Accessories

While 4K/Ultra HD televisions have been around for years now, native 4K sources are still relatively scarce. Especially if you can’t afford an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, the new Sky Q Silver box and subscription UHD service, and/or Netflix and Amazon 4K streaming. 

Prime Music is a free part of Amazon's Prime service bundle, which includes on-demand access to a wealth of TV programming and movies (including 4K content), plus free next-day delivery on millions of Amazon purchases, cloud photo storage and a few other treats. A Prime sub is £79 a year, or less than £7 a month. It's very good value, but if you sign up, is Prime Music strong enough to have you cancelling your existing Spotify, Tidal or Apple Music sub?

It looks like a piece of military hardware produced by Stark Industries, but what we have here is actually the X7 'soundcard' from the pioneer of that particular genre, Creative Labs. In the past, Creative's Sound Blasters used to sit inside a PC. They endowed games with a sonic accompaniment, enabled you to play music on your computer and even gave your machine 'straight-to-hard-drive' digital audio recording. Trust me, in the early '90s this stuff was revolutionary.

I'm partial to the concept of a dedicated internet radio. These days the trend is towards using your Smart device to store/stream music in conjunction with a Bluetooth speaker, but taking your phone/tablet out of the equation can sometimes be liberating. However, the £220 Encore, from new-to-the-UK American brand Grace Digital, suffers from such a painfully overwrought control experience from its top-panel buttons and supplied handset that you'll be downloading the free app for your smartphone as soon as you can. 

The appeal of a soundbar is obvious, but here we have something a little different – the Somle Silent White, a substantially built and easily-assembled TV stand with fixed-height (150mm) glass equipment-shelf and a integrated soundbase thrown in.

These days anyone can cast music like a graduate of Hogwarts. With wireless and multiroom hi-fi du jour, a simple swipe can throw an entire discography to multiple rooms. It’s enough to make spinning a humble CD seem positively prehistoric.  

Dune HD's Base 3D shows how media player manufacturers are rising to the challenge of Smart TVs, tablets and the latest Blu-ray players. Although not ridiculously expensive, the Base 3D is easy to install (it even checks for new firmware when connected) and offers plenty of features that you won't find on non-specialist gear. It's very much a media player for the serious AV enthusiast.