New Products

Our main take-away from the 2013 CES was that this is going to be the year when OLED and 4K-rez “Ultra HD” TVs finally arrive. And by “arrive” I mean sitting in the store, waiting for you to buy ‘em. While this development is no doubt promising, you can also count on the advanced sets scheduled to hit stores later this year being expensive.

Monitor Audio have covered most of the speaker bases, from traditional towers and surround setups to miniscule desktop companions and docks, so it's no surprise that they've decided to enter the burgeoning wireless audio arena.

Samsung’s product preview event, held on Wednesday 3/20 at NYC’s American Museum of Finance (who knew such a place existed?) was notable on two counts. First, the company announced a price for its 85-inch UN85S9 Ultra HD TV — the cover star of Sound&Vision’s April/May print issue. Second, it had another cover star, SI swimsuit model Kate Upton (fully clothed), along with Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning on hand to say how much they dig the company’s 2013 Smart Hub interface.

You can't buy Emotiva gear like the UMC-200 pre/pro and UPA-700 amp we just reviewed in retail stores, but if you're in the Chicago area this weekend, you can see it and hear it for yourself, on Saturday, April 13 from 9 am to 5 pm.

Even though Sony's one of the top brands in several audio categories, the company hasn't made much of a push with its audio products in the last few years. That all changed at an event today in Los Angeles, where Sony showed off a new A/V receiver and a new soundbar, and also announced new HTiB (home theater in a box) systems.

Speaker Standouts
An old-school category sees surprising innovation

One could argue that this spring will see as much innovation in the speaker category as in headphones. But when you think about it, that’s not really so surprising. After all, speakers can be almost any size, almost any shape, almost any weight, while headphones will always have to be small and light enough to fit on your head.