LATEST ADDITIONS

Spring beckons and so does the long-awaited return to normal life as the pandemic winds down. Though February was short, we learned a few things from our Top Picks for the month: (1) Subwoofers don’t have to look like subwoofers, (2) you can’t judge a speaker by its looks, and (3) you don’t have to spend thousands to get a big-screen TV that delivers terrific picture quality. Will one of our February gems help you rediscover your passion for music and movies or gaming (Pac-Man anyone?) and push your home entertainment experience to the next level? There’s only one way to find out.

PRICE $1,499

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Incredible extension from incredibly small design
Highly flexible controls and features
Wireless option
Elegant finish
Minus
Limited peak output
Pricey

THE VERDICT
KEF’s KC62 delivers impressively deep bass in an elegant, ultra-compact package, though its output is best suited for smaller rooms or listening at more moderate levels.

Mankind has sought to get more and deeper bass from smaller and smaller designs ever since the first Neolithic audiophile blew through a conch shell and thought, "Damn, I wish this went lower, louder!"

Qello seeks to corner the market on streaming concerts and music documentaries but do they offer enough diverse material to satisfy our hunger for content?

Let's never forget that the enduring Mad Max franchise—four movies in with a fifth on the way—began right here 42 years ago with this low-budget car/motorcycle-chase gem. Relative to its more popular sequel, The Road Warrior, Max can be viewed as a sort of origin story, showing how a good cop (Mel Gibson) goes mad after a horrible act of violence befalls his family. He hits the road to exact some fuel-injected revenge, leaving behind the world he once knew. What's striking about this movie today is seeing how much better it is than it needed to be, from the emotional story to the intense acting, superb cinematography, sharp editing, and outrageous stunts.