Samsung’s flagship soundbars have for generations now delivered the most immersive audio performances in the soundbar world with their huge amounts of power, four components (including real rear speakers) and massive channel counts. So, can Samsung’s new HW-Q990D - which sticks again at 16 channels - keep the improvements coming?
Lyngdorf MXA-8400 Eight Channel Power Amplifier Review
by Martin Dew
Lyngdorf Audio finally offers an 8-channel power amplifier to complement its MP- surround processors. That puts them right in line with its super high-end home cinema competitors. The MXA-8400 certainly looks the part, but does it sound like it as well?
Another month, another superb release schedule for little known gems from the boutique labels that continue to do the Lord’s work. This month, some hugely fun Asian actioners (and one sadly not so…), some brutal British kitchen sink dramas and Alain Delon being cool in knitwear. What more do you want? UPDATED WITH 6 COMPETITIONS!
After a long and uncertain three year wait, Denis Villeneuve's Magnum Opus continues with this epic second chapter in his staggering realisation of Frank Herbert's Dune - UPDATED WITH IMAX REVIEW.
AVForums TV, Display and Calibration Podcast - 11th March 2024
by Phil Hinton
This week we look at whether you should consider buying last year’s TV models instead of waiting for the 2024 versions and save yourself a lot of money doing so?
Where to watch the 2024 Oscar best picture nominees
by Andy Bassett
UPDATED with winners 11-Mar-2024: With the 2024 Oscar ceremony having just taken place, we look at the streaming services where you can quickly catch this year’s best film nominees so you can now 'agree to disagree' with the Academy's choices if you so wish.
Continuing her run of Netflix starring vehicles, Stranger Things' Millie Bobby Brown takes on a competently designed CG dragon in a flabby, frivolous piece of perfectly tolerable night-in entertainment.
The mainstream horror rut continues as Blumhouse follows up its last dull, dreary, multiplex horror with… another dull, dreary, multiplex horror. Who’d have imagined that?
Nuts and bolts Statham doing what he does best; it's trashy, it's hilariously OTT, but it's also a frequently viscerally satisfying piece of revenge action carnage. UPDATE - NOW ON SKY/NOW TV
7
Hi-Fi
LG launches portable StanbyME Speaker
by Ian Collen
Designed to work in harmony with its namesake lifestyle TV, as well as being a standalone wireless audio solution, the new stereo speaker features dual 20mm tweeters with a 20W output.
Starman (Columbia Classics Vol. 4) 4K Blu-ray Review
by Mark Costello
John Carpenter’s most emotional film still radiates charm and warmth despite its underlying tone of sadness and loss. And it's all the more beautiful on this stunning new 4K restoration from Sony as part of their ongoing Columbia Classics boxsets…
Sharply witty and sublimely satirical, and providing a much-deserved, tour-de-force lead for the excellent Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction is definitely worth catching whilst it's still on the Big Screen. UPDATE - Now on Amazon Prime UK.
Somewhat insanely, Guy Ritchie's created/written/directed TV spin-off to his 2019 movie of the same name is great fun, chock full of colourful characters, bursting with witty dialogue, and utterly bingeworthy.
8
Gaming
Baldur’s Gate 3 leads the BAFTA Games Awards 2024 nominees
by Ian Collen
Larian Studios excellent RPG is in the running for 10 categories, including Best Game, with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor also in for a potentially busy night.
Updating the original planar magnetic closed-back design, the new-gen model integrates a Quarter Wavelength Resonator Mask and enhanced Isodynamic Hybrid Array driver.
First announced last year, the floor-standing model finally takes its place as the biggest and most powerful loudspeaker solution within the 5000 series.
Astell & Kern has taken the company's considerable knowledge of digital and separated it from its portable players. Is the HC4 the best way to enjoy the A&K sound?
This long-awaited sequel to the 2020 remake of the original classic RPG adds a fresh twist, both in terms of its storyline and gameplay, but can it live up to the weight of expectation?
A loose adaptation of Alasdair Gray's novel, Poor Things is a perfect confluence of art and message, idea and execution, writing and design, Yorgos Lanthimos follows up his Oscar winning film 'The Favourite' with a bona fide masterpiece. UPDATE - Now on Disney+ in 4KDV/DA
This week Ed reports back on all the new Hi-Fi products launched at the Bristol Show and we discuss how to get started building a Hi-Fi System in 2024 and what you need.
Want to know how to transport highly explosive nitro-glycerine over treacherous terrain safely? BFI's wonderful native 4K restoration of The Wages of Fear shows you how (not to).
The Q Acoustics M40 speaker system could be described as 'Big', 'Wireless’ and 'Affordable'. Of course, these are all relative terms - so what is the company's specific take on how they should all be interpreted and combined. We find out...
Left to languish on Netflix’s shelves for three years after its completion, Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan’s trip to just a couple of clicks on past Solaris is an admirable failure that may find a second life as a cure for arachnophobia…
At least avoiding the lowest-hanging fruit, Ridley Scott’s breathtaking command of scenes of historical warfare distract from but don’t negate the core problem with the depiction of the French emperor: that he is ultimately unknowable. UPDATE: Available now on AppleTV+
AVForums 4K and Blu-ray Podcast: 29th February 2024
by AVForums
This month Cas and the movies team bring you the Top 10 4K discs and Blu-rays to watch in February and take a look at video and audio restorations and the balancing act when giving classic films a new lease of life in 4K.
After holding back on a few specifics at CES, a recent German showcase introduced some further details on its OLED and QLED ranges, along with some quoted (but TBC) European prices.
Decades in the making and still somewhat late out of the gate, Michael Mann's Ferrari is all about the characters and the drama, but are valiantly Award-baiting performances enough?
The freshly posted listings on its US store for the new 2024 OLEDs point to a late March arrival with prices starting from $2,599 and $1,499 respectively.
Francis Ford Coppola’s audacious musical failure still doesn’t right all of its wrongs after over 40 years… but there’s no failure like a Coppola failure, especially now in a dazzling 4K restoration from Studiocanal, complete with a huge number of extras to at least soften the blow somewhat… 4K COMPETITION LINK ADDED.
The AX3120G soundbar/subwoofer combo doesn't sport any impressive nicknames like Hisense's HS2100 'The Beast' soundbar yet it comes across well on paper and price wise. So, does the 3.1.2 channel AX3120G prove to have its own set of audio teeth... we shall see.
Disney+’s lavish and brutal new adaptation of the James Clavell novel hits our screens with its beautiful sense of blood-soaked intrigue and fog-shrouded mystery apparent from the very first frames…
Perlisten Audio tells the T-Rex to move over. It is time for the next apex predator, the Dominus Rex, to take shape in the form of the Perlisten D15s subwoofer. Read on to find out how Perlisten’s nature found a way.
AVForums Podcast: Movie & TV Show Edition - 26th Feb 2024
by AVForums
This month Cas and the movies team bring you the Top 10 films and TV shows to watch in February and take a look at how we best like to consume our films and TV shows and the balancing act between quality and convenience.
A Holiday Special of a Marvel movie, it's unsurprising to find the 33rd MCU entry amidst the three lowest rated, and once again Disney display a complete disdain towards the very physical media that might help this flop break even, releasing it on 4K HDR after its streaming bow, and without the Disney+ trappings of Dolby Vision and IMAX Enhancement.