New Products

In her recent review of Denon’s Home Sound Bar 550 soundbar, Sound & Vision’s Leslie Shapiro commented that, while the bar had “good bass for its size…adding a wireless subwoofer would help.” Fortunately, help has just arrived in the form of Denon’s new Home subwoofer ($599), a Wi-Fi connected model featuring an 8-inch woofer housed in a sleek, compact enclosure that matches the Sound Bar 550’s design.

The latest soundbar to come from Britain’s Bowers & Wilkins is a gen-3 version of its Panorama model that adds Dolby Atmos processing plus upfiring drivers for a 3.1.2 configuration. The $999 bar is an all-in-one immersive audio solution that the company says will deliver “room-filling, powerful sound no one-box rival can match.”

As the pandemic winds down (again) and spring draws near, new product introductions are starting to pick up. Will they reach pre-2020 pandemic levels? Probably not, though the volume of press releases seems a bit higher than it was a year ago. Ongoing labor shortages and supply-chain disruptions caused by the logjam of shipping containers in major ports continue to hinder a return to normalcy — a situation that some analysts predict is here to stay for the rest of the year and possibly beyond. In the spirit of being thankful for the goods and services we can get, here’s a look at some of the latest A/V gear with a little news thrown into the mix.

I’ve been told the pandemic is over and that things are opening up. That’s hopefully the case, I said to myself as I headed out to the February 9 launch of the Marantz Model 40n network integrated amplifier ($2,499).

It’s been a long time coming but turntable specialist Pro-Ject Audio Systems USA yesterday announced the availability of its first fully automatic turntable.

M&K Sound today announced an update of its V Series of subwoofers featuring a new décor-friendly design and THX Certification for two of the three new models.