CES 2019 ROUND-UP
We travelled to Las Vegas for CES 2019 and here are some of the highlights
What Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage is to musicians, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is to technology brands: an annual world stage on which to capture the attention of millions. And once again, the likes of LG, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony didn’t waste the opportunity to make themselves heard.
True to form, CES 2019, which was held in Las Vegas from Tuesday 8th to Friday 11th January, was an official heads-up and launchpad for a plethora of exciting upcoming products. Some of those goods will end up gracing the shelves of electronics retailers the world over in the coming months while others will likely be pie-in-the-sky concepts for years before they’re fully realised.
What Hi-fi? was out in force, reporting on the latest and greatest from the consumer electronics world. Here’s everything you need to know…
THE BEST TVS OF CES 2019
Even the presence of flying taxis, home beer brewers and a $7000 Alexa toilet couldn’t stop TV manufacturers from being heard at CES this year.
With OLED apparently close to its technical limits and QLED being constrained somewhat by its reliance on a backlight, there was a real sense this year of brands hunting for the next big thing in domestic visuals.
Samsung is heavily pushing Micro LED as the thing to watch (literally) in the current evolution of TV tech; LG’S stretching the limits of OLED with more imaginative designs; Sony has added 8K to its Master Series, and Panasonic is building Dolby Atmos into its 2019 flagship.
TV TITANS OF CES 2019 LG OLED65R9: a rollable OLED
While LG’S miraculous ‘Wallpaper’ OLED maintains its place in LG’S 2019 range, it now looks just a little bit ordinary next to the new OLED R. ‘R’ here stands for ‘rollable’, and refers to the fact that the panel can be retracted and rolled up within its large, 100W Dolby-atmosspeaker-toting stand.
The long-rumoured fancy flatscreen rolled into Vegas town at CES, and having seen the TV in the flesh we’re
impressed not just with the design, but also the picture quality, which it shares with the rest of LG’S 2019 OLED range.
Of course, the big question mark hanging over the R is price. But if you really want the wow factor that the rollable TV brings, perhaps the price won’t even matter.
Samsung 75in Micro LED TV: the future of telly?
Samsung didn’t even mention its 2019 4K QLED TVS publicly at CES, but we were treated to a behind-closed-doors look at the flagship model that will replace the excellent Q9FN – and left very impressed with its better viewing angles, even better backlight, and even greater punch and vibrancy. It looks decidedly Oled-like in its performance, but brighter and more vivid.
Out in the open, Samsung was all about showing off its existing Q900R 8K range and its headway with Micro LED technology, which allegedly combines the perfect blacks and pinpoint contrast control of OLED with greater brightness, longevity and efficiency. The forthcoming as-yet-unnamed Micro LED set will be sold in a single, 75in size.
Panasonic GZ2000: AV reverie
Compared with the first two entries in this list, the Panasonic GZ2000 OLED probably appears a little bit ordinary. But it is a fully realised telly that normal people will be able to buy this year, rather than a concept.
The GZ2000 is far from run-of-the-mill when it comes to both picture and sound performance, however. With a couple of neat tricks up its sleeve – a new processor that provides a markedly improved picture over its predecessors, and a clever Dolby Atmos implementation that sounded extremely impressive in our demo – this is definitely one to look out for this year. It’s also the first TV to support rival formats HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, which we hope will encourage other TV brands to follow suit.
Sony ZG9: the Master Series goes 8K
Sony’s 2018 Master Series TVS may have been available for only five minutes (okay, months), but they already have successors – and an 8K sibling.
There’s still a 4K OLED model, the AG9, if that’s your preference, but to get 8K you need to go for the ZG9, which is available in 88in and 95in versions and boasts a direct LED backlight and new upscaling engine which promises to ensure all your 4K-and-worse content also looks great. TVS: the best of the rest
LG may have stolen the headlines with its rollable spectacle, but it also had plenty else to shout about: an 88in Z9 8K OLED TV (the company’s largest consumerready OLED TV yet), a new 75in 8K LCD TV and, of course, its new-and-improved 4K OLED line-up. This, by and large, conforms to the brand’s typical order, with the W9, E9, C9 and B9 series (the usual middle-sitting G series TV appears to have been ditched, though).
Elsewhere, the X10 marks two firsts for TCL: the brand’s first globally launched Quantum Dot TV, and its first 8K model. Powered by Android TV, the 75in X10 features Wide Colour Gamut and Dolby Vision support, as well as Dolby Atmos courtesy of a built-in Onkyo soundbar. And if TCL stays true to its affordable pricing, it will probably be among one of the cheaper 8K TVS available this year.
If you can’t impress with an 8K resolution, then you can by wheeling out the lasers. Hisense – which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year – announced its latest ‘Laser’ TV, which isn’t your average TV, but instead a laser projection system beaming to an anti-reflective optical screen.
Like its predecessors, the 4K Trichroma Laser TV (100L7T) uses red and blue laser light sources to produce the spectrum of colours, but it also adds a third (green) laser for wider, more accurate colour reproduction. And it boasts a 100W Harman Kardon speaker system.
“LG’S ‘Wallpaper’ OLED now looks a bit ordinary next to the new OLED R. ‘R’ stands for ‘rollable’, and refers to the fact that the panel can be retracted and rolled up”
THE BEST OF EVERYTHING ELSE AT CES 2019
TVS may consistently be the headlinestealers at CES, but that doesn’t stop many audio brands competing to show off their latest and greatest innovations.
Turntables
At any other show, at any other time, the news of Technics announcing new wireless noise-cancelling headphones and a hi-fi turntable would have been the talk of the audio town; but not when it’s followed by news that it’s also reviving another classic DJ deck (its first in nine years!). At CES, Technics revealed that the famous SL-1200/SL-1210 turntable is back. And with cult status written all over it (not literally) and an accessible price of £899, it has got a lot of people very excited indeed.
Joining Technics’ decks (and our heads) in spinning at CES was Cambridge Audio’s Alva TT turntable, which is due in April for £1500, and has a ‘world’s first’ attached to it. Designed and built in-house, the direct-drive deck is by no means the first to offer Bluetooth for streaming vinyl to headphones or speakers, but it is the first to support the aptx HD Bluetooth codec, which allows for streaming up to 24-bit/48khz wirelessly to compatible devices.
The turntable pandemic was also encouraged by Audio Technica, who announced seven attractive new budget turntables, as well as Sony with its new entry-level Bluetooth PS-LX310BT deck. On a lighter note, Crosley announced a mini-turntable that plays 3in discs, to be launched for Record Store Day in April.
Dolby is riding a wave
Sony was typically prolific at CES, launching everything from a vibrating speaker that resembles a candle to budget AV kit. Naturally, it was the latter that caught our attention.
The budget HT-X8500 is a 2.1-channel soundbar that can deliver Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks through a ‘virtual’ 7.1.2-channel surround sound thanks to Sony’s ‘Vertical Surround Engine’ technology. The upcoming X800M2 4K Blu-ray player, meanwhile, supports Ultra Blu-ray discs with HDR10 and/or Dolby Vision formats, SACD and DVD-A discs, and DSD11.2MHZ music files. Both will arrive this year with £350 price tags.
Dolby had another positive CES, with support for its Atmos and Vision HDR technologies only on the rise in TVS, PCS and other AV hardware. What will be interesting is whether Dolby Vision will remain as prevalent when its longawaited rival HDR10+ finally appears this year. We look forward to comparing the two technologies and seeing how this latest format war plays out. Until one (or both) prevails, all we can hope is that hardware manufacturers will play nicely with both.
As the first TV brand to announce support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision in a TV set, Panasonic has sealed its approach to HDR by also supporting both dynamic metadata formats in its new flagship UB450 4K Blu-ray player.
What Hi-fi?’s Stars of CES
For our ‘Stars of CES’ this year (the products that wowed us at The Venetian, the home of high-end audio at CES) we have chosen 10 products.
In addition to Technics’ turntable, we eyed all-new top-of-the-line amplifiers from Classé Audio and TEAC, as well as several diverse pairs of speakers from the likes of PSB, Goldenear
Technology, Kanto and Audioengine. Perhaps our favourite product was
ELAC’S all-new Navis powered speakers, the Navis ARB-51 standmount (£1795) and Navis ARF-51 floorstander (£3595). A new midrange/tweeter design sees a 25mm soft-dome tweeter concentrically mounted in the middle of a 10cm aluminium midrange driver. Also new is the 13.5cm aluminium bass driver that sits below it. Each speaker houses tri-amp amplification, with a 160W amp for the bass woofer, 100W amp for the midrange and a 40W Class AB amp for the tweeter.
Then there was NAD’S brand-new just-add-speakers audio system, the latest product to feature the BLUOS multi-room streaming platform developed by NAD’S partner brand
Bluesound. The Masters M10 (£2199) – an answer to Naim’s five-star Uniti Atom – supports hi-res audio, multiple streaming services and MQA, and features several analogue and digital connections (including HDMI EARC) and Dirac Live Full Room Correction. Apple Airplay 2 is also imminent. We look forward to hearing just how masterful it is when it ships next month. How could we ignore Nagra’s update to one of the best and most desirable DACS we’ve ever heard (the Nagra HD DAC)? The $65,000 HD DAC X has every chance of toppling its predecessor’s achievement, claiming improved dual-mono topology, a noise level 30 times lower, and a newly designed vibration-free stand. If you ask us, it sounded simply fantastic.
“Dolby had another positive CES, with support for its Atmos and Vision HDR technologies only on the rise in TVS, PCS and other AV hardware