seriously consider if you're in the market for style and substance.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e just missed out on a spot amongst the best wireless headphones because of their biggest rivals, the Sony WH-1000XM5. And part of the reason for this was that they're a more expensive offering. Or should we say, they were.

For just £224 at Sevenoaks, the Px7 S2e are now a cheaper pick, despite being an incredibly stylish and premium offering. And this deal is by far the best one we've ever seen for these impressive cans, bringing this five-star pair to their lowest-ever price.

And here's why that's a pretty big deal. The Px7 S2e are a beautifully designed pair, but that's certainly not all they have to offer.

Their spec sheet is full of impressive stats, from 30 hours of battery life to an arguably even more stunning ability to give you seven hours of playback from just a 15-minute charge.

They also support one of the higher-quality Bluetooth codecs around, Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive, as well as both USB-C and 3.5mm cable connections (both cable types are provided in the box).

And there's an accompanying B&W app for off-unit playback and controls to really gear your sound journey to suit you.

Sound-wise, in our full review we called this the Px7 S2e's "biggest talent". And that led us to say: "On a sliding scale bookended by ‘analytical’ and ‘energetic’, the Px7 S2e would still edge toward the former, but they’re now, to B&W’s credit, much closer to the Sonys’ musicality while setting a benchmark for detail at this level."

It's a five-star formula that right now enjoys a five-star discount with a whopping £155 off. If you like the sound of that, head on over to Sevenoaks before you miss out.

MORE:

Read our original Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e review

Check out the best wireless headphones rated by our in-house experts

And our pick of the best noise-cancelling headphones

Since a recent reinvention as the 'Cinema' series, the numbering of the AV receiver range from Marantz has become a convergent sequence. It starts up high, with the ‘slimline’ Cinema ‘70s’ model down at $2000, then rises through the increasingly less slimline Cinemas 60, 50 and 40, rising now to this new and definitely full-fat Cinema 30.

These ever-lower numbers indicate ever-higher models, and those models have been arriving on the market roughly in order of complexity. And with only two lower/higher slots left before they zero out, the Japanese AV team must be trying to cram it all in before they run out of numbers.

But in fact the ‘10’ was taken early, by the AV10 processor and AMP10 (but 16-channel) amplifier, the toppermost (but separates) solution in Marantz’s multichannel world. And there’s no word of a Cinema 20, even of a roadmap, we gather. The Cinema 30 is the ‘replacement’ for the previous range-topping SR8015 integrated AV receiver, and we note that Marantz refers to this Cinema 30 as being a ‘Reference’ receiver, something only generally applied to its top of the range.

They say 'receiver', and we'll say 'receiver', but under old-school definitions this is really an amplifier, because it doesn't receive radio through the air using an antenna. (Although the documentation on the Australian website currently says that it does, appearing to relate to the US model.) But in any case, there's web radio available via the internet anyway, so isn't that simply a 21st-century receiver?

However you pigeon-hole it, it seems safe to assume that this latest Cinema 30 is to be the highest all-round integrated entertainment machine on offer from Marantz in its current cycle, short of breaking things into two boxes and going AV10 and AMP 10. But those are £12,400 ($14,000 / A$25,600) the pair – and the amp uses Class-D modules for its 16 channels of power, rather than the more traditional (and for some folks also preferred) Class-AB circuits that are used here.

With the Cinema 30 fresh to market, we looked forward to all the latest tweaks, together with its vast selection of inputs and abilities. Let’s take a deep breath and dive aboard.

Power, and plenty of it

Interestingly, in a market often defined by power and channel count, Marantz calls the Cinema 30 “the most refined AVR Marantz has created”. But of course refinement is what we want, in home cinema as much as in stereo operation, remembering that this vasty tower of power will be servicing us for delicate music as much as space-ship explosions, and that it must handle the intricacies of dialogue delivery, not to mention the processing that splits a single Dolby Atmos data package into all those separate channels.

In the old days of surround, every channel of sound arrived separately within a soundtrack, each getting a channel of power to push it into the room. That is no longer the case. Dolby Atmos changed the game (along with other immersive formats, should you ever now find any, for they are utterly dominated by the double-D). Atmos delivers a stream which is broken into individual channels only when it reaches the receiver’s own processing. That allows a bespoke Atmos output to match exactly the channels you have available, whether that be stereo, mono, or the glorious spread of 11 to 13 channels available here.

We say “11 to 13” because there are 11 channels of power, but with 13-channel processing onboard, so there are two additional pre-outs which could be used to expand on the 11 channels of power. Add the ability to supply four subwoofers independently with genuinely variegated bass content, and you can run a system of 13.4 channels by adding power for those two pre-outs, or more likely for most users, 11.4 channels using the receiver alone.

So this might be, say, a 7.2.4 home cinema, using seven floor channels of conventional surround, four ceiling speakers to deliver the height element of Atmos signals, and perhaps two subwoofers of the available four.

Or, as we were to listen to it, in 5.3.6, with five channels of front and surround from Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series architectural speakers, a generous six ceiling-mounted height speakers, plus three massive (really massive, 15-inch) Definitive Technology Descend subwoofers, all gathered to entertainment us in the Sydney cinema room of Masimo Consumer (formerly Sound United, formerly Bowers & Wilkins Australia, etc).

On the Cinema 30, all the speaker outputs are assignable, so you can use the channels for whatever configuration of system you prefer, and the Marantz will process accordingly. You might need only five surround channels and two for height, leaving channels of power free to do other things, such as drive a whole second room of entertainment independently in stereo – there’s an HDMI out for an independent video stream as well. There are even pre-outs for a third zone.

You could use spare amp channels to biamplify your main front speakers, driving bass and treble separately, and so with additional power for stereo music as well as soundtracks.

Once you’ve decided how to use your power, how easy is it to tell the Cinema 30 what to do? Here we were well-prepared by having already spent time in our listening rooms with two of the lower receivers in the series, Cinemas 40 and 60. So we knew not to spend too much time studying the immense product manual, which can be confusing, both because Marantz doesn’t follow the conventional way of describing systems (so instead of 5.1.4 it will say just 9.1, which is more ambiguous); the manual also bounces you around between sections until you’re thoroughly befuddled.

No, we’ve learnt before just to get on with it, because Marantz has an excellent wizard built into the receiver itself, which uses your TV screen to walk you through everything, including wiring everything up. Obviously you’ll need to connect the receiver to the TV and to power them up to get this far, but we hope even a newbie might get there OK, if they don’t panic at the sheer number of cables you’ll be preparing to insert into those closely-spaced speaker terminals while trying not to invert or short anything as you channel your power to the correct locations.

How much power? That depends where you look and also how you measure: the headline spec used on Marantz’s websites is 140W per channel, so it’s pleasing to find that is a fairly hi-fi spec: it’s measured with only two channels driven, but full frequency range (20Hz-20kHz) into 8 ohms allowing for a maximum 0.05% THD+N distortion. But relax the parameters to one channel, six ohms and a whacking 10% distortion, and you can call it 230W a channel. This is why comparing watts between manufacturers can be a tricky exercise. You can, however, more reliably compare within a brand, noting here that power levels drop with channel count all down the range – the Cinema 50 has 9 x 110W, the Cinema 70s has 7 x 50W. So here you’re not only getting more channels, you’re getting more power per channel.

And it’s solid Marantz power technology, including HDAM-SA2 amplifier modules. What’s an HDAM? The original Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Module arrived in 1992 inside the PM-99SE integrated amplifier, and they are basically just an amplifier circuit of discrete components carefully arranged and put in a box, evolving over the years in search of higher slew rates and higher signal-to-noise.

The HDAM-SA variant arrived in 2002, and was a unity-gain buffer design for preamplification use with current feedback loop amplifiers; we may perhaps presume the HDAM-SA2 modules here, 20 years on, play a similar role, given that the company says the HDAMs "ensure the characteristic warmth and musicality expected from any Marantz audio product", while the power devices in the Cinema 30 are current-doubling Darlington transistors (type BL15N15A).

• Class A, Class A/B and Class D amplification: what does it mean for amplifiers?

Inputs & processing

Anyone in the know could identify the Cinema 30 from a distance as being a Marantz product, not because of the new company livery with its trippy swirly fascia patterns, but because it has that circular ‘porthole’ on the front, a defining design characteristic with which the company persists even though it’s clearly a fairly ridiculous place to put a detailed LED display. ‘See the TV’ is its most sensible message, early on during set-up, as if admitting its own inadequacy for displaying information.

This admission gets a doubling down by Marantz putting a second far larger display (they call it a ‘sub-display’) on the front panel, hidden under an old-style front flap, something missing from the lowest models in the range.

But we must say that this flap keeps the Cinema 30 looking much neater than the flap-less Cinema 60 we tested about a year ago. It hides an assortment of buttonry and socketry, including menu controls, zone source selection, the ever-wonderful ‘Pure Direct’ button, the don’t-touch-it M-DAX button, a handy spare USB-A slot, and the mike socket for the supplied room-calibration microphone.

Meanwhile the back panel is enough to warm the cockles of an AV aficionado, or alternately ignite technofear in a newbie, though we imagine most such owners would elicit at least friendly if not actual dealer assistance before setting up a complex entity like this, making all the connections and allocating all the socketry. But as noted, if facing such a task alone, the set-up wizard is a fairly faithful friend in getting you through the whole process.

So sockets a-plenty. It has seven HDMI inputs, or eight if you count the middle of three outputs, usefully highlighted, since this carries HDMI eARC (Audio Return Channel, the ‘enhanced’ Atmos-compatible version) to play audio back from the connected TV.

All HDMI inputs and the three outputs are marked as 8K compatible, so you’re future-proofed for the next generation of video, if it ever comes.

The receiver’s audio circuits can decode and handle Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, IMAX Enhanced (Atmos or DTS:X), and Auro 3D, also having the Atmos and DTS upscalers which can expand lesser content across your full speaker set, should you approve the manner in which it does so.

There are plenty of separate stereo and digital audio inputs, of course, nearly all of which can be assigned to the video of any given HDMI input, or to the three legacy video inputs: two composite and one component. Some socket types aren’t extravagantly provided: only two optical and two coaxial digital inputs, for example, just one USB-A and that on the front panel (the rear one is only for power), and we might consider the lack of USB-B to be a curious and disappointing omission.

The only input you can’t tie to a video input is the moving-magnet turntable phono input. But there are six line-level inputs on RCA sockets, and enormous future flexibility is gifted by a complete set of pre-out sockets, allowing you to use external amplification to upgrade any or all channels – more, in fact, because there are 13, given those extra two channels of processing.

There’s Ethernet and Wi-Fi to get you networked; there are separate antenna inputs (and supplied antennas) for FM, AM and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth. The inward Bluetooth connection appears to support only the base-level SBC codec, so we’d suggest you find a different way to stream, such as HEOS playback from your device.

Because yes there’s the huge bonus of HEOS here, a full wireless and multiroom platform compatible with any number of other Denon, Marantz and HEOS-branded products. This gives app-controlled access to streaming music services, podcasts and internet radio, as well as general remote control of the Cinema 30, and the ability to stream Bluetooth out to headphones, and to share any input except AirPlay with any other HEOS product in the home.

As for the speaker connections on the Cinema 30, there are more pairs of binding posts than there are amplification channels available. The main group is labelled for 7.x.4 (where the ‘x’ is the number of subwoofers, up to four). But additional sockets allow you to connect two different speaker scenarios at the same time, and then switch between them.

Let's calibrate!

Room calibration is available, and some would say essential as the channel count rises this high. Calibration can rankle if you’ve spent time perfecting your room, but few are the rooms which are genuinely perfect, and many are the resonant modes that room correction can root out and adjust.

It’s getting a bit out of hand here, perhaps, with five upgrades available above the included Audyssey XT32: there's a US$20 Audyssey app which allows you to adjust the curve, or a US$200 Audyssey MultEQ-X licence, for which you also might like to buy the dedicated Audyssey ACM1-X microphone at $176 on Amazon. But the Cinema 30 can also respond to the machinations of Dirac – either Dirac Live Limited Bandwidth or Dirac Live Full Bandwidth, alongside Dirac Bass Management.

The Cinema 30 we were listening to was calibrated using the included Audyssey XT32 and packaged microphone; this requires making measurements at some eight different positions to calibrate the room for multiple listening positions (we’re rather selfish and would prefer to calibrate to just one seat, but the option is not available).

We confess to finding calibration a wildly tedious process, though we always try it, so we were delighted when Adam Prangell of the local Marantz team offered to do that for us prior to arrival. We had headed to Masimo Manor in leafy Chatswood for this listening session primarily because our own listening room is wired for 5.1.2; it has previously hosted both the Cinema 60 and Cinema 40 for full testing, but the room's channel count is too low to take the Marantz 30 to its limits. So in Masimo's cavernous Chatswood chambers we met with Adam Prangell, who was ready to introduce us to, and then leave us alone with, the Cinema 30.

Listening sessions

We warmed up our ears with a bit of stereo and surround listening. Adam had the Audyssey correction already completed and saved to the first of two available speaker scenario presets (rather more of these might be useful for variations), so we were able to easily switch to the raw sound for comparison. We quickly decided that the Audyssey had here done its job well, in particular with regards to the bass management of the three individually-fed subwoofers.

We did enter the speaker set-up menus, however (see screen grab two pics above); we’re familiar with these from our previous reviews of the Cinema 40 and Cinema 60. Here we entered the menus and tweaked the Audyssey speaker levels just a little to hotten the rears and height to achieve a fully in-your-head sound for two very different test discs: the opening of Mad Max: Fury Road and the high-res surround mixes of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Play’ DVD. Both of these have a voice track which comes at equal level from all sides, so if you tweak until the voice is in your head, things are about right. (If it’s clearly centralised then you’ve got impressive tonal matching as well.)

Movies first. For our money, movies are relatively easy to deliver compared with music; it’s as much about the ability to deliver shifts of power as it is for tonal accuracy, which is hard to judge on a soundtrack unless you know your references well. We do know the intro of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis well from our own 5.1.2 system, so were pleased to hear it upscaled to the higher speaker count here by the Marantz with an even wilder exuberance of surround elements, yet locked centrally with solid LCR and dialogue legibility. Bowed strings filled the room as the intensity ratcheted up the ‘Zarathustra’ build to his Vegas show snippet of An American Trilogy... it’s a symphony of surround, this intro sequence from the UHD Blu-ray, and the Cinema 30 threw every element into the required corner.

On to the marvellous mix of atmospherics and action in Alita: Battle Angel (UHD Blu-ray again), where the monumental subwoofer rumble in the opening minute charged the room fully with bass. The busy streetscape in scene 4 showed the Cinema 30’s ability to simultaneously deliver atmosphere – both an ongoing the street rumble and a series of pocket effects in the rears – while having plenty in reserve to blast out the dynamics and depth on the arrival of the Centurion police robot.

A big early tick for the movies, then. But music is perhaps the greater challenge for a surround system, requiring accuracy as well as allure.

We loaded one of producer Morten Lindberg’s latest masterworks on 2L Records, ‘An Old Hall Ladymass’, recorded which blew us away on first hearing as you can read here. Lindberg’s multiGrammy-nominated releases offer high-res stereo, Atmos to 48kHz and interestingly, Auro-3D to 96kHz. There’s not much Auro-3D source material available, nor too many receivers that include it as standard (though more of them recently, as a 'NewAuro' brand is rising).

But the Marantz 30 is one that does include Auro-3D as standard.

We had only previous heard the Atmos version. Morten’s recordings are made using a high multichannel mike array, and they are not merely immersive but experiential. When your system is right they knit your speakers into the high vaulted cathedrals in which they were recorded, and more importantly you are impeccably placed in the middle of the performance. This recording features some particularly divine vocals but also an extraordinary portable organetto courtesy of Catalina Vicens, with which and with whom we have fallen quite in love. We played it through the Cinema 30 in Atmos, It was a joy to hear it in an even bigger room, on more expensive kit, though the sense of space was the same, equally thrilling: the organ tone and the sense of high acoustic on Stella celi was outstanding.

We switched to the Auro-3D option on this disc, but the Marantz didn’t recognise it, outputting something less. We later asked Adam Prangell back in and he solved it; you have to use the ‘Movie’ sound mode button and select Auro-3D from the onscreen menu – and then, yes, the additional resolution of the Auro-3D version was instantly obvious in a still greater sense of space delivered from the higher level cues, a real sign of the ability of the Marantz (and the whole system) to discern and deliver such delicacy. Almost sad, really, as we may never again hear it like this.

Mr Prangell also alerted us to a ‘CI’ engineering mode which can be accessed by holding down the ‘info’ key for five seconds to display the Cinema 30’s IP address, which you then type into a browser on your network. The secret menus there are passworded to protect against those who don’t know what they’re doing – but if you do, we gather the default password is ‘cinema30’.

More discs next: it might seem something of a downgrade then to start pulling out ye olde DVDs – but we have a DVD music collection which is loaded with hidden high-res surround mixes, many in high-res DTS 5.1. Our favourite, hands down, is The Beatles ‘Love’ (it sells as a CD/DVD pack for about A$30, lots out there). Of all Giles Martin’s surround remixes, this 5.1 set is still the most thrilling surround release: we started with Eleanor Rigby, where McCartney and string quartet sit up front, extra cellos to the rears, filling the room.

But we were finding, to our surprise, that the LCR Bowers & Wilkins speakers weren’t giving music the neutrality or sweetness required; they were coming over rather brash. Thankfully we remembered to try the ‘Pure Direct’ button on the Marantz remote (it shuttles between normal, merely ‘Direct’ and ‘Pure Direct’); the switch briefly interrupted things before fixing that brashness entirely, just in time for a reference level blast of the brilliant and bonkers I Am The Walrus mix on this disc.

The ‘original’ of I Am The Walrus has recently been freshly rendered into Atmos for the ‘Blue’ compilation album re-release, so we switched over to Apple Music on the Apple TV we’d brought with us… the immersive Atmos mix certainly sounded nicely spread across the system, but it lacked the sheer exuberance and freedom of the ‘Love’ DVD DTS high-res version.

Should you happen to be a Yes fan with a surround system, we heartily recommend Steven Wilson’s 5.1 mixes, especially in DTS-Master Audio. We loaded ‘Close To The Edge’ and – again with Pure Direct engaged for best results – played And You & I at something probably beyond reference level, and it was stunning in both dynamics and clarity. Being merely 5.1, we could press the Marantz’s Music mode button to invoke a variety of upscaling modes – we thought ‘DTS + Virtual X’ might be appropriate here to lift the sound into all speakers. Effective it was, but not pure; things were far more precisely positioned and crisp in the native high-res 5.1.

Our preference for Pure DIrect presents one dilemma – perhaps we weren't so keen on the Audyssey correction, as we later established that Pure Direct mode would have been turning that off. So was it the correction removal or other internal cleansing that made Pure Direct so good? With no way to invoke it but leave Audyssey on, there was no way to isolate exactly where the goodness and the brashness were coming from.

What we didn’t test in detail during this listening visit was the entire HEOS section, the multiple zoning, and anything to do with video quality.

But as with the set-up and calibration, we have been through all those in detail in our reviews of the Cinemas 40 and 60 previously and so can speak to their effectiveness; aside from zone count and the power behind it all, there’s little variation here with the higher model.

In terms of music access, of course HEOS brings all the streaming services, internet radio, file sharing from NAS drives, radio, internet radio – a huge wealth of entertainment so that you might not need to plug in any music sources… unless you want surround music, as the HEOS implementation doesn’t deliver Tidal’s Atmos tracks, nor is there support in HEOS, of course, for Apple Music with its large Atmos catalogue.

Which is why we had taken the Apple TV with us. We used it to try the new Atmos mixes of ‘Band On The Run’, streaming from Apple Music (oddly missing from Tidal)… it was OK, but we were perhaps adjusting to the quality of streaming after the immaculate immersion we’d been enjoying from discs playing in the Panasonic Ultra HD Blu-ray player of this set-up. For surround music, the discs easily beat the streaming services for clarity of delivery, but the streaming services have the ever-expanding Atmos catalogue of new and remastered immersive music.

Once we’d settled into the streaming, we ran through some modern Atmos mixes, rather than re-mixed classics. Olivia Rodrigo’s awesome bad idea right? was a bit disappointing, not using a lot of surround spread, though the Marantz still gave it a thrilling kick-arse energy to match its own exuberance.

Hot Chip’s Hard To Be Funky, by contrast, is an Atmos delight, blippy and clicky all around the place, and warming those giant DefTech subwoofers through nicely as it filled the full space with groove.

Boygenius’ $20 is another immersive goodie, especially the closing section, which wafted over us with waves of delight. AJR splits their The Dumb Song beautifully into front and rear sections, leaving you centred in exactly the ‘world of your own’ that immersive music promotes. If you have a real surround system and haven’t yet got into surround music, man, get streaming, or get some discs, and get cranking.

Verdict

It’s the top of the heap for Marantz’s integrated AV receivers, the latest range-topper in a long line of renowned AV products, providing both more channels and more power than any lower model, along with pretty much exhaustive socketry (bar the missing USB-B), full streaming and more than full multiroom (via any of HEOS, AirPlay or extra zones).

It’s solid and pretty attractive for such a beast, and one of its most recommendable traits is that while its full manual is something of a nightmare, it has an on-TV wizard which walks you through set-up beautifully, making this most complicated of audio-visual products remarkably easy to understand.

The Cinema 30 is a range-topper for good reason, backed by decades of leadership in amplification and AV receivers. We reckon you’ll get everything you could hope for here, including the essential fundamental sound quality, and with plenty of little surprise bonuses hidden away.

• See all our Australian reviews from Australian Hi-fi & Sound+Image magazines

• Latest news on the April 2024 Australian Hi-fi Show

There was a time, not that long ago, when LG’s C-series and G-series models differed only in appearance and speaker systems. That changed in 2021 when that year’s G1 got a brighter panel than its C1 sibling. That brighter panel was added to the C-series with last year’s C2, but the G2 got a new heatsink, essentially preserving the performance gap between the two ranges.

For 2023, though, that performance gap has grown bigger than ever before, because while the new G3 boasts brand-new MLA technology, which takes OLED to significantly brighter heights, the C3 is strikingly similar to the C2 it replaces.

That, in itself, isn’t necessarily a problem. Last year’s C2 was a multi Award-winner and more of the same doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Even the increase in price over last year’s model, while a shame, wouldn’t in isolation be a big problem for the C3.

What is a problem is that this lack of significant upgrades and increase in price, when combined, have left the door open to LG’s rivals. And one such rival has already gleefully skipped through. So while the C3 is, like its predecessor, a very good TV, you can now buy better for roughly the same money.

Price

The 65-inch version of the LG C3 that we have before us is priced at £2900 / $2600 (around AU$5460) at launch. Its predecessor, the C2, launched at a price of £2699 / $2500 / AU$4495. That’s a bit of an increase, but not a huge one, and price rises are unfortunately par for the course right now.

What matters more is how the C3’s pricing compares to that of its rivals, and the 65-inch version of the excellent, recently reviewed Sony A80L (£2999 / $2600 / around AU$5650) is available for very similar money in the UK and exactly the same price in the States.

It does have to be said that the 55-inch and 77-inch versions of the C3 are more significantly cheaper than the equivalent A80L models in the UK (in the US all sizes are priced identically) and that LG OLEDs tend to receive bigger discounts over time than their Sony counterparts, but at the time of writing and at 65 inches, these TVs are very much price rivals – and that’s not particularly good news for the C3.

Design

LG is sticking with the design it debuted with the C2, and we’ve genuinely no complaints about that. The narrow stand is elegant and gives the set a small footprint that makes it easy to find a home for, and while it's thicker at its thickest point than the uniformly thin G3 (4.7cm vs 2.4cm), that thick area – which houses the set’s connection, processing hardware and speakers – covers only a portion of the set’s rear, leaving the rest to be almost miraculously slim. The picture frame-like design of the G3 will still be preferable to some, particularly wall mounters, but to these eyes, the C3 is actually the more stylish and striking TV.

The C3, like the C2, is also incredibly light compared to the best 65-inch TVs, weighing just 16.6kg. That’s much lighter than the G3 (23.9kg) and Sony A80L (23.3kg), yet the C3 still feels like a very well-made product.

Features

The C3’s general display hardware is unchanged from last year. It has the same panel, to which no new heat sink or MLA tech has been added. In LG Electronics parlance, it’s an OLED Evo with Brightness Booster, whereas the G3 has Brightness Booster Max.

However, as everyone hopefully knows by now, the performance of a TV is dictated by far more than its panel, which is why each brand’s OLED TVs perform differently to those of their rivals, despite the fact that they pretty much all use the same LG Display panels (QD-OLED TVs use panels sourced from Samsung Display).

LG’s bid to squeeze more performance from existing components is focused on the new Alpha 9 Gen 6 processor, which brings with it a handful of new picture-enhancing features such as AI Super Upscaling Pro, which is designed to upscale sub-4K sources while reducing noise but preserving intentional film grain; OLED Dynamic Tone Mapping Pro, which breaks the image down into 20,000 zones (rather than the 5000 of before) for separate HDR optimisation; Object Enhancer, which sharpens foreground characters and props; and HDR Expression Enhancer, which applies specific tone mapping to those foreground elements.

The new processor also adds up-mixing of all sound formats to 9.1.2 virtual channels (up from the C2’s 7.1.2), and a new Auto Balance Control feature that attempts to prevent certain frequencies from being drowned out by others so that, for example, midrange voices aren't smothered when bass increases.

LG’s 2023 TVs also feature a new version of webOS. webOS 23 looks at first glance very much like the previous version, but LG has reduced the number of pages to just two in a bid to make it more responsive. It’s worked, with the operating system proving a fair bit snappier in operation.

In order to reduce the number of home screen pages, LG has introduced what is essentially a folder system that sees related apps and features gathered into ‘cards’. That makes finding what you’re looking for a little more intuitive, but we rather wish that the row of cards could be moved to the home screen’s second page, as there will surely be some people who never open them. While we’re at it, dedicating so much space on the home screen to advertising seems rather cynical, though we’re well aware that LG is far from alone in this approach.

LG gives every impression of taking usability seriously, and the new Quick Settings menu is a nice addition, allowing you to put your most-used settings and features at your fingertips.

On that subject, the Game Optimiser menu is of course back for 2023. This allows you to quickly see game-related information (current frame rate, for example) and adjust game-related settings without needing to dive into the full menu system. This year, LG has added a dedicated sound sub-menu. Some might find it useful, but we’d argue that the Game Optimiser is now a bit bloated and was most useful when it provided access to just a handful of useful features. Perhaps LG should look at making it completely customisable for next year so that those of us who regularly tweak only a couple of settings when gaming don’t have to scroll through a bunch of others that we never touch.

Putting aside our Game Optimiser nit-picking, the C3’s core gaming specs are as brilliant as ever. You get four HDMI 2.1 sockets when most brands are still offering just two, and each one supports every major gaming spec, including 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM. Dolby Vision gaming is supported right up to that 4K/120Hz limit, and there’s a really well-implemented HGiG mode that makes it easy to get accurate HDR tone mapping from most HDR games. Input lag, meanwhile, is supremely low at under 10ms.

Picture

As with the G3 and previous LG OLEDs, our preferred preset for Dolby Vision content is Dolby Vision Cinema Home, which offers most of the accuracy of Dolby Vision Cinema but with a little extra brightness that helps the image pop from the screen. Playing Top Gun: Maverick, it’s easy to appreciate the C3’s balanced approach to colours and contrast. The image is refined, subtle and detailed, and some highlights do appear just a smidge brighter than they were from the C2. We are talking about a very fine margin here, though.

There’s good shadow detail throughout the movie, too, and while there is a slight paleness to low-light colours, it doesn’t appear to be as obvious as it was with the G3.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the C3’s delivery in isolation. It performs much like the C2 but with a percentage point or two of extra pop and sharpness. The problem comes when you run it next to the Sony A80L which, in its Dolby Vision Bright mode, is significantly more dynamic, with brighter highlights and stronger blacks (that still retain plenty of dark detail), yet it still delivers a level of authenticity and subtlety, particularly in terms of colours, that makes it an all-gain, no-pain scenario.

It could of course be argued that the Sony’s Dolby Vision Bright setting isn’t 100 per cent authentic, but the same is essentially true of the LG’s Dolby Vision Cinema Home setting, and the way the Sony enhances the signal is so well done that there’s no real reason to complain.

And when we drop both sets to their theoretically most accurate modes, Dolby Vision Cinema on the LG and Dolby Vision Dark on the Sony, the latter is still the more striking and impactful of the two TVs. Highlights are brighter and better defined, there’s even less banding, better contrast and overall more three-dimensionality to the image.

None of which is to say that the C3 isn’t very good. The general similarities between it and the Sony suggest there’s good colour accuracy across the two TVs, but the LG just doesn’t have the punch of the Sony.

Switching to The Batman in HDR10, we notice that the LG does have a very small amount of extra shadow detail when compared with the Sony, but the trade-off is less strikingly deep blacks. Again, there’s also less overall impact, with the Sony’s superior contrast making for a more exciting rendition that still rings true enough to the source material.

Of course, you can change presets and individual settings in the C3’s menus in order to add some more punch and solidity, but at every stage its Sony rival strikes the better balance of dynamism and authenticity.

Dropping down to Another Round in 1080p and standard dynamic range, the C3 is almost faultless. In its Filmmaker Mode, a small amount of fine detail is lost in dark parts of the picture, but less so than from the Sony A80L. What’s more, while it’s hard to compensate for this flaw with the A80L, a simple switch to the C3’s Cinema preset does the job here.

The upscaling is excellent, too, delivering a sharp and detailed image that’s also clean and free of obvious enhancement. There’s also a lovely warmth and richness to colours that doesn’t impair subtlety.

Sound

While broadly a great TV, the new G3 is badly let down by its audio performance and, unfortunately, that’s a theme that broadly continues with the C3. It’s true that this cheaper model actually has a little more punch and dynamic expression than its very limp-sounding sibling, but it’s still dull-sounding, even by the fairly low standards of TV sound.

As with the G3, you can inject some energy into the audio by switching on the AI Sound Pro feature, but this is also bafflingly harsh, aggressive and thin to an extent that we find unlistenable. The Dolby Atmos setting, meanwhile, is open, spacious and weighty, but also far too prone to rattly distortion when provoked by deep bass.

Keeping these settings switched off is the least-bad compromise, as you at least get the decent clarity and projection you need for everyday TV viewing.

Verdict

To reiterate, there’s nothing really wrong with the C3’s picture performance in isolation. It’s very similar to that of the C2, which we loved, but with just a tiny bit more oomph and even better upscaling.

The problem is that this minimalist approach to upgrades has coincided with an increase in price that puts the C3 in the firing line of rivals that have, seemingly, been lavished with more attention. Add relatively poor audio to the equation and it’s hard not to be disappointed with 2023’s C-series model, even though it’s still a very good TV in its own right.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony A80L

Also consider the LG G3

Read our Samsung QN95C review

Best TVs: the latest and greatest TVs, rated and ranked

UPDATE: And just like that, it's gone. It seems we were right – it was a mistake on the part of Currys and the extra deal code has been removed. If you managed to bag one, congratulations! If not, the TV is still £500 cheaper than it was when we gave it five stars, so still quite the deal. For more TV bargains, check out our best TV deals page.

We've just spotted a ludicrously-good deal on a 65-inch OLED TV. It's the brand new Philips 65OLED806, a 2021 Award-winner, and it's down from £2300 to £1800 at Currys. But if enter the code VISION500OFF at the checkout, you can get another £500 off, which cuts the price to only £1300 – a full £1000 off the RRP!

Too good to be true? Perhaps. It's possible Currys has made a mistake and could cancel your order, but it's well worth a try if you want £1000 off what is arguably the best TV of 2021. And if it stands, you'll have scored yourself the mother of all early Black Friday deals.

Best OLED TV deal

The Philips 65OLED806 delivers an exceptionally sharp and punchy picture, the full HDMI 2.1 feature set and support for all HDR formats including both Dolby Vision and HDR10+. HDR10+ Adaptive is on board, too, allowing the TV to automatically adjust HDR10+ content to ambient lighting conditions.

The Android TV 10 is well appointed for apps, with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Disney+ all present in their full 4K, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos glory (Amazon features HDR10+ content as well). 

The 65OLED806 is a well-specified gaming TV, too. It has two HDMI 2.1 sockets that support 4K@120Hz, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) in all of its current forms (G-Sync certification is in progress), and ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode).

Overall, the Philips 65OLED806 is an excellent TV that performs even better than its Award-winning predecessor. Indeed, we felt that it was unbeatable for the original price of £2300. 

Now that Currys has slashed the price to £1300 when you use the code VISION500OFF at the checkout, this OLED TV is impossible to ignore. Don't hesitate to pull the trigger on this one.

MORE:

These are the best OLED TVs available

And here are the best gaming TVs around right now

OLED vs QLED: Which is the best TV technology?

We assure you this is the new iPad. But as it looks identical to the ‘old’ iPad of 2017, you’ll just have to take our word for it.

There’s little difference when it comes to specification, too – the numbers tell us that not much has changed in the audio or video departments.

That’s mainly because Apple has decided to double-down on the marketing strategy that brought us the advert with a bespectacled girl asking ‘what’s a computer?’ by turning the standard iPad into a baby Pro.

• The best Apple deals: cheapest prices on AirPods, Apple TV, HomePod and more

Build

Unlike its predecessor, the new iPad supports the Apple Pencil (an £89 optional extra). The processor has been boosted too, presumably so creative types can multi-task more efficiently.

So what’s in it for those who are media consumers rather than creators? Slightly improved performance at a slightly reduced price, that’s what.

If Apple is working on a bezel-less iPad-equivalent of the iPhone X, it’s presumably saving it as a future flagship model. At this end of the spectrum, it’s all about keeping costs low - and that means using the same chassis as last year’s model.

MORE: Apple iPhone X review

Dimensions, weight, the placement of the ports and buttons, the speakers, the camera – everything is the same. Sure, that makes the new iPad a little underwhelming, but it remains an exceptionally stylish device that’s both lightweight and reassuringly solid.

The eagle-eyed will notice there’s no Rose Gold option for the 2018 iPad, but that’s because the standard Gold option now has a hint of pink to it. Silver and Space Grey are both available as before.

Picture

We’ve learned to take tech specs with a pinch of salt - on paper, the new iPad’s screen is almost identical to that of last year’s. However, it isn’t actually identical.

The first sign that something is afoot is the presence of the Dolby Vision logo on some iTunes and Netflix content. True enough, this content is just that bit brighter, punchier and more colourful on the new iPad than it is on last year’s.

This isn’t the usual boost from standard dynamic range to HDR though, with the improvements being subtler in nature, but this is nevertheless slightly better performance with supported TV shows and movies.

The differences between the two tablets when fed SDR content are minor. The new iPad is a tiny bit brighter, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. And that’s fine, because the iPad was already a lovely device for consuming video content.

Colour balance remains the iPad’s strongest suit, balancing punch and realism in a way that means everything is vibrant but never unnatural.

From Looper to Thor: Ragnarok, Planet Earth II to Ghost in the Shell, it feels as though the picture you see is how it was intended, with excitement and subtlety as required.

MORE: Best Apple deals - iPad, iPhone, Apple TV

This is a sharp and detailed picture, too, with the jungles of Planet Earth II being crisply defined and full of life.

Go for an iPad Pro 10.5 and you’ll enjoy a more vibrant, dynamic picture and better anti-reflectivity (not to mention a bigger screen), but you’ll have paid an extra £300 for the privilege. At this price the new, standard iPad is comfortably the best tablet for watching movies and TV shows.

MORE: Apple iPad Pro 10.5in review

Sound

It’s disappointing the four-speaker layout of the Pros still hasn’t made it down to this model, which means you only get stereo sound when holding the tablet in portrait. The audio from the drivers is at least crisp and clear, though predictably lacking in weight.

We’d recommend listening with headphones whenever possible because, if partnered with a good pair (there are none in the box), the new iPad sounds excellent. In fact, it sounds a touch better than last year, with an extra sliver of punch added to the already crisp, detailed and natural delivery.

MORE: Read all our headphone reviews

Timing is good, and dynamic shifts, both subtle and bold, are handled well. It’s a natural, fairly neutral sound much like that of the company’s other phones and tablets, and one that lends itself well to movies and music alike.

Regular long-haulers should look at adding a pair of premium noise-cancellers such as the Bowers & Wilkins PXs, while those looking for something wired, portable and more affordable should check out the AKG Y50s.

MORE: Best headphones deals 2018

Features

Should you want to use your tablet for more than movies and music, the iPad has loads of options lurking in its App Store.

Mobile gaming has come a long way in the last few years, even offering premium, previously home console-only titles such as Fortnite, which looks great and plays astonishingly well on the new iPad.

Everything is held together by Apple’s iOS, now on its 11th edition. Most of iOS 11’s new features are geared towards productivity, making using one a slightly more Mac-like experience, but in general use the operating system is as clear and intuitive as ever.

The iPad still doesn’t feature an SD card slot, leaving you limited to the choice of 32GB or 128GB models. Prices have come down a little, specifically for the UK – the former by £20 and the latter by £10. The £319 we're quoting applies to the 32GB version we have on test here.

At the heart of the device is Apple’s A10 chip, which is more powerful than the A9 in last year’s model.

The difference is barely noticeable in day-to-day use, unless you’re a real power user - but it does give you a bit of headroom for the most intensive games and a greater degree of future-proofing. In the here-and-now, it’s just a super-snappy and slick user experience.

MORE: Best tablets 2018

The added Pencil compatibility isn’t a huge benefit to anyone who uses an iPad for movies, music or games but, for a bit of annotating, writing or drawing it may well be worth the investment.

Doodling on the new iPad isn’t quite as natural as it is on an iPad Pro, on account of the layer of glass between nib and display (the Pro has single-piece, laminated surface), but it’s a pleasant, accurate experience in its own right.

Verdict

But, in all likelihood, it’s not our opinion on the Pencil support you’re really after. You are probably interested to know what it’s like as a device for watching movies and TV shows and perhaps listening to a bit of music.

The answer is very good indeed and, in fact, just a touch better than last year - particularly if you fancy a bit of on-the-go HDR action. It’s only a subtle difference though, so if you already own the 2017 model we really can't recommend upgrading.

For everyone else, though, the 2018 iPad makes an excellent purchase. It’s comfortably the best tablet available at this sort of money.

See all our Apple reviews

We've become quite the flag-wavers for American company Audioengine, thanks to a good selection of desktop PC speakers that will get the best from your digital music.

The company is no stranger to the subwoofer market either. We've looked at this 11in square, front-ported Audioengine subwoofer before, and were impressed.

Build quality remains high, with screw-in feet providing a sturdy base for the smooth, elegantly finished box.

It remains a well-connected machine, too. Alongside its own power connection, you'll find a built-in AC outlet for connecting a wireless adaptor such as Apple's Airport Express or Audioengine's own W2 wireless adaptor (yours for around £125).

There are line level and minijack inputs present and correct, too.

Plenty of weight
When we first heard the S8, we were impressed by its compact, weighty, loud and proud sound.

Listening to the unmistakeable rumble of the Batmobile in The Dark Knight, there's still plenty of weight and it goes reasonably deep, but there's a definite flabbiness to bass notes and a lack of tonal definition.

What's more, while the sub looks easy on the eye, the cabinet is prone to rattling when really pushed, which is, naturally, never a good thing.

A year is a long time and there are now better options at this price-point.

The ATC SCM11s have sat on top of the sub-£1000 speaker pile for a few years now. And in that time, they have been not merely fighting off all-comers, but destroying them.

But, finally, some serious competition has arrived in the form of the EB Acoustics EB2s – and we haul out our SCM11s with some trepidation.

These speakers benefit from the excellent 25mm treble unit that ATC has used for many years, and the 15cm mid/bass design in an impressive in-house design with a massive magnet assembly and hand-wound coil.

Unlike the EB2s, you don't have to buy the SCM11 speakers online. Find a dealer and you can have the benefit of auditioning and comparing them with other speakers.

An easy listen
Do just that, and you'll find they fare pretty darn well. They're an easy listen: you'll receive an assured, balanced sound, even at high volume.

And if you do prefer to push your system – and ears – with some less polished recordings, then these ATCs are a little more forgiving than the EB2s (that's in no small part due to the EB2s' sheer transparency).

The Chemical Brothers' Swoon, from the new album Further, shows-off the SCM11's solid, suitably weighty sound, offering a little more brawn and bite than the new kids on the block, if losing some speed and agility in doing so.

Lots of excitement
Vocals are given air and convey plenty of emotion thanks to superb insight – leaving us staggered when the EB2s bring yet more intimacy and scale – and there's no shortage of dynamics and excitement when required.

It's simply and almost solely the strength of the EB2s that hurts the SCM11s; they take the strengths of the ATCs and raise the bar.

Still, it's undeniable that some people would rather buy in-store than online. And if you're shopping on your local high street, the ATC SCM11 speakers remain the best – and still hugely satisfying.

See all our hi-fi speaker Best Buys

Follow whathifi.com on Twitter