LATEST ADDITIONS

It's getting hard to find many points of difference between AV receivers around the key £500 mark. Pioneer's VSX-1131, originally priced £550 but available now for less if you shop around, offers a specifications sheet with few surprises, beyond the fact that it's very well featured indeed. Whatever you're hoping to find here, you probably will. 

There’s always a touch of madness about the films of Luc Besson. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. With Lucy, it mostly works. The story – about a woman who gains the ability to use the entire capacity of her brain – starts off daft and gets crazier, but Besson's flare for action, some breathless pacing and a committed performance from Scarlett Johansson keep you locked in for the ride.

Here at HCC we rather liked REL’s Serie S subwoofers, even if it has involved repeatedly telling sub-editors that there isn’t an ‘s’ on the end of Serie. When the company announced a Super High Output overhaul of the S/5 and S/3 models we had questions. Could they be better than the original? Would the price remain competitive? Might REL find that lost ‘s’? The answer to the last is 'no', but I'm happy to reply in the affirmative to the first two. 

Philips has become the latest manufacturer to squeeze Dolby Atmos technology into a soundbar. Undercutting rival Atmos 'bars from Yamaha and Samsung, the £900 Fidelio B8 is the first to offer an all-in-one 3D audio solution for less than a grand.