LATEST ADDITIONS

Imagine if you could focus sound the same way you beam light from a flashlight. Think of the possibilities. You could direct sound to Bill, and Betty, who’s sitting right next to him, wouldn’t hear a thing. Sort of like headphones without…uh… the ’phones.

Andrew Jones has an impressive history in loudspeakers, having served as the chief speaker engineer at KEF, Infinity, Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (TAD), and Pioneer, where he established a reputation for designing budget speakers that sound shockingly good. In May, following the merger of Pioneer and Onkyo, Germany’s ELAC announced that Jones had not only joined the company as vice president of engineering but was already working on a new line of speakers.

Wasting no time to prime the holiday selling season, Amazon today launched the “Black Friday Deals Store” and said Prime members, who pay $99 a year to get benefits such as free two-day shipping, will get early access to its one-per-customer Lightning Deals.

Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q My current 5.1 audio setup is driven by a Marantz SR7007 AV receiver. Since I’d like to get a little more punch from it, I’m looking at upgrading to an external five-channel amp: either an Outlaw 5000 or Marantz MM7055. Here’s my question: If I connect an external amp to my Marantz receiver, will I still be able to use its Audyssey processing, or do I lose that ability? —Garry Briand / via email