Mark Henninger

PRICE $3,300

AT A GLANCE
Plus
One of the brightest TVs you can buy
Deep gaming functionality
Relatively wide viewing angles
Mounts flat on a wall
Excellent cable management
Minus
65" model is pricey
Still no Dolby Vision
Quantum-dot OLED has its own charms

THE VERDICT
This sublime ultra-premium multi-use 4K TV has a modern minimalist design and delivers impressive imagery thanks to the use of mini-LED, quantum dots and advanced picture processing. Its premium performance comes at a price but it delivers the goods when it comes to image fidelity.

For the past ten years we've watched 4K LCD and OLED TVs compete in the wake of plasma's demise. There was the death of 3D. And for a while, we even had curved screens to contend with. At first OLED had a distinct picture quality advantage over LCDs, thanks to its use of emissive pixels that can fully shut off individually and deliver true blacks. However LED-lit LCD keeps evolving and keeping pace while offering a different set of benefits.

Samsung's name for mini-LED FALD LCD panels featuring quantum dots is Neo QLED. And the QN95C is king of the 4K Neo QLEDs.

PRICE $650

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Works upright and on its side
Omnidirectional sound
25 hour battery life
Light show & karaoke
Charge other devices using its battery
Minus
Poorly designed wheels and handle

THE VERDICT
Sony's party speaker impresses with its sound quality and features but its wheels and handle make it difficult to move around.

Is there room for a party speaker in your life? How about this question instead: do you like to have fun? If so, then the answer is yes! This sometimes scorned category stands out in my experience because in recent years, whenever I see people having a good time with music, more often than not it's been some sort of lifestyle, entertainment-friendly, wireless, portable speaker dishing out the tunes. A party speaker.

Large, powered, wireless party speakers have been around for some time, but 2023 marked the first year I truly took notice. I recently reviewed a Sony party speaker, and this year seems to indeed be the year of the party speaker. At Audio Advice Live in Raleigh, North Carolina, I entered a room in the Sheraton and instead of the typical two-channel high-end system or home theater setups, what I found was a dance floor just waiting for a party to get started. This included disco lights, a DJ rig, and a pair of full-size JBL Partybox 710 speakers handling the PA duties.

I attended two separate Macintosh demos at Audio Advice Live 2023. They were strikingly different. One was the classic two-channel demo, in this case using new Macintosh equipment that has the classic build quality and aesthetic. The highlight of that demo? Trying to figure out the mysteries of tube sound.

But the other demo also got my attention because it is automotive. The Jeep Grand Wagoneer McIntosh demo—held in front of the hotel—featured an in-cabin entertainment system that is about as over-the-top as any OEM system I've seen or heard in a motor vehicle.