LATEST ADDITIONS

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Stylish, sturdy design
Compact and battery powered
Easy setup, no apps required
Remote control included
Spacious, full-bodied sound
Digital audio input
Minus
Pricey
Not ideal for heavy pop/rock

THE VERDICT
The Core is a remarkable speaker that delivers excellent sound quality for its size, but its price is steep.

My wife thought I was crazy as I walked into the kitchen cradling a speaker while singing along with the Boz Scaggs classic “Look What You’ve Done to Me.” It’s not uncommon for me to serenade the family, but doing so with a “live” speaker in tow, well, that’s unusual even for (the goofball in) me. But that’s one of the things I love about Mass Fidelity’s remarkable Core: It’s so easy to move around. And then there’s the sound—we’ll get to that in a minute.

Q I have become enamored with the Denon AVR-X7200W receiver after reading a review of it in Sound & Vision. Not only does it have all the features I want, it should allow me to expand my home theater/audio world with little compromise to my existing system.  

Now this is really old school, but I need to know if there is some provision for connecting a cassette deck and CD recorder.  I know the AVR-X7200W lacks dedicated tape loop inputs/outputs, but I wonder if some of its other assignable audio jacks could be used for that purpose.  Why? I have a couple of vintage cars with cassette players in them and want to preserve the original equipment aspect of the cars, right down to the audio systems. It’s great to go cruising and listen to music, no matter what the vintage, in a vintage car. Please let me know if my plan is possible with this Denon receiver.—Ed Sobiecki

A Preserving the original equipment aspect of a vintage car — now there’s a good reason finally to initiate serious discussion of the recently resurrected cassette tape format !

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Easy retrofit replacement of wired volume controls
Dedicated router creates private TiO Wi-Fi network
Exceptional level of user customization
Minus
Limited direct IP control of third-party components
Few streaming services supported—but more coming

THE VERDICT
With TiO’s unique approach to home automation, systems are a breeze to design and install, quick to configure, and intuitively natural to use—with the bonus of being highly configurable by the user without the need for a return service call from the dealer.

The folks at TiO (short for “Turn it On”) claim they’re taking “an entirely fresh approach to home automation” with a philosophy that considers the user to be the most important part of a TiO system. In other words, if a home automation system were a round hole and the user a square peg, the manufacturer should re-engineer the hardware hole into a square rather than force the user to become a round peg. Of course, making things truly and honest-to-goodness-ly easy for the user is way, way simpler to pontificate about than it is to accomplish.