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It may be a Bank Holiday in our native UK, but that hasn’t stopped us from publishing a fresh entry into our weekly Rewind column.
Here, we once again give you a short and sweet summary of the biggest hi-fi and home cinema news to break over the past seven days.
And what a week it was, with our testers delivering their definitive verdict on Q Acoustics’ new floorstanders and announcements from big name players in the world of hi-fi hitting the headlines at a near frenzied pace.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Q Acoustics 5050 speakers have a very different sonic character
Last week our team of reviewers delivered their definitive verdict on the Q Acoustics 5050. The speakers proved to be a big departure from the older, Award-winning Q Acoustics 5040 based on our listening checks. The biggest shift is in their sonic character, which has a bigger focus on dynamism, clarity and agility, over Q Acoustics’ traditional emphasis on warmth and easy listening. While this makes them a little fussier to match, the move is positive, with our reviewers awarding the 5050 a perfect five-star rating.
Read our full Q Acoustics 5050 review
Volumio’s new music streamer raised some eyebrows
It is rare for a product to genuinely surprise us, but last week Volumio’s Motivo did just that. The product is set to make an appearance at the High End Munich show and is an interesting beast. The music streamer also functions as a headphone amp and has an iPad-like touchscreen. It’s the sort of combination we’d usually expect from Fiio and it piqued our reviewers’ interest. We’ll be curious to see how it performs in the real world when we get it in for testing.
Read the full story: Volumio’s do-it-all music streamer looks like one of this year’s most intriguing bits of tech
Elac launched a new range of home cinema speakers
German audio giant Elac unveiled its new Vela 2.0 range of home cinema speakers last week. We haven’t had them in for testing, or seen them in the flesh yet, but they certainly look interesting. The range includes three new floorstanding, two new bookshelf and one new centre-channel speaker. The entire range has new internals, including a new version of Elac’s Jet 6 Air Motion Transformer ribbon tweeter across all of them. Given how impressed we have been with other Elac speakers, including the Award-winning Debut B5.2, we’re keen to get the new Vela 2.0 into our listening rooms as soon as possible.
Read the full story: Elac unveils a new range of sleek high-end floorstanding and bookshelf speakers
AVID revealed its first turntable in six years
British high-end hi-fi company AVID lifted the lid on its Actus Dark Iron turntable last week. This is a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, because it’s the first record player from the brand in the past six years. Second, because it looks pretty swish and features a wealth of technical upgrades AVID claims will let it offer unprecedented performance.
Read the full story: The AVID Acutus Dark Iron is the company’s first new turntable in six years
High-end brand Loewe wants to start making its own OLED panels
Last week our intrepid staff writer, Lewis Empson, went to visit Loewe in Germany, where the high-end brand revealed that it plans to start manufacturing its own OLED panels. This is part of the brand’s ongoing “Engineered & Made in Germany” initiative and will see it buy OLED glass and ‘open cell components’ from an undisclosed Korean company, and then assemble and fine-tune them in Germany. Will this lead to better OLED TVs? It’s too early to tell, but the news is interesting nonetheless given that most brands rely on LG or Samsung for OLED panels at the moment.
Read the full story: Loewe set to produce its own OLED TV panels in Germany
We asked why more young people aren’t buying hi-fi systems
In all our chats with audio brands, young people’s disinterest in “proper hi-fi” has been a constant theme. This week our staff writer, Ainsley Walker, did a deep dive explaining the possible reason why this is the case.
Read the full story: Why don’t more young people have a hi-fi system?
MORE:
These are the best OLED TVs we’ve reviewed
Check out our picks of the best surround sound systems
We detail the best floorstanding speakers
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