If you placed a pre-order and before it arrives on your porch, Amazon is previewing its latest, most ambitious smart speaker to date with the Echo Studio in the Big Apple. New Yorkers can experience the incredible audio fidelity of the speaker before everyone else at the Echo Studio installation at Dolby SoHo, located at 477 Broadway in the heart of the SoHo district.
We got the chance to check out the space, which is open to the public from November 1 to November 17. Guests that drop in can browse the space from Wednesday to Sunday during that time frame, from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Audiophiles will absolutely fall in love with the space, seeing that there are multiple rooms that showcase the Echo Studio. There’s even a spot that replicates the at-home experience, where you can sit on the couch and listen to the speaker in action — both playing music and also being leveraged for surround sound using two units.
Even though the Echo Studio is the one being showcased in full form at the space, it’s actually the speaker’s support of Dolby Atmos that really got our attention. When we first arrived at the space, we were taken to a mixing studio where we listened to some popular music tracks to hear how Dolby Atmos adds a totally dynamic experience with its spatial tuning versus your typical stereo sound. Replicating the sound performance from a professional mixing studio may seem daunting, but you’ll be surprised by how the Amazon Echo Studio handles. In fact, it may even be a solid replacement for some soundbars and in-home entertainment systems.
Stop by the space if you’re in the area and want a firsthand look at the new speaker, but for everyone else, they’ll have to wait until the Echo Studio is released on November 7. Given its $200 cost, it should make for some interesting competition this upcoming holiday season — more so when rival speakers like the Apple HomePod and Google Home Max are priced significantly higher. The smart speaker war is heating up already, so this is a wonderful opportunity for you to check out the Echo Studio in action.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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