AUDIO VIDEO NEWS

Integra has introduced two 7.2-channel AV receivers with features designed to ease custom installation.

Reaching ever higher, HiFiMan’s new $6,000 Susvara planar-magnetic headphones use acoustically invisible “stealth magnets” to improve sound quality by keeping sound waves intact.

While traditional electronics stores continue to close their doors at an alarming pace, Amazon is well on its way to reaching its goal of opening 100 pop-up stores in malls around the country.

You may not have heard of Bruno Putzeys but if you’re an audiophile and have purchased a high-performance power amplifier in the recent past, you might know his work. Putzey’s ground-breaking NCore Class D amplifier module, created under the aegis of Netherlands-based Hypex Electronics, is used in amplifiers from ATI, Marantz, Jeff Rowland, and Bel Canto, to name a few. That Morris Kessler, founder of ATI and long-time champion of Class AB amplification, chose NCore for his new AT527NC and AT524NC amplifiers, is telling. Both models received Sound & Vision’s Top Pick designation, earning five stars in the Performance category, suggesting designs that are a far cry from Class D devices of just a few years ago. We tracked down Putzeys, now CTO at Kii Audio, to learn more about the new Class D and the apparent revolution he has started.

MQA, creator of the end-to-end audio encoding technology Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), has entered into a multi-year agreement with digital rights agency Merlin that paves the way for the independent music labels it represents to encode their master recordings in the MQA format.

Onkyo has announced that the DP-X1A ($800) and DP-S1 ($450) personal audio players unveiled at CES in January are now shipping.

Onkyo is expanding its RZ Series of AV receivers in June with three 7.2-channel Dolby Atmos/DTS:X-equipped models, ranging in price from $900 to $1,400.