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30-second review Antennas Direct now owns rival OTA antenna retailer Mohu, but that hasn’t stopped the company from putting out some strong HD indoor antennas of its own. For example, you need look no further than the new Antennas Direct Clearstream Flex. Offering up a 50-mile radius of coverage and powered by an in-line power injector, the Flex is able to deliver much of your area’s local channels in clear HD without much of a struggle. For first-time HD antenna owners, Antennas Direct encourages you to download the free Antenna Point app that shows you where cable stations are geographically, and can then help you point your antenna in the right direction for the best possible signal. There are a few sticking points that we don’t love about the antenna including its window-filling size and potential to pull in fewer channels than other stronger models - but overall these are minor points that don’t mar the performance of this above-par antenna. Design Like the Mohu Leaf Supre...

The LG C2 OLED has big shoes to fill. Its predecessor, the LG C1 OLED, topped many tech reviewers’ lists of the best TVs of last year (including ours).  To improve on last year’s excellent model, however, LG has equipped the new C2 with its OLED Evo technology, a combination of new panels and LG’s high-end Alpha a9 processor. The results, as we can attest to after a recent demonstration at LG’s North American headquarters, are a brighter OLED TV (approximately 20% brighter than before) and better upscaling thanks to the aforementioned a9 processor. We’ll get better audio upscaling - up to 7.1.2 virtual surround sound - and a brand-new 42-inch size, too. One feature we had never heard about, though, is room-to-room share that will allow you to share a video stream from one LG OLED in your house to another. That means you can use the LG OLED in your bedroom to grab the football game in your living room - so long as it’s running on a new 2022 LG OLED TV. There are some caveats th...

Amazon’s audio business has been on a roll this last year. First there was the new-and-improved Amazon Echo that took sound quality to a whole new level, and now there’s the Amazon Echo Buds (2nd Gen) that could do the same for the company’s flagship noise cancelling true wireless earbuds . To make those improvements Amazon made the new Amazon Echo Buds 2’s case even smaller (by around 40%), and has taken a serious look at both its noise-cancelling technology and overall audio performance. The result is true wireless earbuds that cancel even more ambient noise than before and sound better, too – plus they’re easier to carry around.  There are a few other minor changes here – like the adoption of wireless charging via any wireless charging pad and vents to reduce pressure built up in the ear – as well as some changes to the setup process that will help you find the perfect fit with the included ear tips. There are some weaknesses here compared to the best true wireless earbuds ...

30-second review Like the standard Sennheiser HD 600 and the more recent Sennheiser HD 650 , the Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones aim to offer a taste of the audiophile life at a price most folks can afford – and they absolutely deliver. Despite being difficult to drive with 300 ohms of impedance, the sound of the HD 6XX feels nuanced and well-balanced. There’s no over-abundance of bass, but rather what’s there feels tight and restrained. Similarly, while the soundstage could have been a bit wider, what the open-back HD 6XX offers is significantly clearer and broader than 99% of the closed-back headphones out there.  The result is a pair of headphones that truly feel fit for the entry-level audiophile looking to take their first steps into the wider world of critical listening. They’re certainly not the be-all, end-all of audio reproduction – but at this price, they’re a great place to start. Price and release date  The Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones are...

One-minute review The Bose QuietComfort 45 are a rock-solid pair of noise-cancelling headphones. They’re easy-to-use and feel incredibly comfortable to wear for long periods of time. Those are traits that Bose has always been known for and they continue to live on here. Of course, the QC45 aren’t without a few new tricks. Among them are an Ambient Aware mode that allows you to hear sounds around you at the press of a button as well as upgraded noise cancellation tech that’s more responsive than before.  On top of that you’ve got a good-but-not-great battery life of 25 hours and a beam-forming microphone array that is, well, not quite as good as we had hoped. Neither of these are deal-breakers, but they do make the Bose QuietComfort 45 slightly less appealing than some of its competitors.  In fact, the Bose QuietComfort 45’s biggest issues aren’t anything that they do wrong - there are minor issues, but nothing absolutely awful - and instead they have everything to do with...

One-minute review Released toward the back end of 2021, the Sony Bravia X95J is one of the flagship TVs from the Japanese electronics manufacturer that promises some of the highest peak brightness and most comprehensive feature set of the entire 2021 lineup. And it delivers just that.  Thanks to X-Anti-Glare and higher peak brightness, it eliminates many of the minor issues we had with its slightly more affordable sibling, the Sony X90J , while retaining almost all of what made it such a great TV in the first place.  Compared to what Samsung and Sony made last year, it competes favorably with the Samsung QN90A that we reviewed, and outside of a few issues, we’d say the Sony X95J is the superior upper-mid-range model.  LG might still have an edge against Sony at this price point with its LG C1 OLED , but if you’re after an ultra-bright TV that can sit in the middle of a well-lit living room, the Sony X95J is one of the best we’ve seen. Price and release date Part ...

30-second review Indoor TV antennas are the cable industry’s best-kept secret. Most folks simply don’t know that they can get local channels over the air the same way they did two decades ago. What’s changed, however, is the technology we use to pull in those channels - and, ultimately, how effective these new tools are at their jobs. The Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Amplified Indoor TV Antenna is, in many respects, very good at this job. Its 15db amplifier helps pull in a dozen or more channels that load up fast and don’t have many noticeable artifacts or much pixelation. Its wide design, although a bit unwieldy and not the most eye-catching, is effective and it's simple to set up, too. Like most good tools, though, the Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro does cost more than the average HD antenna that should only set you back between $20 and $30, and may not always offer a significantly improved experience for those of us who already live close to broadcasting stations. Overall, however, folks ...

Xbox Series S two-minute review The Xbox Series S is a next-gen console that takes a radically different approach to the flagship model of the Xbox Series X . It's designed to offer the same generational leap as Microsoft's more powerful system, such as high frame rates, ray tracing, and super-fast load times, but at a considerably lower price – and inevitably, this means it comes with a few notable compromises.   Despite being a digital-only console, the Xbox Series S has significantly less storage than the Xbox Series X and primarily targets a resolution of 1440p instead of 4K for gaming. It will upscale to 4K when connected to an ultra HD display, and a handful of titles are capable of running at a native 4K resolution such as Ori and the Will of the Wisps, but the console is primarily designed to run games at a lower resolution first and foremost. Microsoft's more affordable Xbox also does away with the 4K HD Blu-Ray drive of the Xbox Series X, which means it's ...