Vital stats Sonos Beam 2

BEAM ME UP, SQUATTY

Sonos Beam 2

R10 000 / sonos.com

The grille is polycarbonate for enhanced audio and easier cleaning than fabric.

If you’re still searching for immersive TV sound from a compact source, Sonos is back to raise the bar…

● Dancing off the ceiling We were a bit bowled over by the original Beam back in 2018. Small, smart and surprisingly affordable, the cinematic soundbar slipped into our living rooms and grabbed Gadget of the Year honours. Now its successor is here to shame your TV’s tinny tweeters all over again… with added Dolby Atmos.

● Another grille, another planet Put the Sonos Beam 2 alongside its predecessor and you’ll struggle to spot the difference. It’s still a rounded-off rectangle, albeit with a slightly tweaked grille, and it still packs four full-range drivers, a central tweeter, three passive radiators and five Class D amps. What’s changed is the way these are controlled. The processing now coordinates playback across five arrays instead of three, the extra two being dedicated to surround and height information for that tingly Atmos separation.

● Bring on the dancing sources Towering sound is a fine way to immerse yourself in cinema, but you’ll need the right feed to make the most of it. Helpfully, next-gen HDMI eARC means the new Beam supports higher-quality audio from your TV. You’ll have to wait before diving into those party bangers, though: Sonos says support for Dolby Atmos Music is coming later this year. It’s also planning to get on with Amazon Music’s lossless Ultra HD format.

● My smarts will go on Aside from the whole Atmos thing, the Beam 2 has all the smarts that made the first edition such a winner, including far-field mics with echo-cancellation for reliable voice control, Trueplay tech for acoustic room-tuning, and plenty of tinkering options in the app.

IT PACKS THE SAME DRIVERS, BUT WITH NEW PROCESSING FOR TINGLY DOLBY ATMOS SEPARATION

AFFORDABLE ATMOSBARS

● LG SL9YG

Virtual surround sound might trick your ears, but it takes bass for full-body immersion. LG’s wall-mountable bar ships with a separate sub for extra wireless whump-whump. R12 000 / bhphotovideo.com

● JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam

JBL’s MultiBeam simulates the Atmos effect with a standard five-driver setup. Automatic calibration takes care of the tinkering, tuning its output to suit your room. R7 000 / brandhubb.co.za

● Sony HT-X8500

Unless you’re a sonic superhero, you can’t hear with your peepers. Luckily, Sony’s slim but punchy oblong with Vertical Surround Engine is easy on both the ears and the eyes. R4 000 / incredible.co.za Work is looking bright ASUS ZENBOOK 13 OLED

Asus tends to just update existing laptop models. The chassis stays more or less the same. But, as with people, it’s what is on the inside that counts. And inside this innocuous looking slab of computer is an absolutely gorgeous FHD OLED panel. Work stops being a chore when your eyeballs are being caressed by inky blacks and vibrant colours. Even Excel spreadsheets have extra life breathed into them. The other spec starts from Intel’s Core i5 1035G4 processor, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of M.2 NVMe solid-state storage, with USB-A and USB-C support crammed into a 1.14kg frame. The only sluggardly bit may be the battery – you’ll get a ‘mere’ 5.5 hours away from the wall. from R15 000 / asus.com/za

No more rat race RØDE NT-USB MINI

The fact that Rode’s NT-USB Mini microphone can also be read as the Rodent-USB Mini is a subject of some confusion at Stuff. They have to know there’s a mouse joke in the name, right? But what relationship do small mammals have to a well-built but compact 360-degree cardioid condenser microphone designed to act as a portable studio? Mice don’t have a bit-depth of 24-bits, a 3.5mm connection and USB-C output, nor do they have a 48kHz sample rate or a 20Hz to 20kHz frequency range. You can’t mount a rat on a microphone boom, use it to stream audio, and absolutely no rodent has a built-in pop filter. So while we can see the joke, we don’t understand the joke. It’s a good microphone, though. R3 000 / bothners.co.za