Audio Video News

Samsung officially unveiled its new 2016 SUHD televisions yesterday at its annual spring launch event in New York, offering up claimed advances in both picture quality and their smart TV interface.

Notably, all the new SUHD sets offer 1,000 nit peak brightness for high dynamic range content mastered to the HDR10 open standard, and wide color gamut. (They are not compatible with Dobly Vision HDR programs.) All meet the Ultra HD Alliance's Premium UHD certification standards.

Starting today, a free MQA update is available for Pioneer’s XDP-100R digital audio player ($700) and Onkyo’s just released DP-X1 ($900).

Hong Kong-based Nativ today announced the launch of its Nativ Vita high-resolution wireless touchscreen music player and Nativ Wave DAC on the crowd funding site Indiegogo. As of today, the company has 50 backers and has reached 53 percent of its $100,000 goal with 60 days to go.

Klipsch is commemorating its 70th anniversary by issuing limited runs of the iconic Klipschorn and Heresy Heritage series speakers. Special attention has been paid to the details of each new speaker, as they features design enhancements, exotic wood veneer finishes, special edition logos, and unique grille cloths.

With the announcement in January of Samsung's pending Ultra HD Blu-ray player, I got excited to jump right into a new disc-based format offering high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), and 4K resolution (3840x2160). It took about five weeks, but on February 11 I was able to purchase a Samsung UBD-K8500 at a local Fry’s Electronics. Sadly, UHD Blu-ray software wouldn't be available until March 1. But I figured I could at least get the player installed in my rack and await the first UHD discs to arrive.

Fluance has announced that its first line of turntables is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter.