Sound + Image

SOUND + IMAGE magazine offers a comprehensive package focused on lifestyle home electronic entertainment. It provides easy-to-read information about audio and video equipment and how ordinary consumers can assemble extraordinary systems that look and sound fantastic.

One ear on the future • Could headphones soon bring us both peace and understanding?

Sound + Image

High End Munich 2025 • It was the last ever High End show for Munich… but only because next year the High End Society is moving the show to Vienna. Still, from May 15-18th many additional weissbiers were sunk in farewelling the venue that has been hosting fine annual selections of new audio kit for more than 20 years, after an earlier two decades in Frankfurt. Here’s our pick of highlights from Munich 2025…

20/20 vision from Marantz

The Harman purchase

Norwegian gain

Rega Brio hits 7

AV Amplify – meet the new Melbourne experience store

Qobuz gets Connected

Krix goes infrasonic

Two-way Triangle

Buy a spare Blu-ray player!

NEW TVs Meet the TV class of 2025 • As the new 2025 TV releases start arriving in Australia, here are the trends to watch in OLED, Mini LED and more. Plus what’s happening with 8K? And is there a chance 3D will make yet another return to our TV screens?

Your personal theatre awaits • The longstanding premium movie platform Kaleidescape is now officially available in Australia, with its own local movie store. How does it work, and what do you get?

ViewSonic's lumen king • The headline shout-outs for this ViewSonic projector include some impressive numbers and claims, chief among them a 5200 lumens count. It gives the award-winning V57-4K some useful abilities.

Rounding up • Marantz wants to make ‘luxury’ products. And it couldn’t make much more of a statement in that direction than its high-end Horizon wireless speaker.

Solid Gold • They look like they’re 40 years old, and they were originally designed to install flush into your wall, like studio loudspeakers. So why did Tannoy’s ‘Super Gold Monitor’ take out our Sound+Image Award for 2025?

SMALL BOXES, BIG SOUND • Small boxes, big on abilities, including direct streaming. Small smart amplifiers could set you up for a minimalist system which performs in a big way.

WiiM Amp • An entry-level streaming amplifier so affordable it is the current holder of an EISA Award for ‘best value streaming amplifier’. Why wouldn’t you?

Sonos Amp • It’s been around six years, but updates to the Sonos platform keep the company’s zone amplifier up with the times, suited especially to those already within the Sonos eco system.

Denon Home Amp • On one level this streaming amplifier is built to power a single room for music and TV sound. But it might also form just part of a whole home of music zones.

Bluesound Powernode Edge • Bluesound’s cheaper version of its Powernode smart amplifier gives almost nothing away except headline power rating, and even then there’s a twist, thanks to a new choice of power circuit provider.

Marantz Model M1 • Full-sized performance from a compact box, app-controlled streaming and multiroom expansion: can Marantz deliver a genuinely hi-fi-quality mini room player?

Electrocompaniet Rena SA2 • A small and lovely box that streams and makes beautiful sounds: Electrocompaniet delivers a luxurious take on the streaming player.

OPENING TIME • Open headphones are unrestricted by the reflections of closed-back headphones, allowing a sound which is relatively effortless and, well, open. These three new pairs at different prices show the merits of the genre.

Audio-Technica ATH-R30x • First in our trio of open-backed headphones is a new attractively-priced model from Audio-Technica. At...