LATEST ADDITIONS

Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 20, 2017

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $399 pr

AT A GLANCE
Plus
For desktop or in-room listening
PC-friendly USB and line inputs
Class A/B analog amp
Minus
Limited (but adjustable) bass

THE VERDICT
Audioengine, always a champ in powered compact speakers, sweetens the deal on this one with a PC-friendly USB input and headphone jack.

Twelve-year-old Audioengine is best known for active compact speakers, though the company also makes passive compact speakers, a subwoofer, a small amplifier, a USB stick DAC, and a couple of streaming DACs. The HD3 loudspeaker is more or less an amalgamation of most of those products, infusing a sweet little speaker with a Class A/B amp, DAC, Bluetooth streaming, and a couple of less common features that just might make it irresistible to those in the market for a pair of small wireless speakers.

SV Staff  |  Jun 20, 2017
LG’s newest 34-inch HD gaming monitor boasts an ultra-wide curved screen and other features to provide an immersive experience that pulls gamers into the action.
SV Staff  |  Jun 20, 2017
If you could take home security features with you in the form of a wearable device when you left the house, would you feel more secure?
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jun 19, 2017
Not long ago, I stumbled across an unusual podcast series, called Sound Matters. I had some hesitation before listening to what was, at the time, the most recent episode (Episode 10: Sounds From Outer Space) because the podcast series is sponsored by B&O Play...
SV Staff  |  Jun 19, 2017
Klipsch has renewed its three-year partnership with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to “preserve and celebrate the live music experience.”
SV Staff  |  Jun 19, 2017
Pioneer has announced a lower-priced addition to its high-end SE line of headphones.
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jun 19, 2017
Last week Apple released its own Siri-powered speaker, the voice-assisted HomePod. It’s Apple’s attempt to muscle its way into a market already dominated by Amazon’s Echo with Alexa, and the Google Home. The HomePod is touted as an audiophile-grade speaker with excellent performance. Sound quality? Really? Let’s do a quick reality check on this.

SV Staff  |  Jun 19, 2017
Optoma has announced that it will deliver a 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) projector built around a laser phosphor light source this fall at a “projected street price” of $4,999.
Daniel Kumin  |  Jun 16, 2017

Signature S60 Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value

PSW125 Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value
PRICE $1,600 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent range and tonal balance
Dramatic looks
Good blend from unusually low-profile center
Minus
Sub doesn’t add much to the towers alone

THE VERDICT
With the Signature Series, Polk successfully practices its long-held ethos of delivering high performance at affordable cost in a new, smartly designed lineup.

Of the three or four speaker brands that pumped the vast majority of air throughout the hi-fi boom of the 1970s, only one—Polk Audio—is still doing what they’ve always done (design and make loudspeakers), where they’ve always done it (more or less), and with very much the same ethos (value/performance, with value in italics). OK, so Polks, like virtually all other mass-market speakers sold in the U.S. are now actually manufactured overseas. But they’re still conceived here according to the old Polk standards—industrially designed in San Diego out of the corporate headquarters and engineered in Polk’s original hometown in greater Baltimore.

Josef Krebs  |  Jun 16, 2017
Picture
Sound
Extras
With Café Society, Woody Allen cleverly combines 1930s Pre-Code romantic comedies like Red-Headed Woman with the glamour-and-gangster nightclubbing of Manhattan Melodrama, all delivered with Purple Rose of Cairo–type old-school Allen evocation of era. Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves his Bronx Jewish family to work as an errand boy for his powerful Hollywood agent-to-the-stars uncle (Steve Carell). When Bobby falls in love with his uncle’s secretary (Kristen Stewart)—despite her having a lover—things get complicated, especially on Bobby’s discovery that her boyfriend is his boss.

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