HiFiMAN HE400S Planar Magnetic Headphones

HiFiMAN has been at the forefront of planar magnetic headphone technology for many years. Several of its headphones have been featured prominently here in Hi-Fi+ by our own Chris Martens. Recently HiFiMAN and its creative leader, Dr. Fang Bian, have been competing tooth and nail with a handful of other top-rated manufacturers in the high end arena and to say they can hold their own is an understatement. The company’s current flagship HE1000’s are without question one of the top headphones at any price in the market today. While it is exciting to see how far up the sonic mountain these top of the line products can reach, for most headphone aficionado’s these prices are prohibitive. Enter the HE400S. Priced at an affordable £249/$299, these comfortable and easy to drive new headphones are just the ticket to get a taste of champagne on a sparkling water budget.

REL T/9i subwoofer

On the one hand, this is a review of the REL T/9i subwoofer. On the other hand, this is a review of the REL T/9i subwoofer. Because this is a review of two REL T/9i subwoofers. More specifically, this is a survey of how most people get deep bass very wrong, and how a pair of well-integrated RELs are the exception.

Let’s start with the T/9i itself. The top dog in REL’s new core T/i series, the T/9i is a solid square piano gloss cube with a new front firing 254mm long-throw drive unit with a steel chassis and a large inverted dust cap. This is joined by a matching 254mm downward firing passive radiator. Adding depth to the cabinet makes the cabinets act like a concert hall, designed to properly dissipate rather than propagate the back wave.

KEF EGG

The latest member of KEF’s EGG family updates the iconic speaker design. Ed Selley enjoys some over-easy beats

As the revival in the fortunes of two-channel audio looks set to continue, we’re seeing companies adapt products that were originally intended for multi-channel use to more traditional stereo-orientated designs. In the case of KEF, the company has taken its long standing ‘egg’ satellite speaker – a benchmark in the compact home cinema multi-channel loudspeaker market – and given it a thorough overhaul to turn the design into the active stereo setup you see before you here.

Gears 4: The Wind of Change

We speak exclusively with The Coalition’s Rod Fergusson and Chuck Osleja as the Gears Of War 4 beta rolls out on Xbox One

“When we first came in, we talked about the Tim Burton Batman and the Christopher Nolan Batman,” Rod Fergusson tells us as we talk ahead of the launch of the Gears Of War 4 beta. “When I first came in that was one of our things: ‘We’re going to be Christopher Nolan’s Batman’. But as we started doing it we realised ‘This just isn’t Gears. This is something else’. So we’re trying to find this middle ground when you hear the banter, even in our tease at E3, with Kait and JD talking to each other. I don’t want to make a humourless game.”

10 ways to guide people with design

Jenn Tang explains how designers can pull emotional and cognitive strings to guide users through their products and drive engagement

Have you ever wondered how sites like Facebook or apps like Snapchat get users to come back again and again? It’s not magic; whether they know it or not, they are using psychological tools that play on our emotions and biological instincts.