Another week, another entry into our weekly Rewind, hi-fi and home cinema news digest. In it our team once again details the top stories to break over the past seven days that you need to know about.
It was another incredibly busy one as, not only did Amazon run an atypically early Spring Deal Days sale event, a number of big name companies including TCL and Hisense launched a wave of new products.
TCL launched new TVs
After giving us an early taste of TCL’s next-generation TV plans at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, the Chinese giant lifted the lid on yet more new sets last week.
The list of new TVs is headlined by the new C8K in most regions. This is the successor to the C855K we reviewed and gave four-stars to earlier this year.
The set has big aspirations, including securing the fifth star from our reviewers that eluded its predecessor. To help with this endeavour, it comes with a wealth of technical upgrades.
Highlights include a quite frankly ludicrous increase in the TV’s peak brightness, as well as advancements to its backlight control mechanisms designed to reduce blooming and improve contrast – two key areas the TCL 855K occasionally struggled with.
Read the full story: TCL's new Mini LED TV range comes with huge brightness gains, reduced blooming and souped-up sound
Hisense also launched new TVs
Never willing to let arch-rival TCL have its moment, Hisense chose to unveil its new line of Mini LEDs a mere day later.
The tech giant unveiled a wealth of new sets including the U6QF, U7QG, U8QG and U9QG. The big news is that all of them will feature Mini LED tech and most will have 100-inch size options.
This is an ongoing trend in the TV market, with many firms flagging “big” TVs as the main focus for the year. Samsung similarly highlighted giant TVs as 2025’s “big opportunity” in its last quarterly earnings call with investors.
Outside of this, like TCL's latest models, the new sets feature upgraded hardware designed to improve their local dimming powers, contrast and peak brightness levels.
Read the full story: Hisense's 2025 Mini LED TVs have impressive specs and super-sized screens
We asked hi-fi engineers what they think makes a music streamer great
In our latest Ask The Industry column, our managing editor, Becky Roberts, interviewed some of the biggest names in hi-fi to get a steer on what they think makes a music streamer sound great.
These included experts from Audiolab, Cambridge Audio, Chord Electronics, Cyrus, dCS, Fell Audio, WiiM, Lenbrook (NAD, Bluesound) and Harman International.
In a rare moment of industry unity, all shared their belief that solid hardware alone isn’t enough.
Specifically, they told us that, while a streamer does need a decent chipset to perform, it’s what the engineers do with the tech that makes the biggest difference.
Read the full story: We asked hi-fi engineers what makes a music streamer sound great – and it's about much more than just chipsets
We finished reviewing JBL’s retro-looking stereo amp
Last week we finished testing the JBL SA550 Classic. This is a sleek, retro-looking unit that is unashamedly inspired by some of the audio firm’s iconic ’60s stereo amplifiers.
Despite its retro-inspiration, the Classic offers a wealth of modern features, including a high-res ESS ES9038K2M DAC chip and Bluetooth wireless connectivity for those that want it. The only oddities are the absence of a USB input and its use of efficiency-focused class G amplification.
These small points aside, when paired with our reference ATC SCM50 standmounters, the amp generally impressed, delivering a smooth, rich sound with good levels of detail throughout our testing.
Read our full JBL SA550 Classic review
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