Mitchell & Johnson HP1

A new headphone technology delivers easy-to-drive electrostatic panels supported by conventional drivers for bass. How do they sound?

Mitchell & Johnson was named after its two UK founders Paul Mitchell and Dave Johnson, and began life in 2011, well before our moustachioed Aussie cricketing legend demolished their touring 2013/4 Ashes team in a 5-0 rout. (How they must have winced.) The hi-fi brand produces not only headphones but also a CD player, streamer, amplifier and even a tuner, with the declared philosophy of “state-of-the-art technology combined with classic hi-fi design at an affordable price.” Few would argue with that.

Microlab Solo 9C

Microlab’s Solo 9C is a substantial speaker at an insubstantial price. So is this a bargain in value terms, or a few compromises too far?

Microlab is a proudly Chinese company, and was among the first to launch its own brand of audio systems internationally, focusing primarily on sub-sat systems for computer audio, but also making portable speakers and multichannel systems. It has a 13-year track record in more hi-fi-orientated speakers as well — audiophiles may prick up their ears at the fact that Danish audio dude Peter Larsen (of Vifa, Scan-Speak and Dynaudio) was Microlab’s chief consultant for six of its earlier years.

Sharp HT-SB602

Sharp’s slimline soundbar offers plenty of features for the price level, but it overdoses on sound processing without delivering on fundamentals

There certainly seems to be plenty for your money on offer from Sharp’s soundbar. The soundbar is sleek, the subwoofer is wireless and usefully narrow, and there’s a good selection of inputs, including HDMI connectivity. Yet the price is remarkably affordable. Is this top value, then, or a case of bells and whistles outweighing the investment on basic sound quality?

Panasonic DMR-BWT955GL

It’s a 2TB PVR and  Blu-ray recorder in one, offers top picture quality and comes loaded with smarts, including 4K output. Is this is only video source you’ll ever need?

Three digital TV tuners. Two terabytes of hard-disk capacity. Blu-ray, DVD and CD playback. Blu-ray and DVD recording. Smart features galore. Wi-Fi networking. We weren’t even sure how to define Panasonic’s DMR-BWT955GL — call it a Blu-ray recorder, as does Panasonic, and you might miss its PVR functions. Call it a PVR, and you’d not realise it was a Blu-ray recorder. So we’ve called it a Blu-ray PVR. On paper at least, it’s hard to see how, if you had this Panasonic, you could ever need or want an additional video source device (short of the soon-to-come 4K Blu-ray players). Let’s see if that turns out to be correct.

Zappiti 4K Player

Android-based delivery of your movie and TV files with a beautiful interface and 4K delivery into the bargain. And it does seem a bargain

We are now living in a thoroughly 4K video world — all the top TV ranges from the major players lead with the 4K/Ultra HD resolution of 3840×2060 pixels. Of course there remain some persuasive arguments that the benefits of this quadrupled resolution is minimal on its own, particularly if viewing on 55-inch screens or below (unless you sit really really close). But it’s fast becoming the default — if you decide to stick with 1920x1080, you’ll likely miss out on the latest video processing, internet smarts and connectivity that go into higher-level tellies, because the best models are all now 4K. And with upcoming generations of TV adding High Dynamic Range and other technical benefits to the 4K spec, going Ultra HD is becoming ever more of a no-brainer.

Naim Audio Mu-so

Shining out among a market of mediocre wireless speakers, Naim Audio’s offering is a Mu-so of fire that can ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

Once upon a time, Naim Audio was a dyed-in-the-wool amplifier-centric hi-fi company that was regarded as something of an industry rogue in terms of ‘going its own way’. But in the last 20 years it has not so much reinvented itself as evolved out of all recognition, raising its core of truly hi-fi amplification to new levels (witness the $200k+ Statement pre-power amplifier) while investing ahead of the pack in streaming audio trends. Its merger with French speaker company Focal brought an injection of design flair to the latest Naim products, and now we find it producing equipment like this Mu-so wireless speaker which, as one commentator recently put it, out-B&Os B&O.

But has Naim retained its emphasis on audio excellence while shifting into such potentially populace-pleasing products?

Panasonic Viera TH-65CX800A

Post-plasma pre-OLED Panasonic delivers a premium 65-inch UHD LED-LCD TV—and hey, you can carry it around with you…

The very first 65-inch TV that I ever saw was from Panasonic. It was displaying its massive, bright picture at the same event at which Panasonic was launching Blu-ray. The size of it, back then, was astonishing. And it was, of course, a plasma.

Since then Panasonic has left plasma TV technology and moved over to LCD (it has also announced it will release OLED TVs). While some small part of me wants to mourn the disappearance of plasma, there can be no doubt that the change in emphasis has paid off. If nothing else, 4K in plasma would likely have been very difficult. But at 65 inches, a UHD panel delivers noticeable improvements in picture quality, and Panasonic has used all its skills to make the most of the higher resolution.