With one woofer hidden away, there's more to the R212s than meets the eye. Steve Withers (per)listens in A relative newcomer to the home cinema scene, having only arrived in 2021, Perlisten hails from Wisconsin in the US, a big country where some people would consider a subwoofer with a 50in driver to be a 'viable option'. But assuming your movie room isn't the size of Wembley Stadium, can you mine the sonic depths without going to these extremes? The answer, thankfully, is yes. That brings us to Perlisten's range of subwoofers, most of which employ dual drivers mounted in a sealed push-pull c ..read more

Mark Craven discovers that B&W's new 700 Series offers more than just a gentle upgrade Once again, Bowers & Wilkins has followed the refresh of its top-spec 800 Series – in 'D4' guise since 2021 – with a subsequent overhaul of its more affordable 700 range. The idea being that it can filter some of the new design and engineering tricks of the 800s down to these more mass-market speakers. Okay, 'mass market' might be stretching it a bit. Although B&W's 700 S3 lineup is the brand's mid-range proposition, with the 600 Series and MT-50 sub/sat system below it, price points reach as hig ..read more

Philips' MLA OLED TV is a bright performer, enthuses Steve May, but it's not the smartest in its class Introducing the OLED+908, the first MLA (Micro Lens Array) OLED flatscreen from Philips, and available in the 55in iteration tested here for around £1,800. That's not an inconsiderable sum for a telly of its size, but as is the current direction of 
travel in the 4K TV market, it arrives promising higher peak brightness than we've seen from the brand before, plus 
plenty of other premium treats. This flagship set, also offered at 65in and 77in, ushers 
in some significant differences at compo ..read more

The manufacturer may be unfamiliar, but Roku is an excellent streaming platform, so is this affordable 4K flatscreen too good to resist, wonders Steve May? German TV giant Metz is the latest company to release a line of low-cost 4K HDR screens built around the Roku smart platform. Forever nipping at the heels of Amazon's Fire TV OS, Roku is distinguished by its ease of use. It doesn't bamboozle or befuddle, but does offer a huge variety of streaming service apps. Metz is an unfamiliar name to UK buyers, but it has an illustrious history that dates back to the 1930s. A regular face at the Berli ..read more

The 98P745K is TCL's most affordable 98in TV, costing around the same as a premium 55in OLED. John Archer wonders if this is the dawn of a new era When it comes to home cinema, bigger is always better. This idea has traditionally fed a thriving home cinema projector market, reinforced by the way king-sized TVs with screens of 90in and above have tended to be remortgage-requiringly expensive. Suddenly, though, projectors are finding themselves looking over their shoulders as a new breed of ultra-large TV – that you don't need to be an oil magnate to afford – bursts onto the scene. TCL is right ..read more

Danish brand's immersive audio processors finally find their equal in this stunning eight-channel power amp, says Martin Dew The launch of the eight-channel MXA-8400 amplifier in September 2023 filled a yawning gap in Lyngdorf's range. Until then, its customers had to stack multiples of its two-channel SDA-2400 amps to drive a home cinema speaker array. A model with more built-in channels was needed to get in line with competitors. The result is the MXA-8400, first teased in 2020 when company founder Peter Lyngdorf showed off a glass-topped prototype at ISE in Amsterdam. Then Covid took hold ..read more

The original Ambeo soundbar was a sonic revelation. Now Sennheiser hopes to impress with its smallest model yet. Steve May downsizes his Atmos addiction Intended for everyday living rooms and multimedia spaces, Sennheiser's Ambeo Mini wouldn't look out of place beneath a 42in or 48in screen. At less than half the cubic volume of its Soundbar Plus stablemate , and a fraction of the gigantic original Ambeo Max, you might even describe it as meek. That would be a mistake. This third addition to the Ambeo clan might be cute and compact, but there's no compromise on power. Its Class D amplification ..read more

On the surface, this £995 12in ported subwoofer doesn't scream 'AV excitement', but Richard Stevenson discovers it has hidden depths. Literally The Impact X Series is Velodyne's take on high-value subwoofery; all the LFE spills without the frills. Available in 10in, 12in and 15in variants, the theme is front-firing single-driver subwoofers with big amplifiers in 'functionally' styled ported cabinets. The 12in model tested here is the Goldilocks of the series, combining a punchy 12in long-throw driver with a 300W class A/B amp in a beefy 20mm-thick MDF cabinet and coming to a retailer near you ..read more

Jon Thompson once thought he'd never have to rewind a VHS tape again, but now discovers the vintage AV format is threatening a comeback 'It's dead!' is a term I have heard all my life about many things. Most recently, it's been popping up over and over again regards physical movie media. Then Oppenheimer came out on 4K Blu-ray and sold out all across the US in only a few days. People were crossing state lines to try and find a copy, and as always, the eBay scalpers kicked in with copies going for $500 to $1,000 for a very short period of time. So if the medium is dead, then why did it go crazy ..read more

Steve Withers samples a floorstanding multichannel package from British sonic wizards Q Acoustics When you think of multichannel audio the first thing that probably comes to mind are the surround (or height) channels, but in reality even the most active surround sound mix is primarily focused on the front of the soundstage. The main left and right speakers, along with the centre channel, do most of the heavy lifting by creating a wall of sound at the screen end of the room. So it pays to invest in bigger speakers that can handle the load, while also offering the added benefit of pulling double ..read more