Latest news with #AudioTechnica
The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
5 best record players, reviewed by an audio expert
There's something mesmerising about lowering a needle onto a spinning record. Vinyl record sales are booming, and if you're looking to start your vinyl journey, or you're thinking about upgrading an old turntable, I've found the best record players that won't break the bank. There's a plethora of budget-friendly record players available that don't feel like compromises – decks that blend classic appeal with just enough modern convenience to make everyday use a doddle. I've been spinning my way through a selection of the latest relatively affordable record players from a range of brands. They may differ in design, features, and finish, but all share one thing in common: they make listening to records straightforward and joyful. Some have fully automatic operation – just press 'start' and let the deck do the rest – which is ideal for those wary of tonearm technicalities. Others come equipped with Bluetooth, enabling you to wirelessly stream to compatible speakers or headphones, if that's more convenient than a traditional wired setup. You'll even find models with a USB output, making it possible to digitise your collection. I think the Audio-Technica AT-LP70XBT is by far the best option for most people, offering brilliant sound quality at a reasonable price. However, l've tested lots of other great options. Whether you're rekindling your love of vinyl or lighting the spark for the first time, I've taken a close listen to help you find the best record player for your needs. How we tested Each of the turntables on test was carefully assembled and connected to my trusted reference audio system, ensuring a consistent setup for every model. To get a true sense of musicality and character, I spun a wide range of vinyl: the atmospheric layers and vocal nuances of Björk, the sweeping dynamics of Strauss's orchestral works, and the brassy, chaotic joy of Stan Kenton's big band jazz. I used these records to assess these players by several criteria: Sound quality: The most important test of all. It's perhaps a little subjective, but my varied playlist helped reveal how each deck handled detail, rhythm, dynamics and stereo imaging – all qualities that matter whether you're a casual listener or a long-time collector. Resonance: Reasonance is any vibration that impacts sound quality, whether from the turntable itself or from the tone arm. I wanted record players that reduced this resonance. Tone arms: A tonearm holds the stylus, or the needle. I wanted a smooth, lightweight tone arm that was easy to place onto a vinyl without damaging the record. Cartridge: The cartridge houses the needle, also known as a stylus. It's how a record player reads a record. These can often be swapped between different turntables, but I wanted to check the quality of the included cartridges and ensure that they didn't skip. Tracking force: This is the amount of pressure a stylus needle puts onto the groove. I measured the tracking force of each deck and whether or not it could be adjusted to ensure perfect playback. Anti-skate settings: These settings stop the stylus from creating too much inward force as it moves towards the centre of the record, so I both looked out for and tested these settings Connection types: All the turntables included in our tried-and-tested lineup come with a built-in phono preamp, as well as the option of a traditional line out. Vinyl records produce a very low-level signal that needs special amplification and equalisation before it can be heard properly through speakers. Traditionally, this job was handled by a dedicated phono stage in a hi-fi amplifier, or a separate external unit, but a built-in phono preamp takes care of that for you. I wanted record players with as many ways to connect as possible. Why you can trust IndyBest reviews Steve May is a technology journalist with more than 30 years' experience, specialising in home audio, home cinema, TV, soundbars and personal audio. He writes for a variety of popular audio websites and publications. His reviews are based on real-world testing, and he will only recommend the handful of products he believes are worth your money. The best record players for 2025 are:
Stuff.tv
17-06-2025
- Stuff.tv
These earbuds have a 65-hour battery life, but that's not the best thing about them
Some of the most popular wireless earbuds have exceptional battery life these days. Audio Technica's latest buds have some of the best I've seen, clocking in at 65 hours in total. But that's not the best thing about them. I'm seriously impressed by the ability for the earbuds to magnetically snap to each other and switch off to save juice. Even better, you don't need to fiddle around with an app or any fiddly buttons. It means the earbuds don't just become paperweights if you forget to pack the charging case. In fact, it's the first time I've ever seen a feature like this. Read more: Best cheap headphones in 2025 rated and reviewed Now, about that ridiculous battery life. You get 25 hours from the earbuds themselves, and another 40 from the charging case. Even with noise cancelling turned on, they'll still go for 15 hours in-ear and 25 hours from the case. There's also a 5-minute quick charge that gets you 90 minutes of playback. Sound-wise, Audio-Technica is going for a fully fledged experience. The ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds pack in custom-designed 9mm drivers that should excel in low-end grunt, while also keeping things crisp up top. They're also waterproof and dustproof, so will survive just about anything you throw at them. You've got your usual suite of features too: hybrid noise cancelling, adjustable transparency modes, beamforming mic for clear calls, and compatibility with Bluetooth LE Audio and the LC3 codec. You can even go low-latency if you're the sort who games on their phone. Available from 17 June 2025, the Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds will set you back $149/£125/€149. They come in green or black, and you can order them directly.
Forbes
17-06-2025
- Forbes
Audio-Technica's Reveals Next-Generation Wireless Earbuds For European Market
The new Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2 wireless earbuds have an impressive battery life and some ... More innovative technology. Respected Japanese brand Audio-Technica has announced another new pair of true wireless earbuds The ATH-CKS50TW2 offer extended playback time, noise canceling and a novel way of turning the earbuds on and off. With up to 65 hours of total playback time, the new ATH-CKS50TW2 can deliver up to 25 hours of continuous playback from a pair of charged earbuds. There is an additional 40 hours of backup power contained in the earbuds' charging case. Even with active noise canceling enabled, the new earbuds can play for 15 hours before they must be put back in the charging case for a top-up. A quick five-minute charge can provide up to 90 minutes of listening time. That's a handy feature if you're about to go for a run and then find out there's no power left in your earbuds. The Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2 can play for up to 25 hours on a single charge. A standout new feature with these new earbuds is Audio-Technica's Magnetic Switch technology which lets users power the earbuds on or off simply by joining or separating them using built-in magnets. It's an ideal way of conserving power when the charging case isn't easily available. The ATH-CKS50TW2's hybrid noise-canceling system combines feedforward and feedback processes to block ambient noise. There are also additional listening modes that let listeners remain connected with their surroundings while still enjoying music or podcasts. Both functions can be used during phone calls, which is handy for hearing clearly in noisy environments or for monitoring your voice with a sidetone. These new earbuds are powered by custom-designed 9mm dynamic drivers that have been engineered in-house by Audio-Technica to deliver a sound that's rich and detailed with an extended low-end response for better bass. The Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2 have Magnetic Switch technology which lets users power the earbuds ... More on or off simply by joining or separating the earbuds using built-in magnets. The shape of the earbuds has been designed to deliver all-day comfort and performance. Audio-Techica has developed hybrid ear tips made using a blend of hard and soft silicone for a snug and secure fit that minimizes sound leakage. The earbuds are waterproof and dustproof to IP55 standard, making them suitable for everyday use indoors and out, even in the rain. Pricing and Availability: The Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds are available in green and black colorways and will be on sale from June 17, 2025. The price will be £125 / €149. Tech Specs:
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What the Tech: Fathers Day gift ideas vinyl
Even the most tech-savvy dads agree, sometimes old-school is just cooler. And for dads who love music, nothing says nostalgia quite like spinning a vinyl record. This Father's Day, if you're looking for a meaningful and memorable gift, vinyl might be the perfect choice. From entry-level turntables to vintage sound systems and classic albums, here's a guide to help you hit the right note. If Dad doesn't already have one, a turntable is the place to start. You can find solid options for around $100 at stores like Walmart or Target. Many of today's turntables come with modern features like Bluetooth connectivity, so he can play records and wirelessly stream the sound to any speaker in the house. Want to step it up a notch? Mid-range models from brands like House of Marley or Audio-Technica offer better sound, sleek designs, and higher-quality components. If you're buying a turntable to connect to a modern stereo or powered speakers, look for one with a built-in preamp. That will save you from needing additional equipment. If Dad is a true audiophile or had a setup back in the day, vintage gear might be the ultimate gift. Refurbished turntables and stereo receivers from the 1970s, including models from Sansui, Pioneer, and Technics, are in high demand because they sound excellent. The only downside is the cost. A full setup with vintage components and speakers can run into the thousands. But for a music lover who appreciates the sound and design of classic equipment, it might be the perfect gift. If Dad already owns a turntable, that makes your job even easier. Vinyl records are widely available. Original pressings from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s can be found online and in record shops. Most new artists now release their albums on vinyl as well, so whether he is into classic rock, jazz, soul, or modern indie music, there are plenty of options. Check out the website Discogs for tens of thousands of new and used vinyl records. Thanks to the return of vinyl, independent record shops are thriving. Browsing through racks and flipping through bargain bins is part of the fun, and it is a great way to spend time while shopping for something special. If you cannot find what you're looking for locally, online sellers are a great option. The WhatNot app features live record auctions where you can discover hidden gems. A seller called Collect Co streams live every night on Facebook and YouTube and ships directly to your door. The store purchases record collections nationwide and sells them during live streams. Once Dad gets into vinyl again, you will have gift ideas for every occasion. Albums, accessories, storage crates, and cleaning kits all make great add-ons. And if he spends the rest of Father's Day spinning his favorite records and reliving the soundtrack of his youth, you will know you found the perfect gift. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
WIRED
17-05-2025
- WIRED
WiiM Intros Sonos-Killing Smart Speaker and Apple and Google Get More Accessible—Gear News of the Week
Plus: Nothing confirms over-ear headphones, there's a new Xperia phone, and a striking transparent turntable from Audio-Technica catches our eye. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Global Accessibility Awareness Day was Thursday, so it's fitting that both Apple and Google have announced a raft of new accessibility features for their devices this week, all slated to land in the coming year. First up, let's talk Apple. The headline is Magnifier support for Mac. This is integrated with Accessibility Reader, so you can use your iPhone camera to zoom in on a distant whiteboard or sign and magnify it on your MacBook screen, tweak contrast and colors to make it more legible, or extract the text into your preferred format. For deaf and hard-of-hearing people, Apple has beefed up Live Listen by adding Live Captions support and extending it to the Apple Watch. You can use your iPhone's microphone to boost audio for AirPods or hearing aids with Live Listen, but with Live Captions, you can get instant transcription on your wrist. The Apple Watch can also serve as a remote control for capture, so you can leave your iPhone close to the speaker (ideal for a meeting, classroom, or lecture hall). You can also rewind if you missed something and review the transcript later. Other noteworthy additions include Braille Access, which turns your Apple device (iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Vision Pro) into a braille note taker, enhanced eye and head tracking for iPhone and iPad, plus new Accessibility Nutrition Labels in the App Store, which will allow people to see at a glance what accessibility features an app or game supports. You can find the full list on Apple's website. — Simon Hill Google Has Accessibility Updates for Android and Chrome Google's accessibility update focuses in on existing Android and Chrome features, as well as some new ones aimed at Chromebooks in the classroom. The relentless drive of AI has seen Google's Gemini enhance several existing services like Android's Talkback screen reader, which offers AI-generated descriptions of images for low-vision and blind folks. The company is expanding that integration, so you can now ask questions about those images, perhaps the material of a pictured dress or learning the make and model of a car. Google is also relying on AI to enhance its Expressive Captions to convey more emotion and tone. Improvements to the Chrome browser enable you to use your screen reader to interact with PDFs to read, highlight, search, and copy text just as you would with any other page. Page Zoom has also been improved for Chrome on Android, so you can increase text size without affecting the webpage layout and customize your preferred zoom levels for different pages, bringing it into line with Chrome on desktop. For students using Chromebooks in the classroom, Google has enabled hands-free navigation with Face control, which uses the webcam to track facial movements. The caret browsing setting enables folks with visual impairment to navigate and interact with web pages using a keyboard instead of a mouse. ChromeVox is a built-in screen reader that can read onscreen text aloud and will soon be able to output audio captions in braille when the Chromebook is connected to a braille display. Chrome also now features more natural-sounding voices for text-to-speech. Finally, the College Board's Bluebook testing app (where students can take the SAT and Advanced Placement exams) can access all of Google's built-in accessibility features, including ChromeVox, Dictation, and the College Board's digital testing tools. — Simon Hill Watch Out Sonos! WiiM's First Smart Speaker Is Here Ever since Sonos bungled its app update last year, Sonos stans have been clamoring for a whole-home streaming alternative that reliably works. Chinese audio brand WiiM makes easy-to-use audio devices that support virtually every major streaming service. I've been enjoying the company's streaming player and stand-alone streaming speaker for months, with no issues playing music in different zones, starting Spotify jams with my wife on her phone and me on mine, and generally imbuing our home with music. WiiM's latest is a smart speaker and wireless subwoofer that can take your system to the next level. The speaker, called the Sound, looks remarkably familiar to anyone who has seen an Apple HomePod and features a small, round display on the front to help you know when it's listening (and what is playing). It's capable of a room-filling 100 watts of sound and can be configured as a stereo pair if you have two. The subwoofer adds a bit of low-end extension and should be great for folks who want to use this system to fuel a dance party. In addition to the two speakers, WiiM also announced a new streaming amp called the Amp Ultra which features a touchscreen and large physical volume knob. It looks like a great, affordable competitor to options from Cambridge Audio, Naim, and others. This amp has a dedicated subwoofer output and HDMI, so you can use it and your new subwoofer with your TV too. – Parker Hall Sony Is Back With Another Xperia Sony hasn't sold an Xperia smartphone in the US for two years, which doesn't seem to be changing with the new Xperia 1 VII. The niche, expensive flagship Android phone continues the design language of previous Xperia devices, while combining the prowess of Sony's various hardware brands, from its Bravia TV and Alpha camera teams to the Walkman music department. For example, the new Xperia adds an artificial intelligence-powered Auto Framing mode to recognize humans during video capture—it records the whole scene, but it'll also provide a cropped close-up view of the person, so you can intermix footage despite using one camera. From the Walkman team, Sony says the Xperia now has 'high-quality sound components,' from adding gold to the solder on the audio jack to minimize transmission loss to upscaled music quality with DSEE Ultimate support. The phone's speakers have also been upgraded, with better treble and mid-bass output. The Xperia 1 VII has flagship specs like any other high-end Android, from the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to 256 GB of internal storage. However, unlike the competition, Sony's phone retains the microSD card slot for storage expansion and still has a headphone jack. It's available in the UK and Europe for £1,399 (€1,499). Nothing Teams Up With KEF, Confirms First Over-Ear Headphones Nothing announced this week that it is working with British hi-fi wizards KEF on 'several acoustically co-developed' audio products that it said are already in progress and launching later this year. A few days later, it dropped a video on its YouTube channel announcing it was releasing its first pair of over-ear headphones this summer. The KEF partnership wasn't mentioned directly, but it feels safe to assume it is probably involved. Some of the things the designers seem keen to address in the forthcoming cans include a better, easier-to-use design, more interesting and unique features, and a cheaper price than comparable headphones—all with a 'better than AirPods Max' performance. Amen. —Verity Burns Audio-Technica Debuts a Transparent Turntable We can see right through Audio-Technica's new turntable. Quite literally. Unveiled at High End Munich this week, the AT-LPA2 transparent deck has been labeled as the brand's 'finest turntable yet,' delivering not just a striking design but the promise of a high-end analogue performance too. That's helped by a number of features—the acrylic platter and chassis aim to provide top-notch resonance control and minimize unwanted vibrations, there's an optical speed sensor positioned under the spindle for ensuring the most accurate playback speeds, and an external power supply to prevent any electrical interference affecting the turntable's sensitive audio components. The AT-LPA2 will also come fitted with Audio-Technica's well-regarded AT-OC9XEN dual moving coil cartridge alongside a newly designed straight carbon-fiber tonearm and adjustable anti-skate mechanism. The interchangeable 110-gram and 130-gram counterweights should allow for broader cartridge compatibility, futureproofing it should you ever want to upgrade. It's available now for $2,000 (£1,699). — Verity Burns Huawei Unwraps Sleek New Wearables Folks in the UK may be interested in Huawei's new wearable lineup (they won't come to the US). I've been wearing the headline-grabbing Huawei Watch 5 for the past few days, a luxurious new entrant to the smartwatch scene with a sleek design that combines sapphire glass with titanium or stainless steel. It runs Huawei's HarmonyOS but also works with Huawei's app on Android or iOS to bring notifications to your wrist (there's even an eSIM option). It boasts solid health and fitness tracking, partly thanks to a pressure sensor you can press with your other fingertip for ECG and PPG measurements, making it easy to track your heart health and blood oxygen levels. The display is nice and bright, and I've been getting around three days between charges with it set to always-on. (You can get around a week with it off.) Elsewhere, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 and 4 Pro are the more affordable entries in Huawei's smartwatch lineup. With a rectangular design reminiscent of the Apple Watch, they mix sapphire glass and an aluminum body with a titanium alloy bezel. They look nice, but the thick bezel around the screen detracts a little from the design, and it's not very responsive, sometimes needing a couple of taps or swipes. Both are solid fitness trackers, but the svelte (9.3-mm) 4 Pro adds water sports tracking and a new Air Pressure Sensor. Neither requires daily charging, and they are relatively affordable. Huawei also announced open-fit earbuds, the FreeBuds 6 and the MatePad Pro 12.2-inch 2025, an OLED tablet that can be paired with Huawei's Glide Keyboard. The Huawei Watch 5 (£400), Huawei Watch Fit 4 (£150) and 4 Pro (£250), and the Huawei Freebuds 6 (£140) are available now. There's no word on the price or release date for the tablet. — Simon Hill Rewind's Boombox Is a Modern Twist on an Old Classic French retro tech brand Rewind is releasing a boombox to sit alongside its excellent Walkman-style portable cassette player. In advance of its debut at the High End audio show in Munich, the company posted a video of the new GB-001 earlier this week—the GB apparently, and rather questionably, standing for 'Ghetto Blaster' if the original, now deleted Instagram post is anything to go by. It's a single-deck device with clean lines that showcase two bright, backlit VU meters. There are four speakers onboard, with the company aiming for a neutral sound rather than an 1980s-style bass monster. The GB-001 will also function as a Bluetooth speaker and has battery power. — Martin Cizmar Google I/O Is Almost Here Google I/O, the annual developer conference where we learn what's new from the search giant, kicks off on May 20 in Mountain View, California. (You'll be able to stream it here.) We're expecting to hear about the company's mixed reality plans at the show, but Google made several announcements this week. That includes a new design language for Android and an expansion of the Gemini assistant onto new platforms like Wear OS and Android Auto. Google's Find My Devices app is also rebranding to Find Hub, since it's now more than just a tool to find lost gadgets. You can read more about these updates here. Android is also getting some fancy new security and privacy boosts. For example, Google is expanding its Scam Detection AI tool in the Google Messages app to flag more types of digital fraud, and there's a new Advanced Protection mode in Android 16 that offers extra security for at-risk users.
