Loudspeakers

To be fully THX approved, every single aspect of the system that plays a movie has to meet the THX criteria – and pay a fee to wear the coveted badge. The certification on the Jamo D500/D500 SUR speakers is proudly reproduced in their printed manuals. It’s THX Select2, signalling they are a bit less intense than Ultra2 and designed to better suit European living spaces.

KEF’s new T-Series range of home cinema speakers are definitely a sign of the times. They’ve been designed with a clear purpose in mind – to be an aesthetic match to newer, thinner, flatscreen TVs, enabling buyers to couple their hi-def movies with authentic 5.1 sound without their living room looking like a branch of Sevenoaks. The question is: has KEF sold out? Can these skinny speakers deliver the audio quality that everyone knows the brand is capable of?

Neo V2 is a pimped-up version of Acoustic Energy’s original Neo system, which is named after Neodymium, the material from which its driver magnets are made.

This is not the first time we’ve auditioned Eclipse’s speakers, but there have been changes made to the system, in particular the TD712 main/satellite speaker, which demand a new look. Plus, this the first time that a complete 5.1 channel system based on the latest and greatest models in the range have all been available in one place at one time. And let’s not forget that the Eclipse proposition is unique – a much misused word, but completely justified in this case.

In my time, I have reviewed some monstrous speakers. Whether this is as a result of my golden ears, or because I am big and ugly and can unpack big soundboxes, is moot. Some of the largest and most luxurious have been bipoles.