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With the recent explosion of smart speakers, it can be tough to figure out which one’s right for you. So, we’ve decided to test them all - starting with the Google Home.

Once you’ve experienced Dolby Atmos, it’s really hard to go back to anything else. Like flying first class on a business trip, then coach on vacation. Fortunately, getting the right speakers for Atmos isn’t difficult, and is actually quite affordable.

Docking speakers have been around for nearly two decades now, having grown as a separate, symbiotic A/V branch out of the big Apple tree - almost instantaneously since the iPod’s birthday.

Let’s take a look at the HIFIMAN HE400S headphones. Really solid pair of cans, these. They also contain a little piece of marketing information that is complete and utter nonsense.

It can often be a challenge to go for an audio company that prizes rigorous engineering over marketing flair. Judging by their website and their staid, sober presence on social media, you might be forgiven for bypassing iFi Audio. Don't.

If you’re going to call a floorstanding speaker the Ultra, then you’d better have a set of brass balls backing up that particular claim. Then again, the Ultra Towers are easily among the best floorstanding speakers out there.

When they’re not producing the world’s best headphones, French audio wizards Focal spend their time producing some rather good speaker systems. We recently spent a month with one of these, the Focal Sib Evo 5.1.2.

Although perhaps better known as creators of superlative televisions, VIZIO also have a nice line in audio gear. While they’ve yet to plunge headlong into full, surround home theater, the Californian company certainly knows what it’s doing.

Bryston are the last people we expected to see in the wireless speaker space. The venerable Canadian company is better known for producing incredible amplifiers, all done with a kind of nerdy, functional charm.

An amp should be the center of your hi-fi world. It should be the focus point for all your efforts, the piece of equipment that can make or break your sound. Everything flows into it, and everything flows out of it...

It doesn't matter how large your TV screen is. If you don't have great sound, then you're only getting half the experience.

Floorstanding speakers have one of the most recognizable profiles of all speaker types. They're designed to slot in next to bookcases and TV cabinets, and their shape has two major advantages...

You wouldn't expect headphones to need any special equipment to work. They are just about as simple as audio equipment gets.

It doesn’t matter what genre of games you sacrifice your Saturdays to, from action-RPG to FPS, good audio makes any gaming experience better.